Device Spotlight – Meet the Xerox Versant 3100

Is your organization ready to achieve optimal workflow efficiency through high-impact automation?

Making the jump from conventional multifunction devices to a full-fledged production printer is a big decision. It's also cause for celebration – installing a printing press like the Xerox Versant 3100 is a sure sign of expansion and growth.

This printer uses state-of-the-art technology to deliver unparalleled performance. With breakneck print speeds capable of approaching 100 pages per minute, automatic color calibration, and support for ultra-high-resolution printing, this device is in a class all of its own.

The Versant 3100 combines several innovative Xerox technologies to produce results that competing models cannot match. It outperforms every other printer in its price range in key areas of automation, paper handling, and image resolution.

With the ability to deliver up to 250,000 pages per month of vivid, high-resolution print with unprecedented image consistency, it is the top choice for discriminating enterprises and organizations. It will give you the power you need to move marketing and promotional material processes entirely in-house, generating significant cost-savings and making your team less reliant on third-party print houses.

Industry-Leading Resolution Bit Depth Comes Standard

When Xerox says that the Versant 3100 offers the best image resolution in the print industry, it is not an exaggeration. This printer supports 2400 x 2400 dpi print resolution, but the true power of Xerox innovation is in the image bit depth.

Printers create images by layering individual dots of color on an imaginary grid. Conventional printing presses use 8-bit print engines to determine the exact hue of each dot. Eight bits of information translates to 256 distinct, individual states. An 8-bit print engine chooses the closest hue to the original image's color from among the 256 possible hues it can generate.

The Versant 3100 features a standard bit rate of 10. That means that every single dot it places on the 2400 x 2400 grid is colored from a selection of 1024 individual hues. This printer generates images with color depth and vibrancy four times greater than any other printer on the market.

Process Automation for Color Calibration and Registration

The Xerox Versant 3100 is not just a leader in terms of image quality. It is also a highly efficient, automated print production workhorse that uses world-class engineering to reduce the amount of time and effort it takes to produce top-quality prints.

One of the ways it does this is by automatically calibrating itself before print runs. Thanks to the inclusion of a Full Width Array and Xerox Automated Color Quality software, your print operator can save hours of time checking color table references and simply let the machine take care of calibration itself.

The Full Width Array also fine-tunes dot density uniformity, which safeguards image quality across the entire page. This prevents washed-out areas from popping up on individual pages – a frustrating yet commonplace occurrence in high-volume print environments.

The Versant 3100 also features automated image-to-media alignment that eliminates the risk of costly registration errors ruining entire print batches. Anyone with experience in a high-volume print shop knows that a tiny degree of image skew can quickly turn into a massive problem when dealing with large print runs. The Versant 3100 automates error-prone and time-consuming tasks for you.

Clear Paper Jams Easily with Automatic Sheet Clearing

Another time-saving innovation the Xerox Versant 3100 features is automatic sheet clearing. In the world of print, paper jams are the ultimate challenge. A jam at the wrong moment can ruin mission-critical print runs, and so far, the premise of a guaranteed paper-jam-free printer remains out of reach.

However, there are ways to minimize the damage and frustration the paper jams cause, and the Versant 3100 is a shining example of how this can be done. If the printing press stops in the middle of a print run because of a jam, it automatically ejects all sheets in the paper path to its top trays.

This means that the operator does not have to open every single printer door and scour the entire paper path to free papers from inside the machine before starting the run again. Clearing a paper jam from a high-volume printing press used to be a time-consuming waste – now it takes mere seconds.

With compatibility for paper weights of up to 300 gsm, there is no better first-time production printer on the market than the Xerox Versant 3100. Incorporate this tool in your arsenal and you will observe an exponential increase in productivity and efficiency from your print room.

Is it time for your company to make the jump from desktop printing to high-impact, high-volume, value-generating printing of in-house marketing materials and booklets? Talk to us!

Efficiencies Gained From Workplace Automation

Every business from the smallest mom and pop shops to the largest enterprise is constantly looking for ways to increase their workplace efficiency. With today’s technology, automation is often the top choice for businesses that are looking to increase efficiency. However, what kind of automation will provide the best results and what kinds of new efficiencies can businesses expect? Will the time and budget cost meet expectations? Before you jump into automation, it’s important to understand the efficiencies your business can gain.

Enjoy Automated Quality Assurance

No matter what business you are in you probably care a lot about the quality of service delivered to your clients or customers. This is the reason brands like McDonalds and Starbucks have grown to be as large as they have. The quality is predictable and repeatable no matter what location you visit. Using automation you can guarantee timelines and, in turn, quality for a wide range of tasks.

One of the top customer service complaints is slow response time. Automated email follow ups, automated tasks, and automated service options are all ways to reduce instances of this type of complaint. Automating small tasks can improve quality, efficiency, and reduce customer complaints. The reduction in complaints could then mean less time spent resolving customer issues which is another efficiency gain in itself.

