Kohler Expansion Invigorates In-plant

From left: David Yang, Christopher Donlon and Katy Wiegand learn about one of their two new iGen4 digital color presses from Xerox consultant Joseph Cox.

A major equipment overhaul and facility expansion at Kohler Co. Printing Services has boosted production speed by 60% and allowed the four-employee in-plant to produce a significant amount of work that was previously outsourced.

“My color volume this year has been up 39%,” remarks Christopher Donlon, communications leader, print production, at the Kohler, Wis.-based manufacturing company, best known for its plumbing products. “We’re able to keep more jobs in-house. The work was all there, but it was all outsourced.”

The in-plant was able to achieve this impressive result after replacing its Xerox Color 1000 and 700 digital color presses with two new Xerox iGen4 Diamond edition color presses, each with the 26˝ sheet option, and one with extra feeder drawers. In addition, the shop added a Xerox Color C60 printer, a Morgana DigiFold Pro creaser/folder and a C.P. Bourg bookletmaker with a three-knife trimmer.

To fit it all, the in-plant expanded its facility by knocking down walls and moving into the adjoining space.

“I actually did a lot of the demolition work myself,” Donlon reveals.

A strike prevented his chosen contractor from starting work on schedule, leaving him a bit anxious. So, shedding his usual suit and tie, Donlon donned work clothes and took a sledgehammer to the walls, tearing out all the drywall and conduits himself.

He eventually found a new contractor and the work was completed, giving the shop a total of 1,800 sq. ft. of space — enough to comfortably fit the new equipment and even allow pallets to sit next to the machines, a luxury not possible in the old, cramped space.

“We can take the high-capacity stackers from the iGens and wheel them right into the bookletmaker,” he enthuses. “It’s awesome.”

Redundancy, a Key Strategy

Having two iGen4s has given the in-plant the redundancy it needed to be able to handle some of the long-run jobs that were previously outsourced. Donlon couldn’t risk tying up the Xerox 1000 for an extremely large job in the past.

“Because we do have the redundancy, I can take on a job of 13,000 single-sided sell sheets, where last year we wouldn’t have done it with the 1000,” he asserts.

The iGen4s can also handle jobs requiring heavy cover stock, which were previously sent outside. The in-plant now keeps 120-lb. stock on hand for postcards. The 26˝ sheet option lets the shop print six-panel brochures now too, a great advantage.

Donlon praises the offset-like quality of the iGen4s’ output. He expects to receive more work from Kohler’s plumbing division, which has always outsourced its printing to get offset quality.

“Printing a white [bathroom] fixture on a white piece of paper is not easy,” remarks Donlon. “But we’ve been able to do it much better on the iGens.”

Justifying the cost of the new equipment and facility expansion was not difficult, he says, both because the company sees the value of the in-plant and because Donlon was able to negotiate a lease payment that was slightly lower than the previous one.

Thanks to the faster speeds and higher productivity of the new equipment, a slight bindery bottleneck has developed, Donlon says, particularly with coil binding. He’s now experimenting with prepunched paper on the iGen4s and will continue to fine-tune the operation in the months ahead.