RMIT (Royal Melbourne
Institute of Technology) has installed an HP Designjet Z6200 photo printer to
facilitate the high volume of printing required by its students in the Design
and Social Context College, which encompasses the School of Architecture,
School of Art, School of Media and Communication and Design TAFE.
Remi Krawiec, technical services
coordinator for Information Technology Services (ITS), which provides printing
services for students who are able to send images to print from the various
faculties on the Melbourne CBD campus, talks about the motivation for the
installation.
“We’ve always operated a
fleet of HP large format printers. When our HP Designjet 5500 was at the end of
its life we considered the Z6200 straight away because we’ve always had
positive experiences with the HP Designjet platform,” explains Krawiec.
“With the new printer we
were looking for two things. From an IT perspective we needed a printer that
was very fast and able to handle large jobs and high volumes. And from a
student perspective we required a printer that could output very high quality
images and accurately reproduce photographs. The quality of prints output on
this device is particularly important as students use the HP Designjet Z6200
for their final assessment folios and end of year public exhibitions.”
In line with the
University’s policy, Krawiec and his team considered three different print
devices including competitive brands before settling on the HP Designjet Z6200,
purchased the through HP Channel Partner Celmac. The printer has proven its
worth already he says. “We ran the printer hard in the lead up to last year’s end
of year presentations and exhibitions and it didn’t miss a beat.”
Students from the Design and
Social Context College use the printer to output images from A2-A0 on a variety
of substrates. Students are also able to use their own media and Krawiec and
his team advise students on the parameters for printing on various substrates,
but the final choice is that of the students. “We stock a volume of poster
materials in matte, gloss and satin, but students can be as creative as they
like and print on a range of substrates.”
ITS manages the calibration
and maintenance of the printers, but the students are in control of their own
printing. Last September and October the printer was
in continual use says Krawiec as students prepared for the final stage of the
year. “We run reports to see how each of our devices are performing and the HP
Designjet Z6200 clocked up thousands of jobs in a very short period of time as
students geared up for final assessments.”
He continues. “One of our
objectives is to teach the students why we have a variety of print devices from
entry level to very high quality output and how they can best use these
printers. Students need to print a variety of items during the course of the
year from drafts to final output. It is important they learn about costs per
copy and also about the different technology that is available and what they
need to use to achieve their objectives.”
RMIT ITS worked closely with
the team at Celmac to thoroughly examine the HP Designjet Z6200. “I can’t speak
highly enough of Celmac. They’ve delivered exceptional service and we’ve always
had great support so we were very confident in buying the printer through
them,” Krawiec concludes.