MCS, Inc. announced its Intelligent Card Attacher/Printer System (ICAPS). Suited for plastic card applications such as gift card production and mailing, the ICAPS has the ability to personalize plastic cards with inkjet printing and encode magnetic stripe information on-the-fly at production speeds of up to 15,000 per hour.

The MCS ICAPS system is the result of a development effort from Pitney Bowes, 509 Technologies, and MCS. These companies have integrated a product that replaces slow production methods involving multi-step processes and multiple vendors.

Incorporating the flexibility required for production mailing companies, the ICAPS allows a variety of applications in one standard product. These applications include:

• Reading an optical code on a carrier piece and magnetically encoding and inkjet printing on a plastic card 
• Personalizing with inkjet printing a plastic card and its carrier. The personalization can be a name, dollar amount, offer code, etc. 
• Reading the magnetic information on a plastic card and printing personalized information on the card 
• The system offers production speed inkjet, camera technology, and mag- stripe technology

Many retailers have already realized that gift cards are the promotional currency of the future. An increasing number, however, are pushing the promotional envelope and utilizing gift cards to replace coupons. This is a logical step because gift cards have a much higher redemption rate and a well-established perceived value.

Progressive marketers are now starting to utilize the high perceived value of gift cards to use them as a promotional vehicle with direct mailings. The MCS ICAPS production system now allows mailers to drive down the production cost of these cards and increase speed.