Automation Can Drastically Reduce Costs

There are a variety of businesses in operation today across all industries. Despite their countless differences, there is one thing that rings true for every single business in existence; you need to make more money than you spend. When decision makers look at automation solutions, the usual reason is to find efficiencies in their business and, ultimately, save money. The million dollar question is obviously, “Does automation actually save money?”

Estimates suggest that automation can equal cost savings of up to 75%. That’s a significant consideration for any business no matter its size or operating budget. Those cost savings can be redirected into new products, expansion, pay raises, additional hiring, or any number of other business expenses.

Turn Downtime into Work Time

Most people don’t work non-stop throughout their day from 9 until 5. There are a number of personal or work tasks that take attention away from activities that actually contribute to the success of the business. Of course, automation can’t make lazy people work any harder. However, with employees admitting to wasting up to one hour per day, automation can turn wasted down time into productive work time.

Think about your own business for a moment. Are there tasks that could be automated which would then free up employees to increase their productivity? Do some “time wasting” tasks often take precedence over other, more important tasks? Automation may not kill off online shopping on work hours, but automation can help you streamline your operation and make the most of your employee’s time on the clock.

Dress for Success with Automation

You have probably heard the phrase, “dress for the job you want, not the job you have.” Workplace automation is like a fancy, three piece suit. An efficient workplace is a professional workplace. Who do you think your clients want to do business with: the business with automated, timely processes or the business that always seems to be flying by the seat of its pants?

Simple tasks like automated service reminders, regular follow ups after a sale has been made, or tracking and replenishment of supply can go a long way in presenting a professional appearance to your clients. Not only that, but automating these tasks gives your employees more time to do what they do best which is enhance the customer experience through personal connections. While your competition has their employees running around putting out fires or completing mundane tasks, your employees are networking and building relationships. What scenario do you think adds to the bottom line?

Embrace the Automated Workplace

Workplace automation is coming whether you want to embrace it not. Will you be on the cutting edge or playing catch up? Automation does not have to be a scary word. It does not mean job loss or workforce reduction. What automation does allow is for machines and technology to complete simple tasks while leaving humans to focus on providing superior service levels.

How will you integrate automation into your workplace? QBSI-Xerox can help you ensure your workplace is ready for the future. Contact us and see the automation solutions you can integrate today as well as how you can ensure you’re ready for the next big thing before your competitors.

The Great Command Workstation

In the last 13 years, I have held a variety of positions within our company, from sales to technical analyst, to trainer to now the Marketing Director.  In every one of my jobs, there was always one tool that I would use on a regular basis and that is Command Workstation.

EFI’s Command Workstation is software that can be loaded on any computer, in my case Mac OS10.  It is a direct interface to the Fiery print controller, basically the brain of your production/light production device.  It allows you to do so many things to ease your day, here are a few:

1.)   View the Status of your jobs: There are two areas within the main screen of Command Workstation that show the progress of your job.  Whether it is still processing or it is printing 100 of a 500-page job, all this information is at your fingertips.  In my case, this is especially helpful because I sit about three rooms away from the actual device so instead of having to get up every 5 minutes or better yet, sit and stare at the device, I can just simply open the Command Workstation window to verify my job is running and what copy number it is on.  This is one of the most helpful tools in maintaining a productive working day when I have to print on demand.

2.)   Reprint a Job: With a normal multifunctional device, once your job is printed, it is gone forever unless you specifically chose to save it in a mailbox on the hard drive.  In my job, I frequently proof items to make sure that everything is correct in the document before doing a final print.  With Command Workstation and my Fiery, my jobs are always stored for reprint. Therefore, I can send a job, once again from my desk three rooms away, and when I arrive at the printer, if my proof looks great, I can release 10, 100, 1000 more right there instead of going back to my computer.  This is once again a huge benefit in keeping my day productive and efficient.

3.)   Imposition:  Many of us have had to make booklets and getting those pages in the correct order when it is more then four can be quite confusing. It usually ends in manually taking blanks sheets, making a booklet, writing the number on each page, then deconstructing the booklet to see what page lands where.  Within Command Workstation and the print driver at your desk, you can send a single page document to print and simply choose “booklet layout – left binding” and boom, the 10 manual steps you previously did are gone, just like that!

Although there are so many features to help with workflow, imposition, and composition of documents within Command Workstation, these 3 simple but very important features are what I use on a daily basis.  With these 3 simple improvements in my workflow, the productivity of my day greatly increases so that I can continue to print on demand instead of outsourcing in bulk. This also results in saving a lot of money!

Do you have a fiery on your device and want to have all of this functionality at your fingertips? Visit EFI to download now! http://w3.efi.com/en/Fiery/Products/CWS5

Kristen

Northwest Group 

Director of Marketing