The Wave Newsletter - Edition 8 - December 2022

Dennis P. LeStrange President & CEO, BlueCrest

Dear Team,

During our December 7th All-Employee Meeting, I shared our Q3 and Year-to-Date progress with you. For those of you who couldn’t attend, a recording is available on the BlueCrest Net.

As I write this communication, we are in the final stages of 2022 -- manufacturing, integrating, and installing those last few systems. And despite all the challenges, the entire company has rallied around the mission to generate what will be a very satisfying year with many accomplishments.

We secured a $42m Amazon ADTA order, our full year written business forecast is at 129% of plan, confirming the high market demand for our products and solutions. Our year over year comparisons reveal solid equipment and total revenue growth, and our EBITDA has increased proportionately. Fluence and WindowBook are fully integrated, service contribution continues to exceed expectations, and our growing pipeline along with the written business performance has cemented our position as the industry leader!

I’m confident that these accomplishments, combined with the hard work and commitment of everyone involved, will make next year even better.

Lastly, I would like to thank the many recipients of the Q3 ICARE awards for exemplifying the Key Behaviors that make up our BlueCrest culture. While our innovative technology and solutions are second to none, the real BlueCrest differentiator is all of you—our people!

Onward, Dennis P. LeStrange, President & CEO, BlueCrest

Events

Calendar of Activities

Customer Events

NAPM Annual Conference

Feb 14-16, St. Pete’s, FL

The National Association of Presort Mailers (NAPM) is a US trade group which represents major mailers and third-party presorted mailing firms. www.napm.memberclicks.net

Hunkeler Innovation Days

February 27 - March 2, Switzerland

Hunkeler Innovation Days brings together the world’s digital paper processing elite at the Lucerne/ Switzerland Exhibition Centre. www.innovationdays.com/en/

ProMat

March 20-23, 2023, Chicago

ProMat is the largest international material handling, logistics and supply chain show and conference.. www.promatshow.com

Internal Events

All-Employee Meetings

Dec 7, 2022, 9:00 AM E T*Recording Available

Feb 8, 2023, 9:00 AM ET

May TBD 2023 9:00 AM ET

Ask the Experts

Vote-by-Mail

Feb 10, 2022 12:00 PM ET

Topic TBD March 3, 2022 12:00 PM ET

KPI DASHBOARD through Nov 2022

BlueCrest Spotlights

BlueCrest Achieves Information Security Audit ISO 27001

by George King

BlueCrest has passed the audit process and achieved its ISO 27001 certification for information security management systems (ISMS). This certification puts a priority on data security and protection, including requirements for assessing and treating information. This is an outstanding achievement for our organization!

In the past, prospective clients would require us to complete a comprehensive questionnaire to assess our standards for data security and safety compliance. Now we can provide clients with the ISO 27001 certification, which contains all the criteria to confirm we adhere to industry best practices and standards for information security. This simplifies the process tremendously, making it easier for BlueCrest to attract new

Behind this certification was an enormous

comprehensive third-party audit meetings.

We would like to recognize and thank the members of this team, including Subs Neogi, George King and Joevan Grospe (BlueCrest IT), Chris Smith and Mel Norris (Legal and Compliance), Mimi Woods (HR), Jill Soderholm (Facilities) and Keelia Decker and Viral Trivedi (Atos).

To conclude, the ISO 27001 certification demonstrates our commitment to the highest level of internal compliance and data security, furthering our notable and trusted presence in the marketplace.

If you would like to explore more details about the process, visit our ISO 27001 Certification site.

Mopping up the Competition

by Ken Vaughn

The tale begins with one lonely Vantage at PBPS Levittown amongst a sea of competitive sorters (April). Fast-forward to today, you will find 14 Vantages and no competitive equipment on site! Now that is truly a floor Sweep (or is it a mopping?)

Like most big wins, it took the entire sorter team to pull this off. But one individual stands tall amongst the rest: Dan (the man) Flood. Having spent the better part of three months at the site, Dan then ventured to Danbury to help our Danbury team complete the build and integration, before returning to finalize the installation and put them into production.

All in the total sale was over $8M, $115K for incremental service and software support, $60k in professional services and a very happy client!

