University of Arkansas Installs Xerox iGen3

Getting approval for a Xerox iGen3 wasn’t the hard part. Nor was the installation of the digital color press.

“The education [of customers] is what I’m finding will be our greatest challenge,” reveals Rich Bundsgaard, director of Print Mail Copy Solutions at the University of Arkansas. Specifically, he added, the 50-employee in-plant has to show customers how high-quality color work from the iGen3 can help them do their jobs better.

Since its installation just before Christmas, the iGen3 has been churning out on-demand color books and full-color course packs for professors who see the benefits (and cost effectiveness) of digital color. To keep the digital press busy, P•M•C Solutions has launched an educational program. The in-plant has produced marketing brochures that use both offset and digital printing so customers can compare the iGen3’s quality with that of the shop’s five-color 20x28˝ Komori.

The in-plant also hosted a lunch last month, with the support of Xerox, to educate its 30 biggest customers on the three main opportunities the iGen3 brings:

1 Converting monochrome jobs to color, and improving the quality of small jobs now being done on desktop printers or copiers.

2 Short-run, on-demand projects that the in-plant couldn’t handle in the past.

3 Variable data printing using the in-plant’s XMPie software.

So far, Bundsgaard notes, the iGen3 has not stripped any work from the shop’s offset presses, and he hopes to keep it that way.

“We never envisioned taking work away from our color machines,” he says.

Getting university approval for the iGen3 was not too difficult, he says, because upper management understands the important part the in-plant plays in maintaining the image of the University of Arkansas.

“Basically it was an easy sell,” he says. “They realize the value that our facility [provides].”