Elon Expands Again

When Elon University Printing Services installed a Ricoh Pro C900 five years ago, it transformed the small in-plant from a simple copy shop specializing in black-and-white prints to a provider of top-quality color printing, able to handle jobs as important as the university’s annual report.

In August, the 11-employee Elon, N.C., in-plant took another giant leap forward when it installed a Kodak NexPress SX3300 digital color press with the one-meter long sheet option, as well as fifth imaging unit solutions like Kodak Dimensional, Gold, HD Light Black and HD Clear printing.

“We went from a Volkswagon to a Lamborghini,” quips Wesley Grigg, manager of Print and Mail, and the guiding force behind the in-plant’s impressive transformation. Grigg recognized the opportunity to expand when his research showed that hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of printing was being sent off campus annually. He calculated that, by adding a production color device, his shop could capture much of that.

“With the Ricoh C900, we just never could even get close to the quality that they were looking for,” he says. By “they” he means University Communications, which orders the bulk of the school’s printing.

Grigg tested print engines from Xerox and HP, but he and the graphic artists in University Communications decided the NexPress best suited their needs.

Hard to Justify?

With a print speed of 100 color pages per minute and a duty cycle of 3.7 million, the NexPress SX3300 might seem hard to justify for a private liberal arts university with just 5,600 undergrads and 700 graduate students—despite its recent number-one ranking among southern regional universities by U.S. News & World Report. But Grigg contends that adding the NexPress has actually saved Elon money.

“Our cost went down with going with the ­NexPress,” he insists.

By replacing both the C900 and a Canon 7110 with the NexPress and a black-and-white Ricoh 8110, he says, he was able to work out a better deal. The 8110 includes a Plockmatic 350 in-line booklet maker, which can be used off-line as well to bind books printed on the NexPress.

Since installation, the NexPress has been very busy producing work from the in-plant’s three biggest customers, Athletics, Admissions and Advancement, Grigg says. The Elon annual report looked significantly better this year printed on the NexPress, he adds, with a square-folded and stitched spine, courtesy of the Plockmatic.

Grigg anticipates that the long sheet option will be extremely helpful with jobs like trifolded 8.5x11˝ brochures, which have traditionally been sent to outside printers. Now that University Communications knows the in-plant can do these jobs—and on demand—he expects to see more of this work.

“We can do small runs of them. They don’t have to order 10,000 any more,” Grigg says.

He also feels the fifth imaging unit solutions will be a big hit on campus. Athletics, for example, might want the printed image of a football to have the rough texture of a pigskin, which the NexPress can do via Dimensional Printing. He is especially excited about the photo quality results produced by the Light Black solution.

Grigg praises the NexPress Intelligent Calibration System, which automates the process of checking and maintaining print uniformity by analyzing output and feeding critical data back to the system.

“There’s nothing to it,” he says.

Fitting the NexPress into Elon’s small shop was a tight squeeze, he admits, in part because of the long sheet feeder and also because of the compressor. Since the press is vented into the room, the in-plant had to add an air conditioning unit—a surprise expense, Grigg says.

The NexPress isn’t the only thing new at the in-plant. A month before it arrived, the shop added a  64˝ Ricoh L4160 wide-format printer. (Learn more in our wide-format story.)

“The wide-format has really opened doors,” Grigg enthuses.

With so much business already flooding into the in-plant right now, Grigg is reluctant to start heavily marketing the NexPress.
“Once people find out, I’m afraid our doors are going to be knocked down,” he says.