Thanks to Lori Swetlin for securing the order, Dan and Lynn for installation support and delivery of professional services from our Engineering team and certainly our own Joe Canapetti alongside our Manufacturing team.

Thanks Dan and the rest of the team for all your contributions and efforts!

What a win!

Biggest Sale in Company History

by Robert Stone

In October 2022, BlueCrest won its single largest order in company history—a $42M+ project with Amazon. We will deliver thirty-three (33) Automated Delivery-to-Aisle (ADTA) sorters to thirteen (13) Amazon Delivery Center Facilities in 2023. These parcel sorters will improve Amazon’s automation as they continue to strive to reduce delivery times of orders to their customers (delivering smiles to all of us). This is part of a network-wide plan, which is scheduled to continue through 2025.

While this was a herculean team effort across the board, special recognition goes to Tim Palmer (Sales) and Andrew Hall (Engineering Support) for all their help bringing this in.

This win is also driven by Amazon’s particular interest in BlueCrest’s past achievements, expanding capacity, and demonstrated capabilities to help them with their infrastructure growth challenges.

High-fives all around! Let’s see what we can do next!

End-of-Year Service Video Recap

Dan installing the last of the 13 sorters at PBPS Levittown!

Jamie Chokas

Jamie Chokas is quick to jump in and solve problems. He has impressed many with his energy, commitment, enthusiasm, and innovative thinking. Our customer, FIS, recgnized him as a great team member and is the glue to keeping the relationship togther. Thank you, Jamie!

Michael Fappiano

For over a year now, Mike has moved our IT team to develop innovative technology tools for BlueCrest, including our BlueBot chat bot. Mike never fails to show up. He is encouraging, positive, collaborative and always willing to make time to work with the team, learn new tools and implement innovative ideas, even though his “real job” is demanding as well. Thank you, Mike!

Joevan Groespe

Joevan joined us from the Fluence acquisition. Kamar Wilks nominated Joevan for his willingness to step in to solve issues. Even if it is something he has not done before or it may entail a few more layers than he anticipated. He instead will find a way to resolve the issue. Team members across the organization love working with Joevan! Thank you, Joevan!

Tamra Kelly

Tamra has stepped in demonstrating leadership to support the business with the Fluence D365 Integration, this is on top of her day to day job. Most recently Pitney Bowes Presort Services and Trilogy financial have reached out to express appreciation for Tamra’s leadership in attention to detail, communications & support related to the largest sortation contract in BC history. Well done, Tamra!

Teresa Lewis

Since first coming on board as part of the Fluence integration, Teresa not only kept up with her everyday tasks, but she also worked to convert the existing entitlements, reconcile all the assets to help create our new install base, and learned a completely new BlueCrest system. All this with a consistent high level of enthusiasm and excitement! There is seemingly nothing she can not do. Thank you, Teresa!

David Pepe

David Pepe and a teammate worked tirelessly to resolve several safety chain wiring issues in a custom inserter w/ little or no documented resource. The effort took 20 hours in front of the machine to resolve. Te resolution was recorded and “best practices & lessons learned” will be created for the service team use in the future to make sure this can’t happen again. Thanks, David!

Carol Valentine

The entire Order Management team has been working hard to deliver! The team, led by Carol, has the spirt of their leader and is always finding a way to collaborate with the sales organizatioin to get the work done. The sales organization very much appreciates Carol and all that she does to lead the Order Management function. Thank you, Carol!

Tim Williams

Tim Williams, nominated by Gordon Ennis, traveled to Danbury to support the D365 go-live for Fluence. He worked tirelessly in data conversion, training, system testing, troubleshooting etc. He devoted an entire week to the project including working weekends and until the early hours several mornings. Further, Tim essentially acted as the Operations function super user and performed these activities with little guidance. The outcome of the go-live was a success. Thank you, Tim!

Congratulations to our ICARE Applause Winners from Q4 2022! They were drawn from the ICARE High-Five winners. Who will be next?

Douglas Lane

Numerous High Fives were submitted for Doug Lane this quarter by Jason Heffron, Dean Postings, and Ashur Lee, noting his continued willingness to go above and beyond for his clients. He has demonstrated time and time again a can-do attitude while doing it with a smile at some of our most demanding customers. He is enthusiastic and a quick learner. Thank you, Doug!

