Inkjet in the Education Sector

Standing with one of the two new Xerox Baltoro HF cut-sheet inkjet presses at Frisco Independent School District Print, Mail and Sign Center are (from left) Manager Sherri Broderick; Production Specialists Karin Whitworth, Kelley Coonce, and Judy Brewster; and Jason Almand, manager of print services and operations.

It started in Houston. Back in 2016, Houston Independent School District Printing Services was the first educational in-plant to take a chance on production inkjet when it installed a Canon VarioPrint i300.

“We invested in inkjet because it’s a much faster, more efficient, more reliable and significantly more cost-effective print production process than competing xerographic imaging technology,” said Chuck Werninger, senior manager of Administrative Services, at the time.

That installation inspired numerous other K-12 in-plants to climb on board the inkjet train. Many of them did it to cost effectively print curriculum materials and save their districts thousands of dollars. Districts like Hemet Unified, Jurupa Unified, and Placentia-Yorba Linda in California; Cypress Fairbanks and Frisco Schools in Texas; Omaha Schools; and most recently Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools, have all installed inkjet presses.

With the new Kyocera TASKalfa Pro 15000c inkjet press at Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District are (from left) Robert Arauz, print shop & warehouse supervisor; Andrea Ayala, clerk; and Greg Ribeiro, print shop technician.

For the longest time, however, college and university in-plants just watched and waited. They attended the Inkjet Summit, they asked questions, but no one made a move. Finally, in 2019, Brigham Young University put one in, but it was for a specialized book printing application not typical for most higher-ed shops.

Standing with the Canon varioPRINT iX3200 sheetfed inkjet press at Iowa State University Printing Services are (from left) Sam Gibson, Marty Grapp, Christy Hand, Nathan Thole, Renae Lowe, and Alan Swanson.

It wasn’t until 2022, when Iowa State University installed a Canon varioPRINT iX3200 sheetfed inkjet press as a toner replacement tool that a higher-ed in-plant finally began using inkjet for standard materials like brochures, magazines, flyers, curriculum, transactional statements, and stationery.

From left: State Printer Tim Hendrix and Secure Print Team leads Michael Morrow and Josh Stone stand with the State of Oregon’s new Ricoh Pro VC60000 continuous-feed inkjet press. Since then, there has been a sudden flood of university installations: the University of Tennessee, University of Nebraska, Oregon State University, and University of Minnesota all added inkjet in 2023. At next week’s Inkjet Summit, the University of Oklahoma will be back for the second time, and the University of Utah will also be there to learn about inkjet. They’ll be joined by five K-12 shops: Omaha Schools, Jurupa Unified, Hemet Unified, Sarasota County Schools, and the Region 7 Education Service Center. (Three of those have inkjet already and want more.) Toner has been the old reliable technology for in-plants for many years now, but it’s not where the manufacturers are putting their R&D money. They are betting on inkjet, and focusing most of their efforts on improving its quality, speed, and substrate choices. As attendees will learn at next week’s Inkjet Summit, inkjet press options are exploding, and presses are available at numerous price points to suit many different needs. Looking into inkjet isn’t something your in-plant should keep putting off. As Nathan Thole, director of Iowa State University Printing Services, said in our article about his shop’s new inkjet press: “Inkjet is the future. I can’t think of a better time to get into it.”