Networking Group Guides In-plant Into Inkjet

By Bob Neubauer

When Mike Griswold joined an online group of K-12 in-plant managers, he felt a little out of his league. Started by Chuck Werninger, then manager of Houston Independent School District’s 26-employee in-plant, the group met weekly via Teams to discuss their production challenges. Griswold, with a staff of four at Tacoma Public Schools Printing & Graphics, spent a lot of time listening.

“I got more from them than they got from me, that’s for sure,” he admits.

One thing that made his ears perk up was when group member Chad Simpson, director of Printing Services at East Baton Rouge Parish School System, added three Riso ComColor inkjet printers to print forms and curriculum materials. Since Griswold’s shop was also printing those items, he asked Simpson a lot of questions. As a direct result, Printing & Graphics recently installed a Riso ComColor GL9730 in its 4,000-sq.-ft. facility, 35 miles south of Seattle.

“Inkjet is our wave of the future,” he says. Between October and December his shop has printed 200,000 impressions on the Riso, mostly curriculum and carbonless forms.

Having installed a Ricoh Pro C7210 in June 2022, the in-plant can now offer different levels of color printing, he says.

“The goal … was to have a business color and then a premium color version,” he notes. “I thought that it would be great to have a low-cost color option so that we could help the schools and be more … cost conscious.”

Located on the second floor of the Tacoma School District Central Administration Building, the in-plant prints an array of work for the school district and its 64 schools and learning centers: yearbooks, business cards, newsletters, brochures, programs, custom wrapping paper, and wide-format posters mounted to foam core or laminated.

The inkjet press wasn’t the only recent installation at Tacoma Public Schools Printing & Graphics, though. The shop replaced two Canon VarioPrint 6200 Ultra+ monochrome printers with a Canon VarioPrint 6220 Titan and a Canon varioPRINT 140 series QUARTZ, both with in-line bookletmakers. It also beefed up its bindery with a new Duplo DB-290 perfect binder and a James Burn AlphaDoc MK-4 punch.

The perfect binder replaces a 10-year-old model, and brings many improvements, Griswold says.

“It’s so much better and faster,” he remarks.

It produces books up to 1.6″ thick and up to 360 cycles per hour. Its clamp automatically adjusts to the thickness of the book, it applies hot-melt EVA glue to the spine and sides, and it vacuums up paper dust, leaving a cleaner workspace.

The AlphaDoc replaces an old punch that hasn’t worked in a year, Griswold says.

“We won’t have to buy any more pre-punched paper,” he rejoices. “You can load it up and walk away from it.”

Adding this new equipment caps Griswold’s 21-year career with Tacoma Public Schools, which is also his alma mater. He is retiring in December, turning the reigns over to Amy Anderson, and leaving behind an in-plant well prepared for the future.

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Bob Neubauer Author's page

Bob has served as editor of In-plant Impressions since October of 1994. Prior to that he served for three years as managing editor of Printing Impressions, a commercial printing publication. Mr. Neubauer is very active in the U.S. in-plant industry. He attends all the major in-plant conferences and has visited more than 180 in-plant operations around the world. He has given presentations to numerous in-plant groups in the U.S., Canada and Australia, including the Association of College and University Printers and the In-plant Printing and Mailing Association. He also coordinates the annual In-Print contest, co-sponsored by IPMA and In-plant Impressions.