New UV Coater Makes Georgia In-plant Shine

Customers want gloss. That’s what Randall Bramlett started to notice last year. What’s more, they were going off campus to get it. This was troubling to Bramlett, manager of Printing Services at Columbus State University.

“A year ago we started looking at it seriously,” says Bramlett. “With more demand for finishing and high gloss, they were going off campus. We had to upgrade our capabilities. That’s the one thing we couldn’t offer, high gloss.”

So in January, the Columbus, Ga.-based in-plant installed a Duplo Ultra 200 UV coater to provide the high-quality coating that customers wanted. To finance it, Printing Services used revenue generated by its Cougar Copy Center.

“If I went to my budget director and asked for a UV coater, that would be a luxury, not a necessity,” Bramlett admits.

The Cougar Copy Center brings in from $6,000 to $10,000 in additional revenue for Printing Services from all the student groups that print posters for their activities. That, of course, works out great since Printing Services didn’t have to go through the usual type of scrutiny of cost justification.

“We’re pretty savvy when it comes to financing,” Bramlett boasts. “We’ve had to be pretty creative when it comes to purchasing things.”

The in-plant, which has a budget of about $250,000 and six full-time employees, uses the Ultra 200 UV coater for jobs like postcards and mailings to prospective students. Bramlett not only wants the work to look good but to look perfect.

“There’s nothing worse than printing a high-quality job and it getting mailed and then it getting all scuffed,” he states.

The Duplo was a very nice looking piece of machinery, Bramlett notes; once he tested it out, he was sold on it.

“It just makes the colors pop,” he says. “The one thing that really stuck out were the theater program covers.”

Often, the programs have a variety of colors on them so having a coater is the final step in producing the highest quality work possible.

“When we first started using it we had several calls from people who just said ‘wow,’ ” Bramlett reflects.” We’ve had many other calls too.”

When the in-plant first started using the coater, Bramlett was a bit apprehensive, but those thoughts quickly dissipated when he saw how user-friendly it was.

“We were coming in blind, so we were a little concerned. The day it was installed, it was running. It’s been a life saver for us,” Bramlett says.

The setup time is about 20 minutes, and the clean-up time is about 10 minutes, he says.

“I was just telling someone that next year we might have to be printing T-shirts,” Bramlett remarks. “While I was joking, we will do whatever it takes to survive.”