When a school district has 14,500 students to serve, it needs a lot of printing. That’s why Valley View School District (VVSD) 365U Printing Services, in suburban Chicago, put its toner days in the past and made the switch to inkjet printing in July.
The Romeoville, IL, in-plant replaced one of its Konica Minolta AccurioPress C7090 toner color printers with a Kyocera TASKalfa Pro 15000c inkjet press. Keith Lakomiak, director of Printing Services, says the new machine takes about 80% of the workload off the second Konica Minolta, improving the productivity of the 11-person team. So far, he adds, there has not been one service call needed for the inkjet press.
“The amount of downtime that you would incur with toner devices is incredible,” says Lakomiak. “You’re looking at probably downtime of every two days.”
The in-plant sees almost no paper jams with the inkjet press, he says, because it uses no heat. This gives Lakomiak and his team more time to focus their workflow on the production of student workbooks.
Another time-saving advantage of the Kyocera is its fast startup time of about five minutes, compared to the toner press, which takes half an hour to start plus an hour of serviced cleaning.
However, he explains time is not the only benefit of switching machines. Printing on the Kyocera costs nearly 87% less than on the toner device it replaced. It was costing the print shop about 4.5 cents per printed page for a 12x18˝ sheet, he says. On the other hand, the Kyocera is costing the shop just $0.006 per 12x18˝ impression — for full color. This is critical for the volume of pages the in-plant is printing. Since the shop focuses on student workbooks for middle and high school students, they aim to print about 1.5 million 11x17˝ pages a month.
“It’s aggressive, but the machine’s handling it just fine,” says Lakomiak. “We still have at least 20% of that workbook volume ... going on the toner device.”
This new equipment has given the in-plant the opportunity to stop outsourcing student workbooks; now most of the printing happens in-house.
Lakomiak originally saw the press at an In-plant Printing and Mailing Association (IPMA) conference about three years ago. He had to make sure this machine was able to print the volumes he was looking for, so after talking to experts at the IPMA conference and PRINTING United Expo, his decision became clear. Attending the 2026 Inkjet Summit helped him solidify that decision, he says, letting him network with other managers seeking inkjet.
“The Summit was the perfect place to collaborate with K-12 directors printing similar curriculum work,” he notes.
Along with the inkjet press, the in-plant also changed how workbooks are finished. For years, the shop had in-line Plockmatic bookletmakers on its digital presses, which Lakomiak says slowed down the process entirely.
“It was becoming a bottleneck,” he observes. “Those parts of the machine needed to be repaired more often than even the [print] engine. So, we were encountering excessive downtime because of that.”
About two years ago, Lakomiak moved the bookletmaking process offline with the purchase of a standalone Morgana BM5000 bookletmaker. He explains that this increased booklet production by about a third. With that immense success as a guide, the shop recently bought a second BM5000.
“The paper comes out of the Kyocera unblemished. There’s no waviness. There’s no heat-related curling that goes on. It’s pristine,” he explains. “By putting pristine paper into a bindery device, your uptime just went through the roof with your bindery device as well.
“We’re definitely reaping the benefits of consistent workflow from printing to binding,” he adds.
Lakomiak looks at his shop as three different divisions: curriculum, signage, and apparel. To strengthen that third service, the in-plant recently added an Epson SureColor G9070 direct-to-film printer to support spirit wear and uniforms across the district’s 21 educational facilities. The shop has a pair of Hotronix heat presses and an MEM TQ4050 dual platen pneumatic heat press.
Lakomiak wanted to branch out of printing because he says paper printing is shrinking due to schools moving towards digital materials.
“The printing that we do on paper is up and down, and lately it’s been down,” he says. “So other value adds are what [are] going to sustain your business and make it as strong as possible.”
Illinois School District Boosts Productivity by Adding Inkjet
When a school district has 14,500 students to serve, it needs a lot of printing. That’s why Valley View School District (VVSD) 365U Printing Services, in suburban Chicago, put its toner days in the past and made the switch to inkjet printing in July.
The Romeoville, IL, in-plant replaced one of its Konica Minolta AccurioPress C7090 toner color printers with a Kyocera TASKalfa Pro 15000c inkjet press. Keith Lakomiak, director of Printing Services, says the new machine takes about 80% of the workload off the second Konica Minolta, improving the productivity of the 11-person team. So far, he adds, there has not been one service call needed for the inkjet press.
“The amount of downtime that you would incur with toner devices is incredible,” says Lakomiak. “You’re looking at probably downtime of every two days.”
The in-plant sees almost no paper jams with the inkjet press, he says, because it uses no heat. This gives Lakomiak and his team more time to focus their workflow on the production of student workbooks.
Another time-saving advantage of the Kyocera is its fast startup time of about five minutes, compared to the toner press, which takes half an hour to start plus an hour of serviced cleaning.
However, he explains time is not the only benefit of switching machines. Printing on the Kyocera costs nearly 87% less than on the toner device it replaced. It was costing the print shop about 4.5 cents per printed page for a 12x18˝ sheet, he says. On the other hand, the Kyocera is costing the shop just $0.006 per 12x18˝ impression — for full color. This is critical for the volume of pages the in-plant is printing. Since the shop focuses on student workbooks for middle and high school students, they aim to print about 1.5 million 11x17˝ pages a month.
“It’s aggressive, but the machine’s handling it just fine,” says Lakomiak. “We still have at least 20% of that workbook volume ... going on the toner device.”
This new equipment has given the in-plant the opportunity to stop outsourcing student workbooks; now most of the printing happens in-house.
Lakomiak originally saw the press at an In-plant Printing and Mailing Association (IPMA) conference about three years ago. He had to make sure this machine was able to print the volumes he was looking for, so after talking to experts at the IPMA conference and PRINTING United Expo, his decision became clear. Attending the 2026 Inkjet Summit helped him solidify that decision, he says, letting him network with other managers seeking inkjet.
“The Summit was the perfect place to collaborate with K-12 directors printing similar curriculum work,” he notes.
Along with the inkjet press, the in-plant also changed how workbooks are finished. For years, the shop had in-line Plockmatic bookletmakers on its digital presses, which Lakomiak says slowed down the process entirely.
“It was becoming a bottleneck,” he observes. “Those parts of the machine needed to be repaired more often than even the [print] engine. So, we were encountering excessive downtime because of that.”
About two years ago, Lakomiak moved the bookletmaking process offline with the purchase of a standalone Morgana BM5000 bookletmaker. He explains that this increased booklet production by about a third. With that immense success as a guide, the shop recently bought a second BM5000.
“The paper comes out of the Kyocera unblemished. There’s no waviness. There’s no heat-related curling that goes on. It’s pristine,” he explains. “By putting pristine paper into a bindery device, your uptime just went through the roof with your bindery device as well.
“We’re definitely reaping the benefits of consistent workflow from printing to binding,” he adds.
Lakomiak looks at his shop as three different divisions: curriculum, signage, and apparel. To strengthen that third service, the in-plant recently added an Epson SureColor G9070 direct-to-film printer to support spirit wear and uniforms across the district’s 21 educational facilities. The shop has a pair of Hotronix heat presses and an MEM TQ4050 dual platen pneumatic heat press.
Lakomiak wanted to branch out of printing because he says paper printing is shrinking due to schools moving towards digital materials.
“The printing that we do on paper is up and down, and lately it’s been down,” he says. “So other value adds are what [are] going to sustain your business and make it as strong as possible.”