Kansas In-plant Ditches Offset, Adds Digital Press
For more than 40 years, the Kansas State High School Activities Association has run offset presses in its Topeka in-plant. Faced with aging equipment and a scarcity of parts, KSHSAA recently decided to make the move from analog to digital printing by adding an MGI Meteor DP8700 S.
“The Meteor S was the only digital printer that has the ability to meet all of our printing needs,” says Bob Maendele, IT director for KSHSAA. “We are able to print all of our 11x17˝ publications and posters, as well as print envelopes of all sizes, a key feature that attracted us the Meteor S. The versatility of the Meteor S is creating new opportunities for us. We are now looking at using synthetic materials to create passes and other new possibilities that were not available to us with offset.”
KSHSAA is an association of accredited member schools, whose purpose is to administer a program of interscholastic activities, festivals, clinics and contests among member schools. The association worked with Styers Equipment Co., an MGI certified dealer, to find a digital solution to meet its needs. After looking at several companies, KSHSAA decided the Meteor DP8700 S was the perfect fit, due to its versatility and speed.
“In the three months we have had the Meteor S in our print shop, we have already increased our color work by 30 percent, and I’m sure we will continue to add more,” continues Maendele. “In the past, we ran all process color work on a two-color offset press. So the time savings is tremendous. Not only is the quality ten times better than what we were generating, but we can now finish our color work in half the time.”
“We are beyond satisfied with the time savings and versatility, and are blown away by the quality," he concludes. "We have had several previous executive directors and employees of our office contact us saying that the new publications look the best they have seen in 20 years. They are just amazed at the quality of work that we are generating now on the Meteor DP8700 S.”