The efficiency of the inserting process with regard to finer zoning

For some years a trend towards finer zoning could be seen in our industry, initiated by advertisers who want to have their material to be targeted more precisely. This goes in conjunction with moves on the environmental protection scene to avoid the waste of paper and to protect the readers from getting their letter boxes filled by junk mail material. Finer zoning means inserting individually under controlled conditions in sharp zoned sequences and smaller bundles down to single copies. In discussing this marketing task in our Mailroom & Distribution Committee (MDC) the question arose whether our present inserting equipment is capable of doing such a job. Together with NATS, the Nordic Cooperative for Newspaper Technology, we commissioned the Technical Research Centre of Finland, VTT, with a research project on this topic. The main outcome teaches us, that precision zoning is already possible with some installations, even down to one copy per bundle, but one bundle each can only contain identically inserted copies. Only few tests could be run and few results presented, because of the small number of relevant installations in existence. Much development work has still to be done and exacting requirements are made on the reliability of the whole mailroom process and on the quality of the inserts and the main jackets, as well as the databank control system. We hope that this report will serve our members in their planning to extend the mailroom equipment for future needs