Overheard at ACUP...

Last month’s ACUP conference in Clearwater, Fla., was a great opportunity for in-plant managers to share their stories. Most of them have been very busy back home and had a lot to talk about.

IPG Editor Bob Neubauer spoke with as many attendees as he could corner, to find out what’s been happening in their in-plants. Here’s what a few of them have been up to:

• The University of Tennessee is replacing its four-color Heidelberg with a new four-color, 40˝ Heidelberg XL-105 with in-line coating and an image control system. The shop also purchased a pile turner for press stock preparation.

• California State University-Fullerton has added a Kodak NexPress 2100.

• San Diego State University recently upgraded from an HP Indigo 1050 to a 5000. The in-plant is also switching from Printers Plan shop management software to Avanti.

• The Medical University of South Carolina added a Xerox iGen3 in January, as well as two Nuvera black-and-white printers.

• The University of Delaware swapped its Xerox 2060 for a new Xerox 7000 color printer. The in-plant also added a new Hasler tabber.

• The University of New Mexico just replaced its Xerox Nuvera with a Xerox DP75 and a Xerox 4127, which will handle tabs much better.

• Cuyahoga Community College recently did a road show, visiting customers and showing them what the in-plant can do. The staff talked about the shop’s capabilities, like a new Xerox 8000, which has been very productive, and a new wide-format printer, which has been producing a lot of signs. As a result, many new customers are bringing work to the in-plant.

• The University of Nebraska-Lincoln installed a new Konica Minolta LD-6500 digital color printer in July.

• Washburn University replaced a five-year-old Canon IR 105 with a remanufactured IR 105.

• Purdue University installed a 65˝ Xerox wide-format printer. This followed the addition of a custom-built Böwe Bell + Howell intelligent inserter in November. Next up: a Web-based job submission system.

• The University of Missouri-Columbia added a second wide-format printer—an Epson 9880 Stylus Pro—due to lots of new wide-format business. The shop also switched from Kodak’s Brisque workflow to its Prinergy workflow and has started using Kodak Sword Thermal CTP plates.

• Pennsylvania College of Technology is preparing to switch to a new Heidelberg processless plate that will be introduced at Drupa. The plate will be used on the shop’s Prosetter 52.

• The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, will soon add a Screen (U.S.A.) computer-to-plate device.

• The University of Maryland is about to go live with e-Pace for online job submission of business cards, envelopes, letterhead and more.

• The University of Massachusetts-Boston went live with Avanti’s eAccess module about six months ago. Web submissions are increasing steadily, so the shop recently added the Avanti Customer Representative Module to help manage the volume.

• The University of Texas at Austin just upgraded its Hagen shop management system. It is helping to move jobs through the shop faster and reducing paper work.

• At the University of Colorado-Boulder, the in-plant took over bulk mail in March, just after the arrival of new director, Tom Tozier, formerly of UC Santa Cruz.

• The University of Maine is preparing to add a campus mail center in the fall.

• Temple University has renovated one of its copy centers and reopened it as a retail outlet.

• McGill University Health Centre in Montreal is preparing to merge and relocate two of the in-plants serving its hospitals. Negotiations are being conducted with Xerox to upgrade equipment, and Web submission software is on the horizon.