Cut It Out! OU Carves a New Niche
For years, University of Oklahoma Printing, Mailing & Document Services used a manual Excalibur vertical cutter to trim foam core and Coroplast materials. About a year ago, to reduce labor time and speed up the process, the in-plant went high-tech and installed a Colex Sharpcut automated flatbed cutter.
“It has definitely reduced our labor and ... production time,” remarks Assistant Director Sherri Isbell.
But it did so much more too. Because the automated cutter can perform so many intricate cuts, it has allowed the in-plant to produce a whole new line of contour-cut products. These include puzzles, coasters, fat heads, parade float signs, custom labels, short-run custom pocket folders, boxes, vinyl lettering and much more. All of these projects would have been outsourced previously.
“This opened up a huge door of opportunity for us,” Isbell says. Point-of purchase displays, irregularly shaped signs, even life-size cutout images are a breeze now. One such image of Director John Sarantakos was used to welcome visitors to the in-plant’s awards celebration.
The contour cutter also serves as an attention-grabbing curiosity when customers tour the plant.
“It’s such an impressive device that when we bring people over for tours, it just expands their knowledge of things that we can do in-house,” she says.
Bob has served as editor of In-plant Impressions since October of 1994. Prior to that he served for three years as managing editor of Printing Impressions, a commercial printing publication. Mr. Neubauer is very active in the U.S. in-plant industry. He attends all the major in-plant conferences and has visited more than 180 in-plant operations around the world. He has given presentations to numerous in-plant groups in the U.S., Canada and Australia, including the Association of College and University Printers and the In-plant Printing and Mailing Association. He also coordinates the annual In-Print contest, co-sponsored by IPMA and In-plant Impressions.
