NexPress Donated to Appalachian State University
A free Kodak NexPress is nothing to sneeze at—even if you have to drive two miles to use it. That’s about how far it is from Joyce Mahaffey’s in-plant at Appalachian State University, in Boone, N.C., to Harper Hall, where a recently donated NexPress 2100 digital color press now resides in the Department of Technology.
When it’s not being used for a class in the Graphic Arts and Imaging Technology (GAIT) program—which is 75 percent of the time—the 2,100-sheet-per-hour digital color press is available to the in-plant for printing brochures, posters, cards—whatever the in-plant needs to produce. The only hitch is that Mahaffey and Angie Norris, the only certified operators, have to make the two-mile drive to campus (and somehow find a parking spot). But the improvement in the quality of the finished pieces makes it all worthwhile, says Mahaffey, director of Printing & Publications.
The NexPress, which came with a fifth station and a NexGlosser glossing unit, was donated by Appalachian State University alumnus Oliver Emmert, of Alpha Printing and Mailing, in Shelby, N.C. Though Mahaffey would have preferred it to be installed in her Printing & Publications department, it was intended for educational purposes, so into GAIT’s student lab it went, alongside its offset and screen presses.
Fortunately, the in-plant works closely with GAIT. Together they paid to move and install the machine. Mahaffey and Norris traveled to Rochester, N.Y., for training, and Kodak provided additional training on campus for GAIT instructors.
On a recent job, Mahaffey ran 9,000 color brochures on the NexPress.
“It did beautiful work,” she praises. She intends to use it to produce more variable data jobs in the months ahead.
Aside from the quality, and the NexStation front end that lets her monitor the NexPress remotely, Mahaffey also likes that she can do a lot of the maintenance herself using operator-replaceable parts. This is a great relief, she says, since getting service on the in-plant’s Canon 7000 has long been a headache due to the school’s remote location, tucked away in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina, 90 minutes from Winston-Salem.
Mahaffey feels her in-plant’s close relationship with the GAIT program may have helped spare her shop when a recent downsizing eliminated three of her employees, leaving just five (along with student employees). At the same time, Printing & Publications was asked to take over the campus copying operation. Its high-speed copiers and mounting equipment were moved into the in-plant’s facility.
Mahaffey acknowledges that these recent changes have left her staff a bit overwhelmed, but she is confident that with the NexPress, the shop’s two Hamada presses and its recent bindery upgrades, it is well equipped to handle anything the university needs printed.
“We’re in great shape on the production side,” she says.
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Bob has served as editor of In-plant Impressions since October of 1994. Prior to that he served for three years as managing editor of Printing Impressions, a commercial printing publication. Mr. Neubauer is very active in the U.S. in-plant industry. He attends all the major in-plant conferences and has visited more than 170 in-plant operations around the world. He has given presentations to numerous in-plant groups in the U.S., Canada and Australia, including the Association of College and University Printers and the In-plant Printing and Mailing Association. He also coordinates the annual In-Print contest, co-sponsored by IPMA and In-plant Impressions.