New Copier, Folder Boost Wisconsin In-plant’s Efficiency

Replacing decade-old equipment with new models is like breathing fresh air into an in-plant operation. That’s certainly been the case for Tina Wolfgram’s shop in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

Early this year, the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Printing Services swapped an 11-year-old color copier for a Canon imagePRESS Lite C265 — which she first spotted at PRINTING United Expo — and a 15-year-old folder for a Formax FD 3302 air suction folder. When we spoke with Wolfgram, the shop’s manager, a little more than a month after installation, the shop had already seen efficiency gains — especially for the Canon, which the shop uses for walk-up customers with small jobs.

“The copier has an extra drawer, so it saves time in having to replace [paper],” she says. “They want it on uncoated and they want it on coated, so now we have dedicated drawers for the different sizes and different substrates, so that saves time.”

At University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Printing Services, student worker Rosa Porcello runs the new Canon imagePRESS Lite C265.

The ability to handle different sizes is key. According to Wolfgram, the old copier was able to handle 13x19˝ substrates when it was first added, but not as it aged. The C265, however, can handle that size.

“That is saving time in being able to run those small ones, twos, 10s up front versus having to send it back to production for students who walk in and they need it for a class,” Wolfgram says. “A lot of them procrastinate, so they need it right away. So then our technicians in the back would have to pull everything off, stop what they're doing, run their job. This is definitely a huge savings for them to just keep doing what they're doing and the front can take care of the walk-in.”

There’s been a bit more of a learning curve with the Formax FD 3302 folder since it has different controls than Printing Services’ last model, but Wolfgram similarly sees it as an efficiency booster.

The new Formax FD 3302 air suction folder has boosted efficiency at the in-plant.

“The folder has different speed capacities, so we can slow it down or speed it up,” she says. “The other one did as well, but this one seems to run pretty well at the high speed — and I like to fold high speed.”

Beyond its speed, the Formax has also opened the door to a more efficient workflow for some of the in-plant’s routine folding orders, of which it has a lot.

“We have a small job that is, like, 4x2˝ at the finished size,” Wolfgram says. “It's able to do those smaller sizes for us, too, where the other one was not able to go down to 2˝. Those were all being folded by hand, so that's been a savings also.”

Wolfgram initially saw the Canon unit at PRINTING United Expo. While she didn’t see the FD 3302 there, she was able to connect on site with Formax, which eventually led to the installation of the folder. Identifying new equipment — and new opportunities for the self-supporting in-plant to generate revenue — is the biggest reason she’s gone to the show for four consecutive years.

“I love PRINTING United. There are so many different brands there that you can look at to compare,” she says. “It takes a lot of the work out of exploring and looking at different machines that you can see most everything in one space.”