Printing Services at California State University San Bernadino adds Standard Horizon, Perfecta, Riso equipment

The last time Printing Services at California State University at San Bernadino (CSU-SB) bought a new paper cutter, computers weren’t even a household staple in the U.S. Instead, the in-plant kept repairing its aging Challenge MB 305 paper cutter. Last year it spent $8,000 in parts alone.
The in-plant has upgraded in other areas. Over the past five years it has gone from analog to digital copiers, added a four-color press and updated the whole shop. This year, it was the bindery’s turn.

“It was time,” remarks Laura Sicklesteel, manager of Printing Services at CSU-SB.

The in-plant replaced its Challenge cutter with a Perfecta 76 HTVC, which Sicklesteel describes as “hands down the best small cutter on the market.” She adds that safety had become a concern as increasingly more pieces of the old Challenge cutter were coming apart, and that the in-plant can’t go a day without using the cutter.

In April, Printing Services installed a new James Burn Lhermite DocuPunch to replace an old GBC Streampunch that was fond of jamming. Sicklesteel couldn’t be happier.

“It’s wonderful,” she enthuses. “You set up a 1,000 pieces of paper and walk away. It doesn’t slow down and knows when to stop. It’s a dream.”

Completing the bindery upgrade was a new Standard Horizon system, including an SPF-200A stitcher/folder, an FC 200 face trimmer and a 10-bin air-fed VAC-100A collator. Before this was installed in June, the staff or student interns would do the booklet making work by hand, which would take up both time and money.

“We can do 250 10-page books in 20 minutes,” Sicklesteel says. “It’s making our life a whole lot easier. I don’t have to worry about human error; automation is the way to go.”

The in-plant also added a new duplicator for its short-run carbonless jobs. Its old Savin/Ricoh JP 8500 wasn’t registering and Sicklesteel couldn’t depend on it. Now the shop has a Riso 390, which Sicklesteel says is much more dependable for an in-plant that has a turnaround time of a day or less for the majority of its work. Of that work, almost 75 percent arrives via the in-plant’s Web site.

In the face of budget cuts totaling $685 million from California’s state university system, Sicklesteel acted just in time to receive justification for the bindery upgrade. However, it is a chargeback environment, so funds received from services go into a pool to purchase new equipment. The money the in-plant receives from the university is in the form of payment for facility usage and its eight full-time employees. Printing Services has no actual budget.

The in-plant produces brochures, marketing materials, music and theater programs, lab manuals, carbonless forms, letterhead, business cards, exams and commencement materials for the university. It also handles wide-format printing, CD/DVD duplication and scanning. About 40 percent of the shop’s work is offset, using two- and four-color Heidelberg presses, plus a two-color Halm Super Jet Plus envelope press.

Overall, with four pieces of equipment installed in a year’s time, Sicklesteel reflects on past installs and says the bindery upgrade was one of the easiest she has ever participated in and that it was well worth the effort.

“They’re quiet. They’re efficient. They’re easy to train on,” she says.