(This is the news story mentioned in the editor’s column. It was pulled from the print edition, but appears here with names removed.)

By Bob Neubauer

So much work had been flooding into one school district in-plant that the manager knew something had to be done. Test booklets, recruitment brochures, covers for student handbooks and many other items were testing the limits of the eight-employee in-plant’s equipment.

To handle the work, the shop recently added a long list of new equipment—including a Xerox iGen3—and built a 3,000-square-foot addition to house it all. New on the shop floor are:

• A Xerox iGen3 90 digital color press

• A second Kodak Digimaster 9110 with an inline bookletmaker

• A C.P. Bourg bookletmaker for the shop’s other 9110

• Two Konica Minolta 1050s, also with bookletmakers

• A Riso HC5000 105-page-per-minute ink-jet device

“We have so much short-run, and a need for fast-turnaround four-color,” notes the manager.

The shop began planning these upgrades almost two years ago, and budgeted for them long before state-wide budget cuts were implemented. Not only did the in-plant get good deals on the equipment, but the efficiencies of the new machines will end up saving the district money.

Deciding on the iGen3 was no easy task, the manager says. It involved trips to Rochester, N.Y., and Nashville to see equipment from Xerox, Kodak and HP.

“We spent about a year researching this,” he says. Having spent 30 years as a service technician, the manager wanted a machine that was not too labor intensive. By trading in a DocuColor, he was able to negotiate a good price from Xerox.

At about the same time, the in-plant was preparing to turn a portion of its paper warehouse into a plant addition. So the architect designed the new digital center around the iGen3, and included an HVAC climate control system and a humidifier to meet the iGen3’s requirements.

The iGen3 has been busy printing postcards, brochures, booklet covers, pocket folders, posters and more.

The iGen3 wasn’t the answer to all the shop’s color needs, though.

“We needed some ‘cheap’ color,” the manager explains. Thus the in-plant added the Riso HC5000, mostly to produce testing results sheets for parents, which include color graphs. The shop recently did a 105,000-piece mailing, all produced on the HC5000.

“The quality’s quite amazing,” lauds the manager. And the cost can’t be beat. “An 8.5x11˝ on this, at 50 percent coverage of the four-color, runs me about two cents, so it’s getting down there in black-and-white range.”

The second Kodak Digimaster 9110 was added out of necessity, the manager says.

“We have, over this last year, taken on quite a bit of work for our testing department,” he says, mostly due to state-mandated testing requirements. The new 9110 is helping meet that need.

Next up, the in-plant plans to produce variable data mailing pieces.

“Our artists are training on XMPie software right now,” he says.

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Bob Neubauer Author's page

Bob has served as editor of In-plant Impressions since October of 1994. Prior to that he served for three years as managing editor of Printing Impressions, a commercial printing publication. Mr. Neubauer is very active in the U.S. in-plant industry. He attends all the major in-plant conferences and has visited more than 180 in-plant operations around the world. He has given presentations to numerous in-plant groups in the U.S., Canada and Australia, including the Association of College and University Printers and the In-plant Printing and Mailing Association. He also coordinates the annual In-Print contest, co-sponsored by IPMA and In-plant Impressions.

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