Every year, Cox Target Media produces no less than 500 million of these direct mailings, containing around 20 billion vouchers.

In the USA, everyone knows the blue Valpak envelopes containing coupons for numerous discounts. They are popular among both young and old. Every year, Cox Target Media produces no less than 500 million of these direct mailings, containing around 20 billion vochers.

Cox Target Media’s ambitious goal is to expand to a capacity of around 54 billion vouchers per year. In order to reach this production volume, a staggering US$ 200 billion was invested in the Valpak Manufacturing Centre in St. Petersburg; a brand new, state of the art printing centre in the green countryside. Automation in all areas – from prepress, print and finishing through to distribution – has been brought up to a unique and previously unknown level. Result: every day, tonnes of paper are converted into sealed blue Valpak envelopes containing vouchers, without a single person ever having touched them.

MACOS: the Most Modern Control Technology from Muller Martini
For this purpose, two Goss Sunday 4000 web offset printing machines started production in the Valpak Manufacturing Centre. In press delivery, they rely on the most modern delivery systems from Muller Martini. They process up to twelve different products per run of around 10, 000 copies. For this, both printing machines are connected with a FloorVeyor transport system. The transporters neatly bring the products to the (in total) 12 double rewinding stations. In finishing, 36 PrintRoll P-220 double unwinding stations are in operation. The complete operation – which is fully digitalized and integrated in Daifuku American Corp.’s fully automated rack handling – forms a virtual buffer system.

The press delivery systems are controlled by the JDF and JMF compliant Master Control System (MACOS) from Muller Martini in adherence with CIP4 protocol. MACOS allows all twelve products which are being processed to be controlled and retraced from one central point. As a first in the industry, MACOS can connect to the printing machine via JMF in order to start the next job with the automatic transfer function. Furthermore, this unique system can also connect to the Cox Target Media planning system, so that the job data and further parameters can be used for future jobs.

“The new Valpak production centre will set new standards for efficiency and productivity in the high-tech sector,” assures Werner Naegeli, president and CEO of Muller Martini USA. “We at Muller Martini are proud that we could contribute to this groundbreaking project and play a defining role in implementing the first fully automatic JDF and JMF compatible printing and finishing system.”