Ball State Adds CTP, Four-color Press

Thanks to two back-to-back installations, Ball State University Printing Services is producing work faster and at a lower cost.

By Bob Neubauer

For 10 long years Ken Johnson and his crew at Ball State University Printing Services have been slowly building an equipment reserve fund.

Now payoff time has come.

Over the past couple of months, the Muncie, Ind., in-plant has used its savings to make two major installations that will completely overhaul the 11-employee operation.

First the shop installed a six-page thermal Screen (U.S.A.) PlateRite 4100 platesetter. Then, in April, it added a four-color Heidelberg Printmaster 52 perfector. The new capabilities will pay for themselves by reducing waste and bottlenecks, says Johnson, director of Printing Services. Plus, the new press will let the in-plant do four-color work it was previously unable to handle, including outside jobs.

"It will allow us to go to some of the other colleges and non-profit organizations in the area and let them know what our capabilities are and see if we can do some more insourcing," says Johnson.

Unique Double Upgrade

The near simultaneous addition of both CTP and a four-color press is a rarity among in-plants, but Johnson felt the timing was right for a couple of reasons. Budgets at universities have been getting tighter, and he thought it was best to use his shop's equipment reserve fund before the university considered tapping into it for other purposes. Also, the shop's 14-year-old two-color Heidelberg GTO 52 was wearing out and could no longer produce high-quality four-color work. The in-plant will now transfer work from its Ryobi 3200 to the GTO and move the GTO's work to the new press, along with some work from its two-color Heidelberg MOZP.

As for the PlateRite 4100 platesetter, Johnson calculated that the elimination of film and chemical costs, as well as waste, would save enough money to pay for the equipment. Previously, the shop had been outputting punched, imposed film with an Agfa Avantra 30 imagesetter. That machine, along with a film processor, was removed and the entire prepress area was remodeled. The wall between the old dark room and stripping room was removed to open up space.

The new platesetter helped with a recent rush job for the university president's office. The text for a 16-page inauguration program (plus a four-color cover) didn't arrive at the shop until 4:00 p.m. on a Friday.

"We were able to have the job proofed and plates made by 5:30," Johnson says. The job was run the next day and delivered in time for the Monday morning event.

Along with the PlateRite 4100, the in-plant added Screen's Trueflow PDF workflow solution and Screen's Spekta hybrid AM/FM screening technology.

Trueflow accepts standard PDF data files, such as PDF/X1-a, PDF/X-3, Certified PDF and PostScript 3 files. Trueflow's standard features include automatic job processing using a job ticket workflow, preflight checking, automatic trapping, imposition and RIPed PDF file output.

Automated Press

The new Printmaster press also came with a lot of automation, including Heidelberg's Autoplate loading and unloading feature, and automatic blanket washing and inking. Ink and register can be adjusted from the console.

One reason Printing Services opted for a four-color press was because the University Communications department stopped sending the in-plant its four-color work four years ago, resulting in a loss of $150,000 worth of work a year.

"Unless we had a four-color press they wouldn't do four-color work with us any more," Johnson says. "They wanted to check press proofs."

Since that customer also wanted to do variable data printing, Johnson first looked into the Kodak NexPress and Xerox iGen3.

"But I could not get that customer to commit to using that NexPress or an iGen for their medium-run four-color work," he says. So his shop installed a Konica Minolta 8050 in August to handle the variable data work. Now the new Printmaster will be able to handle the rest.

The press installation did not come without complications. First, the shop discovered that the concrete press bed was one inch off level, so a new concrete pad had to be poured. Then the press was shipped without all of the automation Johnson had ordered, so a new press had to be manufactured. (To compensate, Heidelberg threw in perfecting at no charge.)

Finally, when the press was being delivered, its front end fell about five inches onto the floor. Luckily no damage was detected, but Heidelberg added four years to the warrantee as a precaution.

"By moving away from film and analog proofs we have become a more customer friendly department," Johnson concludes. "We have reduced the time required to provide the customer with a proof and eliminated many of the expenses from customer alterations. Likewise, the new press will reduce the production time and allow us to meet the customer demands for shorter deadlines."