Mississippi State Takes One Giant Step

Scott Lipsey says his in-plant has just taken the first step to becoming a full-blown digital shop. And it's been one giant step.

The 30-employee shop, Mississippi State University Printing Services, purchased a Heidelberg QuickMaster DI Pro direct imaging press.

"We were doing four-color work on two one-color [Heidelberg] KORDs, and they were both over 30 years old," says Lipsey, the in-plant's QMDI specialist. "So we looked at this purchase as a way to get quick turnaround on four-color work."

Lipsey says jobs that used to take three or four days to complete, can now be handled in an hour thanks to the elimination of plate processing. Plates are now imaged right on the press. This has another advantage too:

"Near-precision registration," Lipsey says. "When a job comes out I have to move almost nothing."

Lipsey is also impressed with the short warm-up time. The press is up to color after about 100 copies, he says—and the color accuracy of the new machine is excellent.

The QMDI is a financial solution for the in-plant, as well. Lipsey says the shop had been losing a lot of potential revenue to outside printers.

"We couldn't turn jobs around fast enough," he says. "We were outsourcing. So now we're saving a lot of money."

The shop's customers have also noticed the difference.

"Customers knew our limitations, and they took their jobs elsewhere. Now they come to us," says Lipsey. "They're very impressed."

Right now, the new press is handling up to 40 percent of the shop's workload, he says. And there's more to the story, too. The shop recently added a two-color Heidelberg Printmaster press. That machine, says Lipsey, is designed to complement the QMDI, and provide a fifth color when necessary.

"By showing the university the amount of work that was going off campus, we showed that it could pay for itself," says Lipsey.