Elon University's in-plant adds six new devices and brings sign work in-house

Elon University Print Services in North Carolina, a five-employee in-plant managed by Wesley Grigg, installed a slate of new equipment over the summer. The additions include Canon imagePRESS V1350 and V800 presses, a Duplo DC-618 slitter/cutter/creaser, an iJetColor envelope printer, an HP Latex R530 hybrid flatbed and a Colex Sharpcut SX1717 flatbed cutter.

Grigg first set out only to replace aging gear but backed each extra request with quotes compared against outsourcing costs. The shop had been sending three to four wide-format orders a day to an outside vendor, and after insourcing that work its August wide-format revenue reached $19,000, up from $9,000 a year earlier.

Elon's merger with Queens University is creating new signage needs at the Charlotte campus, which helped justify the flatbed. The V1350 replaced two Konica Minolta devices, and the envelope printer took over from an OKI machine.