Located in the heart of Tucson on 352 acres, the University of Arizona (UA) has approximately 35,000 students enrolled from all 50 states and more than 100 foreign countries. UA?s Center for Computing and Information Technology (CCIT) supports the Research, Instructional, and Administrative Application needs of the University. Its mission is to provide central print services for the entire campus. Solimar Systems interviewed Tom Baron, Resource Information Analyst, for CCIT to discuss his experiences with implementing new print equipment with a Solimar print server solution. Baron has filled many roles over the past 33 years at UA, including Operations, Facilities, Problem Management, Production Management, and Printing Services.

A solution that included products from Solimar Systems was selected to meet the requirements. Two 110 page-per-minute network printers were chosen as the horsepower and Solimar’s flagship product, Print/Director, was selected as the front-end driving force. Print/Director converts UA’s existing legacy Xerox LCDS/Metacode print data into the PostScript needed by the new printers and provides centralized job management for improved flexibility and ease of operation.

The results of the Solimar solution improved print operations beyond processing capabilities. Baron explains, “By going to a Solimar PostScript solution, we now have the best of both worlds. We continue with our legacy DJDE applications, and have the benefits of being able to also route PostScript files directly to these printers. We now have full-page graphic capabilities. We can create PDF files from print files, and FTP them to other hosts. We can take a form created in MS Word, PowerPoint, or any common desktop software and by using Solimar’s XIMAGE™ software, create a form that can be used immediately on these printers. The quality of forms after being converted through Solimar is as good or better than before.”

Centralized print management with Print/Director’s feature-rich and flexible GUI interface has improved day-to-day operations. Baron describes the benefits, “The operators love the drag-and-drop reprint queue. Any lost outputs, or required extra copies, etc., can be reprinted quickly and easily without having to resubmit the job. Drop down windows make it easy to follow the status of print jobs.”

The Solimar solution has also reduced costs associated with print images, toner and maintenance, especially compared to the HP8100’s. Print/Director includes a Windows driver that creates Xerox forms from any Windows application. Baron expands on other benefits realized with having the increased throughput and complimentary Solimar products, “Speed is double our previous setup. When one printer is down for maintenance, we do not fall behind in printing. We save a lot of time by converting a Word document to a form image with Solimar XIMAGE. This has been very helpful when doing graphs and pictures on United Way Campaign forms.”