World Bank Sustainable Development
The new NexPress at World Bank Printing Services is filling in service gaps, providing variable output and winning awards.
By Mike Llewellyn
TWO YEARS ago, when she was looking for ways to bring short-run color more effectively into the World Bank's Washington, D.C.-based in-plant, Jane Bloodworth considered her options: the Heidelberg NexPress 2100, the Xerox iGen3 or HP-Indigo digital color presses.
"The iGen wasn't available, and we found some concerns with the Indigo," says, Bloodworth, business manager of the World Bank's Printing, Graphics and Map Design unit. "We found that the NexPress brought a lot more flexibility." Not to mention a lower cost per copy, she adds.
So the 79-employee operation went with the NexPress. Since that time the in-plant has produced countless quality color jobs, and it even won a pair of In-Print 2003 awards—one for brochures and one for direct mail. Now, with 23,550 digital print jobs under its belt this year alone, the in-plant is one of the leaders in digital printing and ranks 24th on the 2003 IPG Top 50.
The World Bank, explains Bloodworth, is a development bank chartered by the United Nations to serve as a lender to Third World nations seeking economic development. The role the in-plant plays in that mission is vital.
"We're very key to the document process," asserts Bloodworth. "We print all of the documents used to evaluate projects, and a lot of collateral materials."
It's important for the World Bank to maintain an in-plant, says Bloodworth, because confidentiality is a major concern for the organization.
"Most of the World Bank documents become public information after they've appeared for the Board, but before that, security is very important," she says.
Book Covers And Beyond
The in-plant started the NexPress out printing book covers, since its two-color Shinohara was having a tough time producing the large number of short-run book jobs coming in the door.
"We've expanded well beyond covers," notes Bloodworth. "We're doing an awful lot of color. We're now in excess of two million impressions."
Essentially, the NexPress covers the gamut of the digital service offerings Bloodworth wanted the in-plant to provide.
"We had a real gap between what we could do on high-end offset and what we could do digitally," she says, noting that in addition to filling the gap in short-run digital color, the NexPress also brought with it the ability to handle personalization.
"We do some variable data printing now," she says. "Some watermarking of documents, or a simple name and address."
But what Bloodworth is really interested in pursuing, she says, is variable data marketing materials.
"We have some units [in the Bank] that do marketing, and we want to be able to provide more specific targeting," she says, adding that multilingual conferences and the materials they require also promise to be a big source of work for the new printer.
Like any in-plant, this one has a mandate to bring its parent the highest quality printing at the lowest possible price.
"The goal for us is to always be at or below market value," says Bloodworth, explaining that the cost of printing is just part of the program of service that the in-plant offers the World Bank.
"We've gone through a lot of changes over the past seven years. We try to capture our client's needs and we try to respond to those needs," she says.
And the customer's response to the NexPress? Bloodworth says it has been very positive.
"We try to keep up with the technology that will drive costs down and cut time," she says.
To that end, the shop has just purchased and installed a Horizon CABS binding line.
"People are aware [of the installations] and they really appreciate the increased technology," she says.
That awareness can no doubt be attributed in part to the quality work the shop turns out, to which the two In-Print awards are a testament.
