Cal Poly Partners with Duplo USA to Upgrade Binding, Finishing Lab

Duplo USA has provided Cal Poly’s Graphic Communication Department with a DB-280 desktop perfect binder to upgrade the department’s Binding and Finishing Laboratory with a state-of-the art finishing system to teach students about the latest trend in publishing—short-run, on-demand printing.

“With books and related publications moving to short-run, on-demand printing, the need for finishing systems to accommodate such production has grown,” said Harvey Levenson, head of Cal Poly’s Graphic Communication Department, a leader of on-demand digital printing education and training.

“We realize that short-run book publishing has become standard, even with as low a run of just one, and the DB-280 serves this market,” Levenson noted. “We will use the system to educate students in our regular academic program and to train industry professionals in seminars and workshops.”

The Duplo USA DB-280 works in concert with a host of other finishing equipment, such as collators, stitchers, folders, and a JDF compliant cutter. It will be used to apply perfect binding to short-run publications produced on the department’s various digital presses that include HP Indigo, Konica Minolta, and Ricoh, as well as for short-run publications produced on the department’s Heidelberg four-color press.

“We are impressed with Cal Poly’s Graphic Communication Department’s initiatives to remain in the forefront of on-demand, digital printing technologies and are pleased to partner with them for their perfect binding needs,” relayed Duplo USA President Peter Tu. “It’s exciting to see students engaged in the printing industry. Outstanding programs such as this will keep print alive.”

The Duplo USA DB-280 will be used in the department’s experiential student-run, faculty-advised, printing, publishing and imaging company, University Graphic Systems (UGS). UGS helps teach students how to run a company, including marketing, sales, estimating, costing, budgeting, customer service, production, quality control and distribution.

About Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo
Named the West’s best public master’s-level university for two decades by U.S. News and World Report, Cal Poly is a comprehensive polytechnic campus of about 18,000 undergraduate and graduate students on California’s Central Coast. One of the most selective of the California State University’s 23 campuses, Cal Poly provides a renowned Learn by Doing education aimed at producing innovative professionals and future industry leaders in science and technology, as well as the liberal arts.

About Graphic Communication Department
The Graphic Communication Department was founded in 1946 and is one of the largest and best-known programs of its kind in the United States. It includes concentrations in graphic communication management, Web and digital media, design reproduction technology, graphics for packaging, and individualized study. The program is strongly supported by industry with grants and endowments, and with equipment, supplies and software for the department’s more than 33,000 square feet of modern laboratories. The department is nationally accredited by the Accrediting Council for Collegiate Graphic Communications. The Graphic Communication Institute at Cal Poly focuses on services for industry, including research, testing, product evaluations, consulting, training, seminars, workshops, conferences and publishing.

About Duplo USA
For more than 60 years, Duplo has set the standard with some of the most innovative and reliable finishing products in the graphic arts industry and continues to lead the way with solutions that are automated, productive and cost-efficient. Duplo manufactures a complete line of print finishing equipment from all-in-one slitter/cutter/creasers, folders, and perfect binders to sheet feeding, bookletmaking, and saddle-stitching systems for offset and digital printers in both high-production and small-office environments.

Source: Cal Poly.