Digital Printing-Toner - Cut Sheet (Color)

Two-color printing had never been a problem for Tuomey Healthcare System’s two-employee Print Shop. Its Riso MZ790 digital duplicator did a great job printing two-color flyers, envelopes and other items needed by the Sumter, S.C.-based hospital. But Graphic Artist Lisa Reardon was ready to move beyond just two colors. “We’ve always wanted to do full color,” she says.

in July, the in-plant for the City of Henderson, Nev., installed a new Xerox iGen4 digital color press. The shop traded in its Xerox DocuColor 250, along with a Xerox DocuColor 5252 and a DocuTech 6135, keeping its lease costs for the iGen4 the same. So far the iGen4 has done an excellent job printing promotional materials for the Department of Cultural Arts and Tourism. The cost savings have been noticeable.

A FEW years back, Parma City School District's in-plant faced a dilemma. The 13,000-student district, just south of Cleveland, wanted spot color on some of its documents, but the in-plant's equipment could not cost effectively provide it. Its Xerox DocuColor 8000 was up to the task, but page costs for spot color would be high. Likewise, inking up the shop's two-color presses would be expensive for short runs.

2009 was a harsh year for business. Print volumes seemed to be down in most industries with the exception of education. Print volumes also seem to be down for most job types, with the exception of color marketing materials. My prediction is that direct mail jobs will drop and then rise later in the year. The drop will be because, despite the best marketing efforts, people just aren't buying yet and marketing budgets will be depleted.

After getting by for the past couple of decades with minimal investment, Ashland University Printing Services has carried out some major equipment upgrades, allowing the shop to bring a significant amount of printing back in-house. About a year and a half ago, the Ashland, Ohio-based university invested in a new four-color Heidelberg Speedmaster 52, along with a Heidelberg Suprasetter computer-to-plate device with Prinect workflow. At the same time, the shop replaced its aging Baum folder with a 20˝ Stahl folder from Heidelberg. 

Last month, OKI Data Americas invited IPG to its Mt. Laurel, N.J., facility for a sneak peek at several new color printers it was about to unveil for the graphic arts market. Long a supplier of LED technology to other graphic arts equipment vendors, OKI has made a name for itself in the office products environment. Now the company is moving into the production color printing environment too, directly challenging the existing suppliers of digital color printers. 

FOR THE in-plant at the Research and Curriculum Unit (RCU) at Mississippi State University, there's always something new to learn about printing—and something new to print about learning.

If you are working with direct mail marketing, e-mail marketing (with or without PURLs), mobile media marketing, transpromo or collateral fulfillment and you are trying to personalize the material to improve the response, then you know it is not easy to pull it all together.

At the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture, the decision to switch from offset to digital was a practical one. "We had a 20x28˝ Sakurai offset press and some smaller Hamadas, but we couldn’t find any press operators,” remarks Jon Flaxman, director of Printing Services for the Little Rock, Ark., school. “So we just made the decision, we are going to go totally digital.” In October, the four-employee in-plant installed a new Kodak NexPress S2500 digital color press with a fifth imaging station. So far it has exceeded Flaxman’s hopes. “We definitely now get more consistent color than we’ve ever had,” he contends.

IPG Editor Bob Neubauer recently visited four different New York City in-plants to learn about their operations.