In-plants Collaborate on HP Digital Press Deal

A partnership between two Salt Lake City in-plants has resulted in both shops installing seven-color HP Indigo 7000 digital color presses. What’s more, a pooled click charge arrangement has reduced costs for each.

Brigham Young University and Deseret Mutual Benefit Administrators (DMBA) each took delivery of their first high-speed digital press during the summer. Both in-plants cited the same key reason for choosing HP over Xerox: “You get charged by the color,” reports Chris Anderson, Graphics Services foreman at DMBA.

Since much of his shop’s work is two-color or black only, HP only charges them for those colors. With a Xerox digital press, he says, they would be charged a full click charge, whether the job was one or four colors.

“You can print just PMS colors and not pay for other colors,” adds Doug Maxwell, director of BYU’s in-plant. This works out great for jobs that require only BYU’s PMS 282 blue plus black.

Deciding to get the HP Indigo press was a difficult process, recalls Thom Roylance, BYU assistant director. The in-plant had outgrown its Xerox 6060 and needed to step up into the big leagues to meet the demand for brochures, business cards, newsletters, CD covers, course packs and more. The BYU team investigating digital printers actually preferred the Xerox iGen4’s larger print area (14.25x20.43˝ vs. the HP Indigo’s 12.48x18.26˝).

But in the end, Roylance says, “HP offered us a steal of a deal for the 7000.” It was a floor model, he points out, so it was “slightly used.”

It’s working out great for producing family history books, he says. In the past, the in-plant would insert preprinted color pages into the black-and-white printer that was producing the bulk of the job.

“Now we just run it all on the Indigo, and it’s a lot more efficient,” Roylance says.

At DMBA, the in-plant is producing a lot of four-color open enrollment packets on the 7000 right now, but Anderson says the bulk of the shop’s printing is generally two color. He’s impressed with the speed and quality of the 7000 for printing black-only jobs.

“We run all types of substrates, from 24-lb. text to 120-lb. cover, 11x17˝ to 13x19˝,” notes Anderson. “We are very impressed with the reliability of the press, and the local service. Our pressmen had little or no trouble adapting to the technology.”

DMBA’s in-plant did not originally consider the 7000, but after a chance meeting with an HP rep at Graph Expo one year, they learned that HP only charged by the color. When they heard about BYU’s interest in a 7000, the two in-plants asked HP about making them a deal. The resulting ability to pool their click charges drove the price way down.

Not everything has been perfect, though, Roylance points out: the machine puts out a lot of heat; there have been software difficulties; uncoated post cards printed on the 7000 tend to scratch in the mail. But overall, he says, the 7000 is a big improvement. And the partnership with DMBA continues to pay off. When BYU’s 7000 was down for a software upgrade one day, Roylance says, “we sent a job up to them, and they printed it and were able to ship it back down.”

Maxwell says he plans to use the 7000 to get into new markets, such as photo books.

“My philosophy has always been, if I’m going to buy something new, I want to bring in new markets,” he declares.