The Xerox Color Press 800 Improves The Way One University Works

As your business grows and your workflow changes Xerox has a product family that grows with you. From business color to light production to full production, we can cover every aspect of your production printing requirements. 

A major University in the Northwest that had been using a Xerox 700 Digital Press for 5 years recently implemented the Color Press 800 and that has in turn changed their entire workflow.  By embracing change, this customer was able to expand their production offering to their customers, thus allowing them to grow their volume from 45,000 per month to 173,000 per month in the first six months.  With the Color Press 800 they were able to:

·       Move 20% of their offset short run press work to the new machine

·       Print on Heavier stocks, up to 350 gsm

·       Print on a variety of textured stocks because of the unique way the machine fuses

Because of these important improvements, they are able to increase their offerings to their customer base.  The University was also able to adjust their pricing structure, allowing their clients to send work previously done in black in white to color at a minimal increase. 

The biggest result of the installation was the production time improvements. Because the speed of the Color Press 800 is 80 Pages-Per-Minute on all media types, They were able to decrease those production times to one-third what they experienced from the Xerox 700 Digital Press. For example, one job that used to take the University 6 hours to setup and print was cut down to 1.5 hours because of the efficiency and the speed they now have with the Color Press 800.  As the customer stated “the Color Press 800 is a different class of machine.  Xerox has a niche between the light production and IGEN/Indigo world and no one else has anything like it.” 

Shana Crook - Northwest Group Production Specialist
www.ctx-xerox.com

The World of Color

The world of color can be a very tricky one to maneuver, especially if you are new to it.  If you have been spending a lot of money on outsourcing all of your marketing jobs and feel like you have reached the point where some of those less intense jobs could be done in-house, here are some things to think about.

1.) How do you design for digital printing? Make sure your graphic designer or marketing coordinator knows how to design for digital printing. This involves knowing your brand colors, understanding crop marks and bleeds and how to optimize your printing device to get more bang for your buck.

2.) What are your brand's colors and how do you keep them consistent? Understand the difference between RGB, CMYK, and Pantone Colors. Getting your monitor to look like your output device can be a tricky and costly for that matter but at least understanding why it doesn't can be very beneficial when designing as well.

3.) What is text, bond, cover, tag, and index? Paper! The world of paper can be quite confusing at first but once you figure out your top paper types for your jobs and where to get them, you will be in full swing.

4.) How will you print your jobs? Finding the right machine that will not only fit in your environment now but also grow with you as you get the hang of things and start bringing more jobs in-house is imperative.  Most digital presses are around for 3 to 5 years so make sure the one you get is the one that will fit with your company in 3 to 5 years.

5.) What is Finishing and Color Management? Finishing is basically printing lingo for finishing your document i.e. saddle-stitching, booklet fold, tri-fold etc.  Choosing whether it is more cost-effective to do this inline, offline or outsourcing is important to think about. It may be cost-effective to do offline but if it requires 4 hours of your employees time to do it, it may be better to outsource.  What about Color Management? Is the digital press that you bring in going to have some method of managing color, calibrating or creating profiles, or do you think that a normal business color machines is sufficient for your needs?

All of these items are important to think about when contemplating bringing jobs in-house but with the Northwest Group(QBSI, CTX, Pinnell) on your side we can help you maneuver through this so that you come out on the other side with all the information you need. Let us know!