Digital Printing-Toner - Cut Sheet (Color)

AS RANDY Smith sees it, the only way his in-plant can ensure a quick response to its customers’ needs is by doing the work in-house—and that means having the necessary equipment on hand, ready for action. “I try so hard to do as much as I can under this one roof,” says Smith, director of University Printing Services at Texas Tech University. In pursuit of that goal, the 35-employee in-plant has added an impressive array of equipment over the last few months. At the top of the list is a new HP Indigo 5500. Installed in late July, it is the in-plant’s first digital color press.

When Slippery Rock University installed a new Xerox 5000 last June, color copies jumped from 16,000 to 38,000 a month. “Everybody loves the quality,” says Sharon Isacco, manager of the five-employee in-plant, in Slippery Rock, Pa. Still, she knew the programs and brochures being printed on the 5000 could look a lot better if the shop upgraded its bindery equipment.

Late getting into digital color, Arkansas State University Printing Services has just installed a Xerox 700 color printer. According to David Maloch, assistant director, the choice was anything but a snap decision.Equipped with sheetfed presses as well as a Fairchild NewsKing web press for printing the student newspaper and class schedules, the nine-employee Jonesboro-based operation could not accommodate the growing number of short-run color jobs, Maloch says. So to find the best digital printer, Printing Services managed to convince three different vendors to install their competing machines for month-long trial runs, one after the other, at no cost to the in-plant.

InfoPrint Solutions Co., a joint venture between IBM and Ricoh, today announced it is launching its high-speed digital color cutsheet solution for the mid-market, the InfoPrint Pro C900. This adds to its portfolio of digital color printers driving the continual growth of color across enterprises of all sizes.

In preparation for our January cover story, IPG editor Bob Neubauer visited World Bank's Washington, D.C., Printing, Graphics and Map Design unit. A video showing some of the equipment in this 70-employee in-plant is now on IPG's home page.

In addition to showing the shop's two Kodak NexPress digital presses, its Presstek 52DI press and its Océ equipment, the video offers a glimpse of the World Bank's Harris web press, cranking out large runs of documents.

San Diego State University has transformed their in-plant shop by effectively using their Presstek 34DI digital offset press in conjunction with a HP Indigo toner-based press. By implementing a hybrid workflow SDSU is able to provide the highest-quality work in a timely manner very cost effectively.

To be successful, printers must learn to manage their businesses in a manner that addresses today’s market conditions. One of the challenges this presents is a reconfiguration of the print production platform to efficiently and cost effectively produce the full gamut of run lengths.  This white paper authored by WhatTheyThink.com’s Cary Sherburne discusses how to meet this requirement.

Tod Pike is the new president of Canon Business Solutions, a subsidiary of Canon U.S.A. He has been senior vice president and general manager of Canon U.S.A.’s Imaging Systems Group since May 1999.

Prior to serving in this role, he served as president of Office Equipment and executive vice president and general manager of the Imaging Systems Group at Canon Canada. Pike began his Canon career in 1993 as an executive vice president with MCS Business Machines (now part of CBS), and was promoted to president.

PODi, the Digital Printing Initiative, is pleased to announce the 2009 winners of the annual PODi Best Practices Awards. These highly anticipated awards recognize outstanding examples of digital print and variable data strategies. The awards will be presented at the 2009 PODi AppForum digital print conference in Las Vegas at the Rio Hotel, January 19-21. AppForum attendees will be treated to a first detailed look at the case studies and a chance to hear from the winners.

December 22, 2008—Xplor International, the worldwide electronic document systems association, today outlined their annual Global Conference and Exhibition in Tampa Bay, Florida, March 4-7, 2009. The 2009 event, themed Trends in Customer Communications, will provide attendees with a series of examples and best practices that have successfully driven revenue while reducing cost at leading companies.