Printing Services at Virginia Tech adds Konica Minolta bizhub C6000 digital color press

By Julie Greenbaum

To address the need for short-run, high-quality color work, Printing Services at Virginia Tech, in Blacksburg, Va., installed a Konica Minolta bizhub C6000 digital color press in one of its two production centers in July. Configured with an EFI Fiery 9.0 RIP and a Fiery Command Workstation, the device has already increased the in-plant’s productivity.

“We love the C6000’s 1,200x1,200 resolution, as well as its ability to handle various stocks, paper weights, sizes and finishes,” declares Catherine Chambers, manager of Printing Services. “It also performs at much faster speeds, offers increased sizes of 5.5x8.5˝ up to 13x19˝, and has job storage and recovery, which saves on setup of regular jobs.”

With 19 employees, Printing Services manages Virginia Tech’s copier program, overseeing a fleet of 675+ Konica Minolta devices on campus and across the Commonwealth of Virginia.

“When we started looking into a high-resolution color device, we thought it just made sense to use the C6000 from our existing fleet of devices,” explains Chambers. Since Virginia Tech’s volume of copiers is so extensive, its vendor, Virginia Business Systems, has an office in the same building.

According to Chambers, the in-plant will soon transition work to the C6000 that is now being produced on other equipment, like its five-color Heidelberg Speedmaster and its Oki Data C9850 envelope printer (which will primarily print envelopes). The C6000 will be responsible for producing items like business cards, holiday cards, postcards, course-pack covers, student materials, booklets, posters, table tents, conference programs and student theses.

Since installing the bizhub C6000, the in-plant has gained new business from students in the school’s engineering and architecture program.

“Since most of the students’ drawings have very fine lines, we were not able to reproduce the detail of those projects with a bizhub 363 at 600x600,” Chambers notes. “The C6000 has allowed us to produce those projects, and we expect that business to grow. Our customers have also been raving about the quality and the quick turnaround time of the press.”

In the next couple of months, the in-plant also plans to install a tabber capable of meeting the USPS’s requirements for double and triple wafer seals.