New Inkjet Envelope Printer for EMC

By Bob Neubauer

Service is everything. When it wanes, the equipment that needs service becomes less valuable.

That was the situation for EMC Insurance Companies’ Print and Graphic Resources team earlier this year. Service on its two digital envelope presses was not only slow, it was expensive.

“We weren’t getting local service,” says Nate Riggins, graphic and production supervisor — but despite that, he adds, the service contract price kept climbing, along with inkjet and supply costs.

So, in April the five-employee in-plant installed a Riso ComColor GL 7430 inkjet printer in its Des Moines, Iowa, operation to print an expected volume of 80,000 envelopes a month for the insurance company.

“With the Riso we were able to get a local service vendor that could support us,” he says, “and supply costs are way cheaper.”

Ink costs have been cut in half, he says, and the output quality has improved.

“The feeder is a lot better,” Riggins adds. “Less misfeeds.” This has led to better productivity.

“It’s also Fiery based … which is nice because I can communicate with all the rest of my printers in the shop,” he adds.

Riggins first saw the Riso ComColor GL 7430 at the In-plant Printing and Mailing Association conference and was impressed. He says it was scheduled to be installed sooner but he had to adjust his plans after a mishap.

The in-plant has been using its HP Latex 315 wide-format printer to print graphics for walls all around the company.

“They dropped it in the warehouse,” he says. Fortunately, a replacement arrived within two weeks.

Once the printer is up to speed, Riggins hopes to move beyond just envelopes.

“Maybe down the road we can print policies on it, or letterhead,” he says.

EMC Print and Graphic Resources has also stepped up its wide-format printing considerably since adding an HP Latex 315 two years ago. The in-plant decorated the walls of a new coffee shop at EMC and printed graphics for the walls of a 120-ft. skywalk, which brought the in-plant some high-level praise.

“Even the CEO has reached out to me and told me ‘great job,’” Riggins says.

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Bob Neubauer Author's page

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.