University of North Texas Adds Second HP Indigo

When the University of North Texas installed an HP Indigo 3050 a few years ago, it was a huge success. Almost too huge.

“We’d migrated approximately 65 percent of our work over to the Indigo. Because of that...the number of orders caused us to have quite a backlog,” recounts Jimmy Friend, director of Printing/Eagle Images/Mail Services at the Denton-based university. “So we were bringing in staff at 5:00 in the morning and we were running continuously through the day. Then on some Saturdays we even had to come in.”

All this overtime was getting costly. So Friend decided to eliminate it entirely by adding a second digital press—an HP Indigo 5500. Printing 68 full-color pages per minute, the six-color 5500 boasts offset quality, with resolutions of 1,200 dpi and zero dot gain.

“It’s working out really great,” lauds Friend.

Already it has been used to print a high-quality brochure for the university president’s cabinet. Of course, the quality expectations of the in-plant’s customers are already pretty high. The shop has won numerous In-Print awards over the years with work printed on its 3050. In the 2008 contest, it earned three Gold, two Silver and a Bronze thanks to the 3050—more than any other in-plant won in the non-offset categories.

Though happy with its 3050, the in-plant still looked at other vendors’ printing devices and benchmarked with their users before making the decision to get the 5500.

The new digital press is just one of many changes—recent and impending—at the 48-employee in-plant. It also recently implemented the Avanti Print Management System with numerous modules, including Estimating, Order Entry, Fulfillment, Scheduling, Reporting, Shop Floor Data Collection, Purchasing and Inventory, Executive Information and Customer Relations Management. Using Order Entry, job tickets are created automatically and follow the job through production.

Eventually, the in-plant plans to send JDF information through the Avanti system to the 5500. Avanti is now writing the Indigo JDF interface to the in-plant’s specifications. The in-plant also purchased and is working to implement Avanti’s eAccess Internet Modules, which include Variable Forms Templates, Internet Order Entry, Order Fulfillment and Order Queries.

To enhance its printed pieces, the in-plant just added an Epic CT 660 offline coater. It can handle pages from 12x18˝ to 20x26˝, Friend says. The coater will be used for digital jobs like postcards, book covers and posters. The coating will not only augment the look of printed pieces, it will protect items being sent through the mail stream.

The biggest changes for the in-plant are yet to come. Starting this month, it will be moving into a new facility. Prepress will move in June and the digital print center will relocate in July. Stay tuned for details.