Dye-sub, Latex Printing Drawing Attention at Penn State

As Abbas Badani sees it, print and mail services alone aren’t enough for an in-plant any more. Attracting new customers means catching their attention with unique, value-added services.

“The goal is to get customers in with new services that traditionally we weren’t offering,” explains Badani, director of Penn State University’s Multimedia & Print Center, in State College, Pa.

To that end, the 50-employee in-plant recently brought in a new dye-sublimation system from Imprints USA for printing apparel, caps, door hangers, tags, coasters and more.

“Anything from clocks to socks,” quips Badani.

The in-plant also added a 64˝ HP Latex 330 printer, plus a Seal laminator and a Graphtec die cutter of the same size. Badani has created a special area in his in-plant’s 30,000-square-foot facility to showcase new capabilities like this, and he hopes to eventually add a 3D printer, as well.

“You have to look for new supporting channels to keep the in-plant fresh in the minds of the customers,” he says. “None of this will make us rich.” But it will make students and faculty take notice.

The dye-sub system is intended to print specialty custom products on a one-off basis, rather than large runs.

“We want to use it as a marketing tool…to do giveaways for our customers,” Badani says.

The system comprises a tabletop Ricoh SG3110DN Gel Sprint Printer and a heat press. The heat-sensitive sublimation dye is printed onto a transfer paper, which is then placed into a heat press. The dye bonds with the material rather than just sitting on the surface, so it can’t be washed off.

The in-plant also purchased a digital mug press from Imprints USA to print on mugs and water bottles. Badani anticipates the new system will be kept busy during the Christmas season creating custom gifts.

The new wide-format HP Latex 330 printer joins an existing 42˝ HP Designjet Z6200 aqueous printer in the shop’s wide-format area. The latex printer, though, can print on many more types of materials, allowing the in-plant to print jobs it previously had to outsource. Badani is excited about the possibilities.

“From floor graphics to static clings to wallpaper, the choice is so large,” he says.

Based on the fast ROI of the shop’s other wide-format printer, Badani expects the new one to pay for itself quickly.

These aren’t the only upgrades the in-plant has made. It recently installed a Xerox Color C75 as a backup for its iGen3 and replaced its 10-year-old Agfa Galileo computer-to-plate system with a processless Agfa Avalon N8. It burns plates for the in-plant’s two-color, 40˝ Heidelberg, its ABDick presses and its Halm envelope press. The in-plant, Badani says, is not ready to leave the offset business yet.

“We still have a lot of work in the space,” he notes. “40 percent of our work is still offset.”