Expo Visit Inspires Bindery Upgrades at Texas In-plant

Overseeing Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center’s Printing Center are (from left) Unit Manager Jordan Marlar, Managing Director Debbie Cate, and Associate Managing Director Arthur Paré. | Credit: TTUHSC

When the three-person team from Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center’s Printing Center walked the show floor last year at PRINTING United Expo, they were blown away by the variety of equipment they saw.

“The sheer number of vendors was amazing,” remarks Jordan Marlar, unit manager of the Lubbock, Texas, in-plant. “I was surprised at how many more vendors came … than the year prior. It was really exciting to see that many options.”

After exploring, gathering ideas, and visiting multiple vendors, the team was able to make some major decisions. Not long after they returned home, they ordered four pieces of finishing equipment they had seen at the Expo:

1. A Standard Horizon APC-610 paper cutter
2. A Standard Horizon SMSL-100 smart slitter sheet cutter and creaser
3. A Standard Horizon CRF-362 creaser/folder
4. A Duplo DFL-500 foiler/laminator

One factor that greatly influenced their decisions, Marlar notes, is how much time they were able to spend with Standard Horizon at the Expo.

“They actually gave us a pretty in-depth walk-through on the equipment and its capabilities,” he says. “These new pieces of equipment from Standard Horizon will allow us to keep our old equipment for redundancy or work overflow, but also give us more capabilities than we currently have.”

The SMSL-100 smart slitter in particular will obviate the in-plant’s old practice of manually cutting business cards on a guillotine cutter.

Brooke Tuma runs the new Duplo DFL-500 foiler/laminator in Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center’s Printing Center – a purchase inspired by the in-plant’s visit to PRINTING United Expo 2023. | Credit: TTUHSC

Having such an abundance of vendors in one place, Marlar says, enabled him and his team to use information gleaned from one manufacturer when it visited another. For instance, the group first visited Duplo to discuss upgrades to the Duplo equipment currently in their in-plant.

“With the information I got from them I was able to go to different vendors,” Marlar says, and ask them about similar solutions, and also service availability in their part of Texas, “because we’re in the middle of nowhere.”

Seeing the equipment actually running at the show made all the difference, says Marlar.

“It is different being able to see a piece of machinery work, and you actually get to see the speed of it versus a number on a paper,” he notes. “You really can’t compare that to reading a brochure or watching a video on YouTube.”

Walking the Expo floor and seeing solutions they hadn’t even been looking for also inspired them with ideas.

“We saw a very impressive laser system for cutting and engraving,” Marlar recalls. “We also saw some spot gloss equipment specifically for … stickers. Like any kid in a candy store, you see all the pretty toys and you go, ‘Well what can I do to emulate that with what I have?’ So, it was nice to go and take pictures and get ideas for what we could do with what we have.”

Seeing samples of laser-engraved wood pieces gave the team ideas of similar projects they could create with such machinery. Another show floor inspiration resulted in their purchase of the Duplo DFL-500 foiler/laminator.

“We do a lot of the university’s diplomas and part of that is having a gold-stamped university seal,” Marlar says. The gold stamping has always been done by an outside vendor. But when the team saw toner foiling demos at the Expo, the wheels started turning.

“Seeing the ease of how they were doing stuff with that equipment in person just kind of solidified that, and we said ‘Yeah, we really need something like that,’” he says. “This will allow us to bring that in-house, make us more efficient, make us faster, more capable, and if there are any changes that need to be made, we can do that in-house. We don’t need to wait on a die getting created.”