Color Copiers - Add A Dash Of Spice

In-plants say color copiers can improve customer service and add verve to dull documents. Find out what they can do for you.

WHEN YOUR parent company has participated in the construction of such historic projects as the Hoover Dam, San Francisco Bay Bridge and Trans-Alaska Pipeline, you can't afford to skimp on quality.

And when your parent company routinely sends out multi-million or even multi-billion dollar proposals, they have to be on time and looking good.

So when Jerry Prouty has to produce a sharp-looking proposal for his parent company's international construction and engineering business, he turns to his color copier—and it delivers every time.

"In the industry we're in you're expected to have a class act going out," explains Prouty, copy center supervisor for Washington Group International Inc., based in Boise, Idaho. "If you don't have the glitz that you get with color, then it's not going to be appealing to those people who have to go through it and determine everything."

The Dawn Of A New Era

Back in the old days (read 1989), if Prouty wanted to have a color cover for a project he had to send all the artwork, background and text out to be shot by a photographer—and then wait.

Now all he has to do is press a button. The difference: digital technology.

Ever since digital began to replace analog, printers have been waiting for digitally based systems to live up to their purveyor's claims. Now, finally, they're beginning to, and as the technology improves, color copiers are providing printers with new solutions to old problems.

One of the oldest problems facing printers is how to efficiently produce inexpensive short-run color. By eliminating the time and cost issues associated with offset printing and outsourcing, today's color copiers offer printers a way to produce short-run color cheaply and in-house.

But though in-plants are increasingly turning to color copiers for short-run color printing, not every in-plant is sold on their merits. Some say they don't produce enough color work to justify the cost. Others say adding color would overburden their staffs.

Still others say color is just a fad.

Willie Lee disagrees.

"Please..." groans the director of University Printing and Graphics at East Carolina University. "Color is not a fad."

Though Lee admits his Greenville, N.C., in-plant has received requests for color on documents that didn't really need it, since starting to do color work six years ago, the in-plant's color production has nearly doubled, Lee says.

"We looked at what we were outsourcing and what the other departments were outsourcing, and from that we knew up front that we had the volume to buy a color machine," says Lee.

More Short-run Color

Demand for short-run color is also up at Bill Boone's Ponca City, Okla., in-plant—and it's no fad. In fact, says the print center coordinator for Conoco Inc., the demand is so high that he's taken some of the work off the in-plant's Heidelberg GTO and put it on a Xerox DocuColor 12—and he's hoping to move even more work there in the future.

"We're finding [color copying] to be more and more useful as we look at quality," says Boone. "We are looking to do things faster, better and cheaper. That's just the way an in-plant survives. That's the way you compete with commercial shops."

Another way color copiers can help in-plants compete is by using them for more than just color copying. Robert Mettee, print supervisor for the Boy Scouts of America national headquarters, in Irving, Texas, uses his Canon CLC 500 to provide color proofs.

Mettee says the copier has been so effective that the in-plant uses it to output between 1,000 and 2,000 color proofs a month. As a result, the in-plant gets a faster, cheaper, more accurate proof than it could any other way.

"It's really just the convenience factor," says Mettee. "All the other means of producing a color proof are a lot more slow and expensive."

Still, speed and convenience aren't limited to just proofing on a color copier. Because today's copiers can be networked, now everyone in the office can benefit from the quality, speed and convenience that have become synonymous with in-plants and color copying.

Many in-plants report that networked computers improve productivity and customer satisfaction by eliminating unnecessary steps in the production process.

"We've let people throughout the company network into it," says Bruce Bostock, director of enterprise publication services for Amdahl Corp., referring to his in-plant's Xerox 5799. "And the bottom line is, we just do it faster and cheaper than it gets done on the outside. It's a price and convenience thing for the company."

Speed Vs. Resolution

When color copiers first came out in-plants had to make a decision between speed and resolution depth. Fortunately, today's managers don't have to make that decision. This is why so many in-plants are starting to see them as a good fit for their production mix.

Because most of the leading manufacturers now offer copiers that can image at upwards of 400 dots per inch (dpi) and output anywhere between 12 and 60 copies a minute, in-plants no longer have to sacrifice one to get the other.

"Color copiers have improved tremendously over the past four or five years," asserts Boone, of Conoco. "We're used to running 150 to 200 line screen on a press, so I mean there is a difference, but copiers have come so far."

Perhaps even more important than speed or resolution depth is ease of use. If your staff can't manage the copier, no matter how high-tech it is, it's virtually useless. Lee, of East Carolina University, recommends using three factors to help you decide which copier is right for your operation:

• Ease of use.

• Ability to handle numerous different substrates.

• Timely service.

"You want a copier that you can train your staff to use, that can run heavier stocks, and one where, when you're down, the service guy is right there to get you going again," Lee counsels.

Although purchasing a color copier has its advantages, many in-plant managers say leasing a copier may provide more wiggle room if the in-plant chooses to upgrade or dump the copier altogether. Whichever way you go, though, you can't lose.

"They pretty much have a satisfaction guarantee on their stuff, whether you own it or lease it," explains Bostock of Amdahl. "It's in their best interest to keep you running. If you're not copying on it then they're not getting paid."

by Allan Martin Kemler