Digital Printing-Toner - Cut Sheet (Color)

Student workers are a common sight at higher-ed in-plants, but it's rare to find one where 79 percent of the employees are students. That's the scenario at the Arizona State University Print & Imaging Lab.

IPG recently visited Canon's impressive 18,000-square-foot Customer Experience Center, in Boca Raton, Fla. for a tour of the facility and a peek at Canon's new monochrome mid-production digital press, the Océ VarioPrint DP 135.

Before adding a digital color press in 2010, Donna Cooper Horbelt says her in-plant at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) was not nearly as busy as she wanted it to be. "I was losing color copy business to everybody in town," recalls the director of Auxiliary Enterprises, Printing and Media Services. "Our quality just wasn't good enough."

Last month, Hewlett-Packard brought more than 100 graphic arts journalists from all over the world to Israel, home of its Indigo and Scitex divisions. Against this fascinating backdrop of history and diversity, HP unveiled 10 new digital systems, hoping to make some history of its own.

Next month, drupa 2012 will take over Düsseldorf, Germany. IPG asks industry observers David Zwang, Jim Hamilton, Noel Ward and Bill Lamparter what they expect to see there.

MGI Digital Graphic Technology will present a prototype of its new B2 (20x29") sheetfed UV inkjet press, the Alphajet, at drupa 2012. Commercial release of the six-color plus spot or flood UV coating machine is planned for 2013.

Hundreds of graphic arts journalists from all over the world converged on Tel Aviv, Israel, in mid March, to attend HP's Pre-drupa 2012 event. HP announced 10 new systems that it will introduce at drupa in May, including one that is reportedly the first offset-quality digital press in a B2 size format (29.5x20.9˝), the HP Indigo 10000.

IPG Editor Bob Neubauer visited the 18,000-square-foot Océ Customer Experience Center to see some of the newest Océ and Canon digital hardware and software systems.

Harlequin set up an in-house digital paperback book printing line, staffed by seven people over two shifts, that enables the in-plant to print and finish more than 1,000 paperback books per hour. To print the books, Harlequin selected a high-volume Océ VarioStream continuous-feed printer, a toner-based solution that prints almost 10,000 books in an eight-hour shift.

Northern Oklahoma College recently installed not one but three Ricoh Pro digital printers. Customers have fallen in love with the quality color work the in-plant is now able to produce.