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More than 50 years ago, Joe Bartash started Bartash Printing, the largest coldset web printing company in Philadelphia, to print his weekly newspaper, The Southwest Globe-Times. In 1962, Bartash’s son-in-law, Sidney Simon, joined the print shop, and during the next 40 years, Simon and his son Michael transformed the company from a single-press operation to a five-press operation in a 100,000-sq-ft facility.

Bartash now has about 300 employees. Publishing Executive Magazine ranked Bartash Printing one of the top 20 magazine printers in the United States. A manufacturer of magazines, newspapers and niche publications, the company has full prepress, postpress, imaging and mailing capabilities. Bartash specializes in newspaper and magazine manufacturing, one- to full-color printing, fulfillment and distribution, variable data imaging, detached address labels and cards, inserts and FSIs, production consulting and Internet publishing. And the company operates 24/7 with live technical support.

Expanding Services

Bartash Printing recently added full circulation services to its growing postpress capabilities, including CWC QuickFill software solutions. The company selected CWC QuickFill to help its publishing clients better manage mail lists and subscription deletions and renewals.

Tom Meyer, director of production, pointed out, “We print more than 250 periodicals, and mail more than 10 million pieces per month. Postage costs and circulation management are two of the biggest challenges that our clients face. We have a U.S. Postal facility on-site, and we’re constantly looking for additional ways to reduce those costs further and streamline the circulation management process. This is just another example of how we help our clients grow. We selected CWC’s QuickFill software because it is the best fit for our clients’ needs.”

Bartash prints small periodicals and newspapers including The Catholic Advocate, Suffolk Parent, HillRag, The Journal of Antiques and Collectibles and The Bernards-Ridge Connection. Bartash Printing also prints advertising inserts for publications.

Deborah Anderson, Bartash’s circulation specialist added, “Subscription and circulation management is a critical service for many of our clients. This increases our value as an adjunct part of their production workflow. The QuickFill System is ideal for tracking and documenting circulation, maintaining customer’s subscriber lists and automating the subscription renewal process. The efficiency and cost savings of the system are tremendous, improving speed, accuracy and managing costs which are all essential benefits.”

“Offering more postpress capabilities for our clients gives them greater flexibility to manage their business, attract advertisers, and expand their subscription base,” stated Postpress Manager John Grimaldi. “In addition to the benefits of QuickFill circulation and subscription management, we’ve added polybagging and repositionable sticker application to our already formidable offerings. These are just some of the ways we’re using the latest technology to strengthen our relationship with existing customers while attracting new ones.”

Bartash Printing also enhanced its digital prepress department. The company upgraded its existing Kodak Prinergy Workflow System to improve prepress quality while handling the increasing need for automation. Douglas Wentworth, an industry veteran, was appointed Bartash’s new prepress manager. “The Prinergy software upgrade will enable us to take full advantage of features inherent in Adobe’s InDesign software. It gives us the right tools to meet our customers’ needs,” explained Wentworth. Formerly prepress systems engineer at RR Donnelley in Greeley, Colo., he has more than 23 years of prepress production experience in web offset printing, including experience in Kodak Prinergy, Creo direct-to-plate systems, and more than 10 years experience with InSite soft proofing.