New Colter & Peterson P7 Sheet Counter adds up for Imagine Print Solution’s Kitting & Fulfillment needs

Colter & Peterson (booth 3625) will demonstrate the Function Control P7 optical sheet counter at Graph Expo in Chicago, which opens this Sunday and runs through September 16. Featuring the latest technology, the P7 makes it possible for offset printers to accurately count a complete stack of paper without ever touching it.

Count Rick Neumann at Imagine Print Solutions www.imagineps.com in Shakopee, Minnesota as the first believer in the U.S. He had the P7 installed at the suburban Minneapolis facility in May to get a better handle and more accurate solution for his company’s Kitting & Fulfillment operation. Imagine provides mostly large amounts of signage to a nationwide and Canadian store customer base. Ranging from department and big box retailers to clothing, grocery and specialty providers, they typically fulfill 10,000 kits per day.

“The P7 is meeting our expectations while saving us time and avoiding shortages with our store counts. We used to go through a 3-5 step process to verify quantities. This machine narrows down the chances of us having errors in our auditing process,” said Neumann, Senior Vice President of Manufacturing at Imagine Print Solutions, which handles a variety of commercial, packaging and Point-of-Purchase printing.

C&P, North America’s foremost authority of paper cutters and paper handling equipment, is the U.S. distributor for Function Control, a leading European company. With an upright design that takes advantage of small spaces, the P7 has door panels that can open on multiple sides and a touchscreen panel that can be fitted on three sides of the machine in different working heights. Overall, space isn’t much of a concern at Imagine; the Kitting and Fulfillment division has 100,000 square feet of dedicated space in a facility that totals 750,000 square feet.

“There are some height limitations depending on if you are kitting thinner or thicker stocks, but that’s manageable. We use it 30 to 40 times a day, and some days not so much, depending on the job,” said Neumann, whose oversees a 24/7 operation in Shakopee.

Available in two speed versions – standard or high speed – the P7 has an LED indicator that indicates when the stack is in the correct range. Once the counting phase is completed by simply pushing a button, printing a label or uploading data to an external database can be performed.

“We previously had difficulties staging our product and finalizing quantities for each of our lines and printing categories. The P7 is helping us confirm our numbers and we’ve reduced shortages at each level. It’s not a complex machine to operate and our crew needed very little training. Service wise, we had one minor issue but Colter & Peterson was quick to make an adjustment and we are very satisfied with it.”