PRINTING United Expo Helps CHRISTUS Health Find Exactly What It Needed

When he attended his first PRINTING United Expo last year in Atlanta, Delvecchio Shankle knew exactly what he wanted — or so he thought, until he got immersed in what the Expo had to offer.

“As a team, we decided where we were going to concentrate our efforts and get some answers to the questions that we had about the direction that we were going,” says Shankle, director of operations for Marketing Print Services at CHRISTUS Health in Tyler, Texas.

As the in-plant’s delegate at the Expo, Shankle was looking into finishing and production equipment from Kirk-Rudy, Mimaki, and others. As a result of seeing this equipment up close, Shankle says the in-plant has already installed a Mimaki JFX600 flatbed printer and is in the process of acquiring a Kirk-Rudy FireJet 4C envelope printer.

Some of the equipment Shankle went to the Expo to see didn’t quite fit the bill, but luckily, he found alternatives that hadn’t been on his radar. These included the Duplo DFL-500 dry coat/foil/laminator and the Avanti Slingshot print MIS.

Showing off the new Duplo DFL-500 dry coat/foil/laminator are (from left) Kirsten Noyola, Chris Loyd, and Dave Newkirk.

“Avanti did a user group [at the Expo],” Shankle says. During that meeting, attendees were encouraged to talk with each other in a breakout session.

“Actually, that cemented the decision to move forward with them — that I was able to talk to other customers that were at PRINTING United,” he says.

While the in-plant is still in the process of purchasing the Kirk-Rudy printer and is four months into the implementation process for the Avanti, the Duplo and Mimaki are already having an impact on operations.

Stan Wyatt sets up a job on the new Mimaki JFX600 flatbed printer.

“The Mimaki has added some more production time for our signage projects that have really accelerated,” says Kirsten Noyola, manager at Marketing Print Services. “We've taken on a lot more signage projects in a shorter amount of time than anticipated; it's allowed us to not have all that waiting on one machine.”

Because of this, Noyola says the in-plant has been able to provide customers with quicker and more reliable turnaround times.

Additionally, Shankle says the Mimaki printer has fulfilled the original need the in-plant had.

“We wanted consistency between the products that we had,” Shankle says. “We had Mimaki and we had another vendor flatbed, and there was inconsistency in color, there was inconsistency in … Kirsten’s team being able to work across both pieces of equipment.”

Press Operators Tyrone Tyler and Andrea Bassett stand with the Duplo DFL-500 dry coat/foil/laminator.

While the Mimaki has increased efficiency, the Duplo has brought in projects. Previously, the in-plant was outsourcing jobs like certificates with finishes; now, it can handle coating, foil, and different types of laminations.

The successes the in-plant is seeing now are thanks to the Expo — particularly the ability to speak with vendors one-on-one and see so much equipment firsthand. As an example, he says he went to one vendor that had a great offering that met a lot of the in-plant’s needs, but there were still some limitations.

“So then I was like, ‘OK, well this doesn't work. What are my other alternatives?’” Shankle recalls. “I was able to go to another vendor and found something.”

“It's good to be able to educate ourselves on what is available in that broad spectrum without it being served to you on a silver platter of what you should be doing, and not knowing what else is out there,” Noyola adds.

Noyola and Shankle not only see the Expo as an opportunity to learn from vendors, but as a networking opportunity.

“It was also great to have experiences with other in-plants who were on the floor and talking about the equipment and talking about their use and value,” Shankle says. “I thought it was vitally important to go.”

With that said, there’s no question that the team at CHRISTUS Health’s Marketing Print Services will be attending the 2024 PRINTING United Expo, Sept. 10-12 in Las Vegas.