The Bureau : (Grand)Mother of Diversity

One of the keys to solving that 'impossible job,' according to 
Stuart, is a lack of the traditional obstacles that can muddle the process. "There aren't the typical layers you see in a manufacturing process to slow things down," he says. "Once that ball starts rolling, there's nothing to stand in the way of us moving mountains to get a customer's job out the door."

The newest member of the mountain movers is The Bureau's sparkling new Roland 900 XXL, which complements a six-color, 64˝ KBA Rapida 162 press with coater in the large-format division (an eight-color Komori Lithrone with coater handles the shop's 40˝ work). The Bureau's board studied the prospect of adding another large-format press and, despite the less-than-ideal 
economic climate, felt the increased capacity and larger format would enable the company to hit the optimum size for in-store signage.

"In the retail space, 48˝ is the magic number," Stuart notes. "Almost every sign we do is somewhere in that neighborhood. The Roland 900 XXL's 51˝ throat and 73˝ side gave us far more sheet to work with to print signs multiple-up."

Alexander adds that the press enabled The Bureau to become the first Twin Cities printer to have in-line color control for that format size. She also claims the 900 XXL is the first of its kind in Minneapolis-St. Paul. In the end, press speeds, faster makereadies and high quality—the desired press hallmarks—made Alexander a big fan of the 900 XXL.

Other gear included in the $7 million project were a Kodak Magnus platesetter and a Young Shin diecutter. Additional investments are still being explored, according to both Alexander and Stuart.

Large-format printing is not the only growth area for The Bureau. It is focusing a lot of attention on its marketing and digital services—campaign analytics, database management, marketing automation, personalized URLs (PURLs), Quick Response (QR) codes, tiny URL services, variable data printing on two Kodak NexPress S3000 digital presses and more. Bringing more measurement tools to clients for their marketing endeavors allows The Bureau to paint an accurate end-user portrait.