US ISO 9001 Team

Thee US ISO team of Kevin O’Dea and John Weber championed our successful ISO9001 audit preparation and coordination this year, and exhibited ALL the ICARE traits each and every day here at BlueCrest. They were the definition of ‘grace under fire’ as they worked to not only help BlueCrest meet its commitments, but in helping it continually improve, with a relatively small team of skilled and committed engineers.They worked incredibly hard, all hours of the day, to do what was needed to get the job done. Thank you Kevin and John as well as all who particiapted to achieve attainment of the IXO certification this year.

UK ISO 9001 Team

This team led the way to the BlueCrest UK business pass the Phase 1 ISO audit across the 3 ISO standards. They worked long hours over and above their regular job. Every aspect of the ICARE key behaviors were exhibited by this team throughout the project.

Innovative/Resourceful - coming up with ideas to populate a management system and tracking compliant with the standards.

Collaborative - reaching out across the business to document all aspects of the processes to be audited to achieve certification.

Accountable - delivering to plan on all assigned tasks and holding each other accountable for doing the same.

Enthusiastic - being part of something that has not been done before in the UK, not taking themselves too seriously and always ready to have a laugh when things got tense.

Great work, team!

Did you know you can now recognize teams?

Kevin Moloney

Fitzgerald

Jason Harker

Chanel Demie

Laura Stevens

Simon Fern Natalie Fairhurst

Emilie Thorogood

Peter Felton

Kevin O’Dea

John Weber

Andrew Merritt

Tony Gledhill

BlueCrest News

Imagine buys BlueCrest Inserter

Imagine, a leading provider of visual communications, announced the rollout of state-of-the-art digital inkjet web and finishing equipment in its Charlotte location, bringing the next generation of insertion capabilities to its clients.

Press Releases

Read more

PRINT+ Statement

Integrated in-line with any BlueCrest Direct Connect inserter, the Print+ Statement™ allows users to process small jobs and reprint files on a high-quality inkjet printer. This helps users consolidate and automate processes in a single work cell, increasing productivity, reducing labor, and minimizing errors that normally result from manual processing.

“We live in a world of automation,” said Eddy Edel, Vice President, Global Inserting and Software Strategy at BlueCrest. “With this new solution, clients can now simply send the reprint file directly to the Print+ Statement in-line printer within the inserter work cell. We listened to our customers and specifically designed this modular and flexible solution so it can be configured to process their reprint or short run jobs quickly and easily. It’s as simple as click, print, and mail. Read more

Partner Article: Parajett

Over 100 years of innovation, and it started with a dance…

Parajett AB, in Sweden has made investment in the highspeed, multi-format mail inserter EPIC, from BlueCrest. The EPIC replaces multiple legacy machines within a smaller and more energy efficiency footprint.

Who would have thought that this printing company established in 1906 would still be driving innovation in multi-channel communication over a century later?

Over 100 years of innovation, and it started with a dance… The year was 1906 and Sydsvenska Biljettryckeriet made its debut in the Swedish printing industry with so-called “dance-track” tickets. An ingenious little piece of paper that became a smash hit application and the first step on a long and successful journey in the print, mail and communications industry.

Marketing Highlights

Post + Parcel Expo 2022

by Rick Becerra and David Jefferies

GREAT SHOW BY TEAM BLUECREST

Frankfurt was the location for Parcel + Post Expo exhibition, which takes place in a different European city every year. The show is growing with over 200 exhibitors and ever increasing display of technologies for the last mile, logistics and e-commerce delivery.

At this years Parcel + Post Exposition, the event grew in numbers. This year brought in a new prospect base from the traditional postal operators, which included retail, fulfillment warehouse, integrators and new exhibitors. Speaker sessions were expanded, UPU meetings were held with postal leaders, and the Parcel+Post Exposition served as an event to discuss opportunities with our dealer channel.

This year’s event is up by 52 exhibitors

to a total of 222 exhibitors, compared to 2019 pre-covid. Some new exhibitor attendees include robotics, conveyance, spiral conveyance, lockers, software tracking, software object detection, extendos, and more. BlueCrest was the hit of the event, filling in the booth with overflows into the isles of various prospect discussions about the automation needs sought. Postal operators around the world seek to optimize operations and be more efficient as economic challenges loom. Others are looking to enhance the current operations and equip satellite sites with a more compact solution for regional sorting. The BlueCrest sales and management team was hard at work discussing BlueCrest solutions for parcel & eCommerce requirements.

