New Printer/Cutter Speeds Up Wide-Format Printing at Hemet USD

Lee Christiansen has a very busy wide-format printing operation.

“We do all of the banners for registration and school events. We do a lot of pennants and triangle banners for all of the different school sites. We do recognition banners for sporting events,” lists the Publication Center manager for the Hemet Unified School District, located about 90 minutes east of Los Angeles. And his list doesn’t even touch on the myriad floor, window, and wall graphics the in-plant produces.

So when one of the in-plant’s three 63" Mutoh devices bit the dust recently after 12 years of service, Christiansen knew the shop simply couldn’t do without a replacement. In February, the nine-employee in-plant installed a 63" Roland TrueVIS VG3-640 print-and-cut device and jumped right back into the fray. Being able to print and then cut on the same machine has been a big time saver, Christiansen says.

“It’s sped us up quite a bit because now my operator is not having to pull it off to [another] machine to do the cutting,” he says. The in-plant used a separate Mutoh cutter in the past, adding a step. Now the operator can set up a print-and-cut job on the Roland and then walk off to print other jobs on the two Mutohs. The Roland also generates less waste than the old method on stickers, which schools order by the thousands.

Another big plus with the new Roland, Christiansen remarks, is that it came with a two-year warranty, which will cover his estimated ROI time.

“So I don’t have to pay a separate maintenance contract to cover repairs,” he notes.

Wall Graphics

Over the past year, the in-plant has produced a lot of wall graphics with its wide-format devices.

“We’ve done at least three different libraries,” he notes. For one recent library job, the shop designed, printed, and installed graphics to cover a 47-ft.-long and 14-ft.-high wall. The in-plant also prints entryway graphics for schools.

“We do a very large amount of window graphics,” he adds — including some that are mostly intended to block the strong California sun. “We find that, in Southern California, there is a true advantage to energy efficiency by reducing the amount of light [coming in].”

Wide-format isn’t this in-plant’s only specialty. It has two inkjet presses — a Xerox Baltoro cut-sheet and Xerox Rialto 900 continuous-feed — and prints high volumes of curriculum materials. And while Christiansen attended the recent Inkjet Summit and is considering his next inkjet press, the new Roland is what’s most on his mind at the moment.

“It’s been flawless,” he praises. “It’s a huge plus for us because it’s the busy time of the year. I could easily keep all three of these machines running eight hours a day, five days a week … with the amount of work that comes through.”