Heidelberg

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota recently replaced its two-color Hamada with a used five-color Heidelberg GTO. “The new press can perfect two over three,” enthuses Lee J. Sperl, manager of Document and Publishing Solutions. “Almost everything we previously did on the Hamada that we traded in can now be perfected on the new press. This helped to provide a really quick ROI justification. We also found additional savings available in work that previously had to be outsourced due to a lack of open/available five-color capacity.” Sperl says the new press provides relief capacity for its other five-color GTO while absorbing a large portion

Getting film used to be, let’s say, a little inconvenient for the 13-employee Printing and Publishing department at Delaware’s Office of Management and Budget. For years the Dover, Del., in-plant had its film output by a commercial printer across town. “The film would come back to us and we’d strip it up and burn the plates here,” recounts Dustin Yerkes, shop supervisor. “For a job that we would have to send out for film, it could take a half day”—a whole day if that printer was busy. To eliminate this lag time once and for all, the in-plant recently installed a Heidelberg Quicksetter 300E computer-to-plate

Build Up Your Bindery

WHO SAYS nothing good is free? A number of industry suppliers offer excellent educational materials for printers at no cost. IPG asked around and collected a list of these complimentary publications, along with information on how you can order them. Among the leaders in producing free educational materials has been EFI. Its “ABC’s” series of books are a treasure for knowledge-starved in-plant managers. Among its titles: • “ABC’s of Proofing” • “ABC’s of Print MIS” • “ABC’s of VDP” • “ABC’s of Workflow” The latest, “ABC’s of Design for Digital Printing Guide,” is a 46-page, full-color book, which, like all EFI titles, is available for free download at

ALL IT TOOK was one awful binding job by an outside printer to make Auburn University start looking at perfect binding equipment. “We sent 200 books to a local printer and they messed them all up,” recalls CopyCat Manager Glenda Miley, still clearly peeved at that printer for charging her anyway. Her in-plant had to reprint all 200 books and send them elsewhere for binding—a big money loser overall. Miley realized her Auburn, Ala.-based in-plant could have saved the university lots of money if it had its own perfect binder. So one year ago, the shop installed a Duplo DB250. “We’ve never looked back,” she proclaims.

More than 50 printers traveled to Kennesaw, Ga., to attend a customer event at Heidelberg’s U.S. headquarters. The topic: “Straight Printing vs. Long Perfecting.” The event focused on helping printers determine which production process, and ultimately which equipment configuration, is best for their business. The event began with an in-depth look at Heidelberg’s Prinect integrated workflow and color management solutions and a virtual demonstration of a job passing through the Prinect workflow. Printers then “followed” the job to the pressroom for a series of live runs of the same job produced on two different presses: on the Speedmaster SM 102 10-color perfecting press in

EVERY IN-PLANT strives to be an asset to its parent organization. Spartan Stores’ Graphic Services department takes this even further. The in-plant’s 82 “associates” work tirelessly to give their parent company a strategic advantage over the competition in the wholesale and retail food distribution business. And what is this strategic advantage? Well, versatility for one. The in-plant provides so many services it can meet virtually any demand. It can take a job from design through fulfillment, while offering excellent customer service. Convenience and fast turnaround are other strategic advantages. The 36,000-square-foot in-plant is housed right at the Spartan Stores corporate office in Byron Center,

THE WORLD of the printing press has changed. Color printing once mandated longer runs because the setup time (makeready) was an hour or two. When the first direct imaging (DI) press was introduced in 1991, its makeready was at 20 minutes, and over time it came down to less than 10 minutes. Today older presses are at about 60 minutes for makeready. On newer presses, Komori has a user who was quoted with six-minute makereadies. Heidelberg introduced a press with a seven-minute make­ready—and heading to five minutes. MAN Roland customer Vista­Print boasts three-minute setups. KBA claims to be in the same league. A run

If you missed the National Government Publishing Association conference in Rochester, now you can get a feel for what it was like in a new video on the IPG Web site (www.ipgonline.com). Government in-plants from all over the country travelled to Rochester for the annual conference, where they not only attended educational sessions, but they visited the facilities of Xerox, Kodak and R.I.T. Bruce James, U.S. Public Printer, addressed the group at R.I.T., and part of his speech is captured in this 3.5-minute video. The video also offers some of the in-plant marketing ideas given in presentations.

The National Government Publishing Association (NGPA) spiced up its recent conference in Rochester, N.Y., with visits to Kodak, Xerox and R.I.T.