BlueCrest is a long time participant and over the years has nurtured relationships with National and Private posts and now commercial fulfilment businesses at the show – indeed our reference parcel sortation clients of

Oman Post, Latvia Post, Croatia Post have all been secured through this event.

This year we filled our booth with our established portfolio of mixed mail and parcel sorting solutions, and as you can see from the photos the booth was filled with interested clients and prospects.

A feature of the event is the senior level of visitor attending, boosted by the co-located conference, and the fact that companies come in teams, allowing deep and fruitful conversations to take place with our own subject matter experts. This means the show is a great platform to establish new relationships, meet decision makers and accelerate existing pipeline.

Our booth reflected BlueCrest’s refreshed brand with clear messaging and meaningful technology displays, positioning BlueCrest as a supplier of choice to the market.

Episode 56

- 9/22/2022

Chris discusses some highlights of the annual Household Diary Study; the USPS recently published a preview of what we can expect in the January 2023 price change, and we are heading into a busy fall mailing season with a lot of industry activity.

Episode 57 - 7/22/2022

Chris recaps the many changes since the last podcast including a decision, or actually lack of one, from the Supreme Court on future USPS pricing, a preview of PMG DeJoy’s vision for the largest overhaul of mail processing in decades, and the “aftershocks” from the July 10 price increase.

Ask the Experts

International Highlights

by Wilhelm Kanzler | December 2022

BlueCrest team makes international tour for the first time since COVID.

Left: With Christine Häfner (Sales) at client Computershare in Munich, Dennis and Kim; at Computershare we’ve sold two EPICs and did a successful integration.

Middle: With client PD_Medienlogistik in Augsburg, Dir Production & Fulfillment Philipp Seewald, Dennis and Kim, discussing their needs and their plans going forward.

Right: Meeting with client and our Service Director Carsten Conradi (right) at PD_Medienlogistik, Augsburg

Left: Visiting the fullfillment center to discuss needs for logistic soltuions at PD_Medienlogistik

Middle: Meeting Production Director Jörg Nürnberger from Paragon, site Schwandorf; At this site BlueCrest has replaced 12 Kern inerters with 5 EPICs

Right: Meeting Sorter client Presort in Frankfurt, MD Hans Grimm

Team Member E rik Lilleseth captures the Northern Lights.

Celebrating Success with the Nordic Team

The most Northern inserter installation we've done! We are not allowed to show pictures from the site, but the Northern lights were viewable by our colleagues. The aurora appears as lights in the sky produced when atoms and molecules in the upper atmosphere are hit by high energy electrons. The aurora appears where beams of high energy electrons penetrate the upper atmosphere. As the beams move, the aurora moves. The aurora is mostly seen along the belt which connects central Alaska, Canada, the southern tip of Greenland, Iceland, and the northern parts of Scandinavia. It’s important to remember that aurora can be a bit of a diva, and she will only start the show when she feels the time is right!

Above: Team leaders of the three best teams in Kickoff tournament, MarieLouise Loden, Christofer Steger and Mats Peterson.

Above: Juhani Huovilla awarded for Finish results by Vidar Johansen

Above: Raymond Andersen awarded for outstanding service revenue by Vidar Johansen

Erik Lilleseth awarded for excellent T&M revenue by Vidar Johansen

Right: Marie-Louise (Misa) Loden with Vidar Johansen. He is thanking her for organizing the first Team Meeting in 2.5 years since CV-19.

Left and Middle: Awards given to recognize the success of the Nordic teams, including an award for "Best Contribution."

Right: Installation Evry, Norway, November

International update

How we will grow into 2023 together.

Dear all,

In a few weeks, we will turn the last page of the year of 2022. It’s probably fair to say that we all have had an extraordinary year. The geopolitical conflict in EU, the China zero COVID policy impact on APAC, rising inflation, supply chain shortages, and notably in EU, extremely high surge in energy prices have all contributed to the extraordinary nature of this year.

All of the this has shaken our confidence in the economic outlook on the brink of 2023. Yet, I remain a firm believer that there are always positives to be found in any situation.

