Digital Printing-Wide Format - Roll to Roll

As printing devices get wider, laminators are keeping pace. Find out how to shop for a laminator, what features to look for and what to do once you get it. by Cheryl A. Adams With the wide-format market getting wider every day, it's no wonder printers are investing in the technology. Quips Brian Franks, vice president of marketing at GBC Films: "Today, the focus on ink-jet printers is the width of the machine. I call this the 'yacht syndrome,' because once you've owned a 30-foot boat, then you have to have a 40-foot, and so on. The same is true of wide-format printers.

Wide-format printing can add profits and a heaping helping of customer satisfaction to your operation. by Allan Martin Kemler RIDDLE ME this, Batman: How can an in-plant add service, increase profits and deliver a return on its investment all in just one year? Easy. Purchase a wide-format printer. At least that's what Joe Miller and Anthony Velazquez recommend. Miller and Velazquez both manage busy in-plants and both men encourage other in-plants to look into wide-format color printing as a way to recapture lost revenue and add extra value. "The key thing is, the color market is only going to grow," advises Miller, of

Having a wide-format color ink-jet printer in-house can provide a valuable service to your customers. To be successful—and stay alive—you must provide your customers with better service than commercial printers. That means giving the customers what they want, when they want it. For Tino Castro, this meant purchasing a 12-color 52˝ ColorSpan Displaymaker 12 wide-format color ink-jet printer last year. "For the past two to three years I've seen [demand] increase," says the printing services manager for the County of Riverside, Calif. In the past, customers would come into his 20-employee shop with work orders for posters or banners and Castro would have

Do you need a wide-format ink-jet printer? How do you know? And how do you get your organization to buy one—and then use it? Here are a few tips. HAS THIS happened to you? Someone comes to your in-plant with a disk or print-out and asks if you can make posters. Although you'd love say that you can, you know your shop doesn't have the capabilities. The client now has to outsource the project, and isn't happy about it. It's the third time this week this has happened. A wide-format ink-jet printer would have come in handy right then. The problem is you don't

Wide-format printers bring a new dimension to your in-plant and allow you to offer customers jobs that are larger than life. IMAGINE GIVING your customers the option of making anything they want into a poster. Now think about the cost savings you could pass onto them by doing it in-house—not to mention the increased exposure and business for your shop. Many in-plant managers already have made this a reality, and are reaping the benefits of providing wide-format printing in-house. "In addition to the cost savings from not having to outsource, the in-plant gains greater control over the final print," says Kelli Ramirez, director of

Thinking about getting a wide-format ink-jet printer? Worried it won't draw enough business? Find out how other managers did it. Have you considered buying a wide-format ink-jet printer for your in-plant, but worried that you wouldn't attract enough business to justify it? Or perhaps you have one but it's just not getting used often enough. Well fear not. IPG talked to managers from around the country to find out how they market their capabilities to their customers. And for several managers, these devices have almost sold themselves. "We actually sold several jobs off of it before we got the machine here, so we were

Wide-format ink-jet printers are bringing a lot of new business into in-plants. Find out how you can profit from "supersizing" your prints. WIDE FORMAT printing can be a tricky business. On the one hand, you have a terrific opportunity to provide a new service to your customers. But on the other, how many of your customers know the benefits of printing bigger? To generate enough business to keep a wide-format color ink-jet printer busy you've got to market your capabilities—and that's exactly what in-plants who have bought the devices are doing. For example, at Eastman Chemical Creative Services, in Kingsport, Tenn., the

Looking for a way to increase services and business? Realize the benefits of printing large, high-quality color pieces. WHEN you want to grab someone's attention what do you use? Yes, color would be one solution, but even orange can look washed out if it's not big enough. So what's big enough? Try 36x48˝ on for size. Got your attention yet? Wide-format color printing is not a new phenomenon. But a lot of in-plants are catching on to the attractive format size used for big jobs like posters, banners or important charts, such as those used for congressional hearings. The latter is printed