Chicago White Sox Add Creaser to Lineup

There were three big questions coming out of spring training for the Chicago White Sox as the team embarked on its 2012 Major League Baseball campaign. They are, in no particular order:

• How would the squad react under new manager Robin Ventura after eight years under the guidance of Ozzie Guillen, who in 2005 steered the team to its first World Series title since 1917?
• Could Adam Dunn, the picture of 40-homer consistency between 2004 and 2010, rebound from an anemic 2011 season that saw him bat a paltry .159 with 11 home runs in 415 at-bats?
• Will the Design Services division, bolstered by the late 2011 season pickup of a Duplo DC-615 slitter/cutter/creaser, help make the team more competitive?

Yes, the true wild card for Chicago’s success lies in the DC-615, which has already invigorated the lineup of Design Services, which handles all printing for the organization.

The DC-615 was included in a package that brought the team a Xerox 700 and a number of photo copiers. Gareth Breunlin, manager of Design Services, pushed hard for the DC-615 to be included in the deal, which was completed in August.

The slitter/cutter/creaser should prove significant to the organization, which previously had to send out short-run jobs or have an intern do some of the work by hand, a costly proposition.

“Basically, I wanted something that would allow us to bring smaller jobs in house,” Breunlin explains. “We do a lot of invitations for smaller events, where we’ll need 250 cards or a hundred passes, and for that we would cut by hand or send it out. Small runs are going to cost you more.

“By having this in-house, we’re able to print on our new [700] with a pretty heavy card stock, then use the Duplo to trim and fold. Now we can have our jobs the day of the event, rather than prepare for a two- to three-day turnaround. We can now do last-minute stuff in-house.”

The DC-615 came bundled with the new Xerox 700, which was acquired after the previous lease on the team’s printer/copiers expired. Breunlin and his team went on site visits and looked at a number of different options, but in the end the inclusion of the slitter/cutter/creaser pushed Xerox over the top.

“The finished product looks great—clean lines, clean cuts, clean folds,” he praises. “It seems to be as good as you’d get at an outside printer.”

As much as anything else, Breunlin appreciates that the DC-615 doesn’t require any hand holding; it can be programmed and left on its own to handle large jobs. Breunlin expects the machine to see plenty of action as the season progresses.

“We’ll do a lot more invitations in-house that will feature folded cards,” he says. “It’s nice to have that option.

“A smaller job of 250 may only cost $400-$500 to print out of house,” he concludes, “but that’s $400-$500 we’re saving now.”