New Booklet Maker Passes the Test in Arizona

When a new piece of equipment comes to the rescue on a difficult job, you can’t help but feel satisfied.

That’s certainly how Supervisor Ernest Fierros felt when the commencement program for Arizona Western College arrived at his Yuma, Ariz., in-plant one week late. Just a few months before that, his shop had installed a Duplo DSF-3500 booklet making system, replacing an older Plockmatic unit. With graduation looming, this was to be the 3500’s big test.

“The machine made up the time, otherwise we would have had to farm it out,” declares Fierros.

Outsourcing the binding, as he knew well from previous experience, was a costly solution, so by producing all 3,000 commencement programs in-house, the in-plant saved the school a good chunk of money.

Fierros had been wanting to replace the older booklet maker for some time. For one thing, it couldn’t handle coated stock very well.

“We use a lot of coated paper in our booklets,” he remarks.

An opportunity came up when he was negotiating the contract for copiers for his self-serve operation. Fierros was able to work the 3500 into the deal. The system includes the DSF-2200 sheet feeder and the DSS-350 square spine module.

“The speed is noticeably different than what we had before,” he says. “We’re going to be much more efficient with this machine.”

The in-plant also recently got approval to add a 64˝ HP latex printer to replace its 10-year-old HP Designjet 500. At the recent ACUP conference, Fierros asked a lot of questions to panelists about their latex printers during a session on wide-format printing and was impressed with the longer outdoor durability of latex prints and the range of material that can be used. He eagerly anticipates putting the new printer to use at his university.