Digital Printing-Digital Offset

Since overseeing the installation of a Presstek 34DI digital offset press last July, Al Goranson, manager of Imaging Services at the University of Colorado at Boulder, has achieved his goal of taking in more long-run, full-color work. “As our volume of four-color work continued to grow, especially in run lengths greater than 1,000, we needed something that could produce the work at a cheaper cost than our HP Indigo 3050 digital press,” recalls Goranson. “We had opportunities on longer runs that were just not economic to produce on the Indigo. That was why we chose the Presstek 34DI press.”

A year and a half ago, the University of Southern Indiana's Publishing Services operation was outsourcing 75 to 85 percent of its four-color work. This bothered Terri Bischoff, assistant director of Publishing Services, at the Evansville, Ind., school. She knew the university would be better served if her in-plant could gain control over this work, improve the quality and reduce turnaround times. To do this, though, would require some new equipment.

Quality, efficiency and cost. Those were the three areas that Penn State University’s Multimedia & Print Center (MPC) sought to improve when it recently installed a new Presstek 52DI digital offset press.

Missouri's State Printing Center has relocated, along with the state's mailing operation, into a 250,000-square-foot building about seven miles from the State Capitol. "Because so much of what we print gets mailed anyway, it's really nice to have us all here together," says State Printer Rodney Vessell.

Since installing a Rollem Auto 4 numbering system, the City of Spokane's in-plant can now do numbering for a variety of print jobs, including forms for the parks and recreation department and booklets for various city agencies.

In the summer of 2010, Leslie Rutledge moved from her position at San Diego State University, where she was manager of ReproGraphics, to head up the Graphic Services department at Brown University, in Providence, R.I. "Prior to my arrival, the university had undergone a reorganization, which had to be completed by June 30th," Rutledge says. Targeting redundancy, the university was combining administrative services to achieve greater efficiencies.

THE AFRICAN Methodist Episcopal Church (AMEC) Sunday School Union has been in continuous operation for 127 years, making it one of the oldest continuously operating black publishing companies in America. Located in Nashville, Tenn., it publishes a range of items to support more than 3,000 AME churches across the United States.

JUDGING BY the number of in-plant managers walking the Graph Expo show floor last month, there are quite a few in-plants itching to leave the recession behind and get busy adding equipment. The show gave them plenty to ogle, too, particularly in the inkjet arena.

One of the more exciting acquisitions for the Print Solutions department at BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee in 2011 was a new four-color Presstek 75DI digital offset press with an aqueous coater. It joined the Print Solutions family in May.

At the beginning of 2011, the in-plant at U.K.-based University of Essex, in Wivenhoe Park, rebranded itself as Print Essex. The 13-employee shop then strategically targeted a broader range of customers including those in the commercial market.