Fox Valley Trades iGen3 for NexPress

For more than two decades, Fox Valley Technical College has used Xerox copiers and printers, both in its seven-employee in-plant and all around campus. That all changed in June when, after a thorough review of its document output devices, the Appleton, Wis., college replaced all of its Xerox equipment with Ricoh devices.

“Ricoh was a better fit,” explains Shana Farrell, manager of Printing Services, who says the school liked Ricoh’s approach to document output management.

As part of the contract, her in-plant’s Xerox equipment was also exchanged for Ricoh and Kodak devices. The biggest change was replacing a Xerox iGen3 with a Kodak NexPress SE2500—a big change, but one that brought several advantages, Farrell says. These include Kodak Dimensional Printing, a process that creates a clear “raised” layer on top of a page element, and a NexGlosser near-line glossing unit, which will eliminate the need for most laminating.

In addition, the in-plant has traded its Xerox DocuTech 115 and Nuvera 120 for two Kodak Digimasters (a 138 and a 150) with in-line finishing. The shop also added a Ricoh Pro C900 color printer and two Ricoh 907 monochrome printers as backup devices. All of the in-plant’s new digital equipment has been placed in its Digital Print Center.

Around campus, the new contract included numerous inkjet printers and stand-alone devices. Also new, Farrell says, is a chargeback system for the networked units, using PCS Director from Print Audit. She hopes this accountability will help drive more work to the in-plant. The college also plans to implement a pay-for-print system for cost-recovery purposes.

On the software side, the in-plant moved from PrintShop Mail to Printable’s FusionPro 7.0 with a DirectSmile plugin. Farrell looks forward to using the variable data software’s ability to produce variable images. The in-plant also exchanged its Xerox Digipath makeready software for Alto Imaging software and switched from Xerox FreeFlow Web Services 5.0 to WebCRD from Rochester Software Associates.

The in-plant, which also boasts two-color Sakurai and A.B.Dick offset presses, is fortunate in that it has the use of a five-color Heidelberg Speedmaster 74 press, which was formerly used in the college’s printing program. Using this, the shop has been able to bring more offset jobs back in-house.

Farrell plans to use the marketing expertise of Ricoh and Kodak to show customers how they can use the in-plant’s new capabilities to their advantage.

“We’re going to be educating our customers on what’s in it for them, and how we can save them money and make their jobs easier,” she says.