Workhorse Machine Helps Texas In-plant Avoid Outsourcing

When Derek Seim transitioned into his role of Printing Service manager at Texas Engineering Extension Service (TEEX) more than a year ago, he had to figure out what the in-plant needed to stay up and running. The Bryan, Texas-based shop installed a Xerox Nuvera 144 to produce more black-and-white work, as well as book covers, in-house. He knew it was then time to focus on overhauling the shop's bindery.

"We were able to produce an entire book, but we were being bottlenecked in the bindery," Seim recalls.

So in April 2010, TEEX installed a Sterling Punchmaster and a Sterling Coilmaster III, from Spiel Associates, to help handle the shop's heavy workload of coil-bound course books.

TEEX offers a range of technical and skills training programs aimed at employed workers and those entering the labor force. In 2010, TEEX provided training and technical assistance to more than 194,000 people from all 50 states, five U.S. territories, the District of Columbia and 56 countries. It is a member of The Texas A&M University System.

Seim notes that about 95 percent of the work the shop produces is curriculum-based, coil-bound books. Previously, the shop's GBC DigiCoil inserter could not keep up with the volume demands of the parent organization. A lot of the work was being outsourced.

"We needed durability because of the volume of curriculum—we needed something that was a workhorse," Seim contends. "The Punchmaster is running constantly. Other vendor's machines were built more for short runs. That wasn't the volume we were looking for."

Even if a print job is outsourced, the shop will now bring it back in, make its own coil and bind it in-house. "We pass on that cost savings to our agency," Seim points out.

The addition of the Sterling Punchmaster and Sterling Coilmaster III have allowed the shop to keep almost all of the binding work in-house, he boasts. Previously, about half of this work was outsourced.

The staff of seven full-time employees and seven student workers found the Punchmaster was easier to run than other equipment in the shop, Seim says, adding that several operators can run it while floating between different machines.

"The customers have seen the bottom line," Seim concludes. "Now that more bindery work is being done in-house, our customers have more in their budgets to spend on print."