Traditional Envelope Press Beats Out Digital at UT Austin
With parts becoming harder to find for its 19-year-old Whitacre Super Speed envelope press, The University of Texas at Austin went on a search for a new one. Director Richard Beto made the trip to Washington, D.C., this past spring for the On Demand show to look at some of the digital envelope presses on the market. But he felt they just didn’t have the quality and versatility of a traditional envelope press.
So in July, the 43-employee in-plant installed a two-color Halm Super Jet Press JP-TWOD-6D.
“Now we not only can do envelopes, but letterheads, business cards, invitations, post cards and announcements,” notes Nicolette Mallow, marketing and communications coordinator.
The Halm can run full bleeds up to 12 3⁄4x18 1⁄8, and prints 60,000 envelopes per hour.
“It’s just really improved the turnaround rate,” says Mallow.
Beto notes that there is still a large demand for static envelopes at the university, so the variable data capabilities of a digital envelope press were not so alluring. Plus, he adds, the quality of printing on the Halm is much higher. The UT seal, for example, comes out far clearer on the Halm; on a digital device, minor details get lost.
The in-plant has been marketing its new capabilities by offering discounts on envelopes and touting the press on its Facebook page.
The shop also recently replaced its 30-year-old Polar Mohr cutter with a used Polar 115 cutter with a jogger. It purchased the cutter from UT-Arlington.
“The new cutter is half the age of the old one and increases [our] productivity,” notes Mallow. “It improves the quality and the ease of operation, and it reduced the chance of injuries to staff.”
These purchases are part of a strategy the in-plant has been employing over the past year of enhancing its capabilities by adding used equipment, rather than waiting to get funding for new equipment. This way, Beto says, the in-plant gets what it needs sooner and can improve its performance now rather than later.
- People:
- Nicolette Mallow
- Richard Beto
- Places:
- Austin
- Washington, D.C.
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.
