School District Quadruples Curriculum Printing With Inkjet

What started as a solution to a carbonless paper feeding issue has blossomed into a major expansion in curriculum printing for the East Baton Rouge Parish School System’s in-plant.

Unhappy with the way his five-employee in-plant’s toner printer was feeding carbonless paper, Printing Services Director Chad Simpson invested in a Riso ComColor GL7430 inkjet printer in March, attracted by its low cost. After testing the 140-ppm printer on forms and deciding to upgrade to a high-capacity feeder and stacker, along with a Fiery controller, Simpson decided to experiment with printing curriculum materials. He found the color quality from the Riso to be much better than anticipated.

“Is it something you’re going to win awards with? Probably not,” he says, but for curriculum it looked great.

This led to the subsequent purchase of two 160-ppm Riso ComColor GL9730 inkjet printers, also with Fiery controllers and high-capacity feeders and stackers, as well as staplers. These were installed in May, and the in-plant’s curriculum printing took off.

Printing Services had been printing English language arts curriculum in black and white on its toner device for years, but the Riso printers allowed color to be added at virtually no additional cost, enhancing the look and the educational value of the materials.

“We are selling color at roughly the same price we were selling black-and-white a year ago,” says Simpson. “The Riso machines have significantly expanded our low-cost color capabilities and provided tremendous value.”

The in-plant’s success with those materials enabled it to start printing curriculum for social studies and science, which were previously printed elsewhere.

“We anticipate printing approximately 15 million pages across the three units in the first year,” Simpson predicts. That’s roughly four times as much volume in curriculum as Printing Services was producing previously.

Curriculum materials range from 16-page packets, which are stapled, to 150-page perfect bound books. Covers are printed on the shop’s Canon imagePRESS V1000, UV coated on a Duplo coater, and then sent to a local bindery business for perfect binding. Inkjet costs are lower than toner costs, Simpson says — about 0.7 cents per letter-sized color image.

“The consistency throughout the run is really good,” he lauds. “Your first print looks like your last print.”

Simpson’s first experience with production inkjet has been a success. He loves the near-instant warm-up times of the Riso printers due to their oil-based ink not needing heat for drying. Though they can’t print on coated or synthetic media, for a shop like his that sticks with 20-lb. bond, they are working well. And because they plug into a standard 110-volt outlet, he says, site prep and installation were simple.

Simpson credits the three Riso inkjet printers with greatly expanding both his business and his future opportunities.

“It’s going to give me a huge volume boost,” he says. “It gets my fingers more into the curriculum. That’s where all the large-volume, long-run jobs are.”