Presstek Inc.

Tina Gray has managed the Oklahoma Department of Human Services' in-plant for 10 years, and she couldn't be happier. With a solid staff and an unforeseen passion for printing, Gray says the joys of the job outweigh the challenges by a long shot.

The World Bank’s Printing & Multimedia Services operation has become one of the first in-plants to install a production inkjet press. Last month, the 42-employee in-plant fired up an HP T230 Color Inkjet Web Press in its Landover, Md., facility, 11 miles away from downtown Washington, D.C. With duplex printing speeds of 400 feet per minute, the inkjet press is a quantum leap over the speeds of the in-plant’s two Kodak NexPress 3000s and Océ ColorStream 10000. In fact, the first job run on the T230—800 copies of a 92-page book—would normally have taken up to eight hours to print.

Commercial printer equipment installations and other news from Printing Impressions’ April 2013 edition, featuring Suttle-Straus Inc. and Ross Printing.

A sheetfed offset press is a big purchase for any in-plant. We talked with four managers who purchased presses in the past couple years to find out how they evaluated equipment, what they learned from the buying process and whether their press is working out as planned.

It's a familiar story: an organization needs the space occupied by its in-plant, so the in-plant is sent packing. Most of the time no studies are done on whether this is a cost-effective plan; an administrator just makes the call, leaving the in-plant's customers to deal with the aftermath as best they can.

Miami-based City Colors has acquired its third Presstek 52DI digital offset press. "By adding a third press and increasing the number of finishing lines, we can now offer same-day service to our trade customers at unbelievably competitive prices," relayed Miguel Infante of City Colors.

Commercial printing industry supplier company and personnel news from Printing Impressions’ February 2013 edition, featuring Xerox Corp., Appleton Coated, Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., DocuSource, C&W Pressroom Products, Central Ink, Xingraphics, MBO America, Roland DGA, Navitor Inc., Glunz & Jensen, NELA Ternes Register Group, Duplo USA, Eltosch America, DeVries, manroland sheetfed, Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI), xpedx, Printing Research Inc., Presstek Inc., Graphic Innovators and Pitney Bowes.

Here's a look at some of the latest computer-to-plate technology available to in-plants from companies like Fujifilm, Glunz & Jensen, Heidelberg, Kodak, Presstek, Xanté and more.

Moving from California to Iowa is a big change. But in 1988, Lori Fuller was ready for it. "I was kind of tired of California and the fast pace," says Fuller, now manager of Printing Services at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC). Plus, she admits, her boyfriend hailed from the Hawkeye State. So she put the beach behind her, enrolled at Iowa Western Community College and never looked back. Twenty-five years later, now a full-fledged Midwesterner, Fuller oversees an in-plant staff of 16 at UNMC, one of the nation's leading medical centers.

Prime Data has installed a Presstek 52DI digital offset press to reduce both the amount of print it outsources and its environmental footprint. "We were introduced to the Presstek 52DI and Presstek’s position on environmental sustainability at Graphics Canada in 2011, and we immediately recognized the advantages this press could bring to our operation," explains Steve Falk, president of Prime Data.