Let us remind ourselves in the midst of the difficulty we have launched:

- B+H Insert for special needs in Japan.

- Inspection unit for Japan.

- Horizon/Graphic agency for Finland.

- New Technopli updated DI inserter with international scope

– Parcel Sorter Technopli with international scope

– Strategic Partnership with Xproma in Germany (Intralogistics and E-Commerce solution).

A key part of our strategy is to grow via acquisitions, and we are still pursuing opportunities for such across international, in addition to the initiatives already taken.

Pride in our people.

One out of many achievements and efforts I am immensely proud of is our daily effort across our Service Teams. For the last few years fighting COVID, and entering into a challenging 2022, our CSR’s and Service Teams are supporting and keeping our customers floating every single day. In addition, we have for the last few months supported Danbury with

Int’l

13-15 CSRs, in order for us to achieve the biggest Q4 Inserter unit built in company history. Well done!

I like to extend my thanks to all partners as well. US travel, International travel, weekend, and daily overtime,--it all speaks volumes to our team spirit.

How will we tackle the future?

As our Legacy (Postal Letters) business in International is declining, we can take pride in the fact that we have been growing market shares the last 4 years against our competitors, notably Kern-Böwe. Consolidation will still continue internationally, and we will stay strong thanks to our experience, knowledge, and technology as a trusted partner.

2023 will be the beginning of our International transformation towards E-Commerce software suits and intralogistics solutions. As such, we need to become students of those segments. This speaks to rightsizing our legacy business and re-investing in those new markets at the same time. Focus and operational discipline will be important for 2023.

Finally, I wish you and your love ones a Merry Christmas, a very Happy Holidays, and a prosperous 2023.

Thanks for everything you bring to our company.

With kind regards,

Executive Vice President, International

Kim Andersen

Letter from Kim Andersen | December 2022

Kim Andersen EVP,

Highlights from Poland Visit

International Road Trip to Poland

by Kim Andersen & Piotr Kucka

As part of our International Road Trip in October, we had the pleasure visiting our RD/SW Team in Poland. Our Senior Country Manager Piotr Kucka gave us a guided tour of the very modern offices we have in Poland. A packed agenda where each RD Team presented their current assignment, and where Dennis and I had the opportunity to address the Bluecrest Strategy, hence Q&A session. Topics covered included the Strata Cloud, Output Manager/Output Enhancement, DFWorks, Relia- Vote/Clarity, Output Control, and Sort Engine360.

This is a very dedicated and energetic Team that, in addition to their development work, serves all escalations and tickets raised from across all our operations and customers 24/7-365.

Data in any shape or form has become increasingly important these days (this includes GDPR compliance, cyber security, work flow documentation, IT certification, and audit trails).

Our need to validate and to ensure our customers data security and documentation is indeed embedded in all tenders, and disused in every interaction with our customer.

The motivation and skill-set of our Polish Team is ensuring us that we have the right back-bone in place. These are true software professionals.

Piotr thanks to you and your Team for hosting us in Bielsko - Biala!

Above: BlueCrest Poland Team from left to right

Krzysztof Noworyta, Piotr Grzegorczyk, Anna Michalik, Jacek Hudecki, Witold Szwed, Maciej Gąsiorek, Paweł Jeż, Łukasz Popielarczyk, Marcin Wawak, Piotr Sroka, Dennis LeStrange, Daniel Kociołek, Krzysztof Waliczek, Rafał Łopatka, Kamilla Wróblewska, Marek Długosz, Marcin Szopka, Konrad Kociołek, Olaf Basta, Dominik Mazgaj, Jacek Kadlof, Piotr Kućka, Szymon Sidło, Karolina Białas, Andrzej Szuta, Piotr Stera, Szczepan Rudnicki, Wojciech Bronowski.

Not present that day, but there in spirit: Krzysztof Błachut, Michał Gajdzik, Adrian Markiewicz, Arleta Papaj, Adrian Duraj

Piort Kucka, Senior Manager, Poland

Engagement Team Member Milestones

Fourth Quarter, 2022

Winter Trees

by William Carlos Williams

All the complicated details of the attiring and the disattiring are completed! A liquid moon moves gently among the long branches. Thus having prepared their buds against a sure winter the wise trees stand sleeping in the cold.

For more information visit us online: bluecrestinc.com

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