High Speed B&W Copying at Hot Spot Printing

Many jobs today can be produced more quickly and cost-effectively on modern, high-speed copiers than on printing presses. A prime example would be user manuals, where the run is short, but there are many pages in the manual. When it comes to B&W copies, cost and quality can rival offset printing in black and white and can generally be produced much more quickly because of less preparation and setup time.

The B&W copiers at Hot Spot Printing consist of a pair of identical Xerox DocuTech 75 print engines with Sun Microsystem controllers. We have lovingly named them "Amos & Andy". Each DocuTech 75 can produce 75 letter size images per minute. When we're running them both on a job, that's 150 images every minute. Why two copiers? Sure, doubling the speed is part of the answer, but the biggest reason is availability. If one machine needs service, we can still run copies on the other. Not only that, but these machines are designed for user maintenance. We can replace image modules and fusers from an inventory we have on hand without even having to place a service call.

These machines can also run index tabs as well as staple the output.

The two printers are connected to our shop network. Also connected to the network is a Xerox DigiPath Workstation which has a 60 page/minute scanner attached to it. The DigiPath workstation is truly the heart of our high speed copying system. Whether we have hardcopy or softcopy to use as input, everything first goes to the DigiPath. Images of every page from the softcopy or hardcopy input are displayed on the DigiPath workstation monitor and can be edited before printing. We can even have it add page number to your document. From the DigiPath, we can direct the job to either of the two printers and tell them not only how many copies to make, but what type and size of paper stock to run them on, how to collate them, if stapled, where to place the staple.

After we run the job, we can then save all of the job's images as a document object. Then, the next time our client needs that document, we can just open that document object on the Digipath Workstation and print it. Unless there are changes to the document, we no longer need the original input. This allows us to provide print-on-demand service to our clients.

The DocuTech 75 printers are, in fact, PostScript printers. We have variable information postscript printing (VIPP) software installed on them. This allows us to offer high speed variable data printing on these machines.

An example of variable data printing would be the cleanup vouchers mailed to Morgan Hill residents twice each year. This allows the recipient to take certain waste materials to the sanitation transfer station and drop it off at no charge. The vouchers are mailed to the residents. Each mailing has two perforated vouchers. To keep non-residents from using someone else's voucher, each voucher has the resident's garbage bill address printed on it. The resident must bring a current garbage bill with matching address, or a driver's license showing they reside at that address in order to use the voucher.

Another example would be to use a client's database to see what their customers purchased and how long ago. Customer's not purchasing within the last six months could be sent an offer letter to entice them to come once again to that business. The possiblities are limited only by your imagination.

Page Modified 1/17/2008