Upgrades Reshape World Bank In-plant

Even as its new Presstek 52DI direct imaging press brings World Bank Printing Services into the short-run four-color offset market, the busy in-plant is expanding its digital printing business with the addition of Océ and Kodak equipment. The new capabilities, all added within the past six months, have caused a reshuffling of work inside the 41-employee Washington, D.C.-based operation.

The July addition of a two-color Océ 9220 roll-fed printer allowed the in-plant to move black-and-white book text and other short-run web jobs off of its web presses. At the same time, longer-run book pages were transferred to the 9220 from the shop’s cut-sheet digital devices. As a bonus, the Océ printer can print on coated web stock, opening up new possibilities. The in-plant is in the process of adding a third color to the 9220.

In August, the in-plant installed a second Kodak NexPress digital printer.

“We’d run out of capacity on the first one,” explains Jane Bloodworth, business manager of the World Bank’s Printing, Graphics and Map Design unit. The new NexPress 2500 came with five-color capabilities and a NexGlosser unit, important features to the in-plant, she adds.

In November, the Presstek 52DI came in, joining the shop’s existing two-color Shinohara.

“We do a fair bit of long-run two-color work on that Shinohara,” says Bloodworth. But the older press isn’t long for this world, she acknowledges, and the jobs it runs are too long for the NexPress. So that work will be moved to the 52DI, along with four-color work that World Bank was previously outsourcing.

The in-plant decided to go with direct imaging technology mostly because it wanted to get out of the platemaking business. Once the Shinohara is gone, only the Harris web will need plates, Bloodworth says, and that press will eventually be phased out.

“So I would only be supporting a platemaking operation for one press,” she notes.

So far she is pleased with all of the new digital and offset devices.

“The combination of added capabilities they give us should enable us to have great flexibility and allow us to run a wider variety of work very cost effectively,” she notes.