Digital Printers Clock-Up 89m Pages In 2 Years

Discovery Health, South Africa's leading private health care funding company, has been pushing its two Kodak Digimaster 9110 digital production systems to the maximum.

Discovery Health, South Africa's leading private health care funding company, has been pushing its two Kodak Digimaster 9110 digital production systems to the maximum.

In the two years since their installation, Discovery has produced more than 89 million pages on the two systems.

"On average,we produce over three million pages per month, peaking at 4.2 million during the tax certificate run.

The biggest print run ever produced would be our tax certificates, which amounts to approximately 2.5 million images," said Mark Steenekamp, the print facilities manager at Discovery Health.

Still running as smoothly as the day they were installed, both Digimasters continue to work 24 hours-a-day, seven days a week to produce jobs like client-specific monthly statements, year-end communications, benefit schedules and tax certificates said Nexpress.

Discovery Health's purchasing criteria at the time were two-fold.

According to Steenekamp, Discovery was in the market for a high-volume mono imaging machine and in his words, "I needed a machine to do big runs with no hassles." After some market research, Steenekamp found a perfect match in the Digimaster 9110 system.

"What struck me about the Digimaster 9110 was the vacuum feed drawers, as opposed to friction feed systems, which minimise misfeeds and multi-feeds, and the short paper path that significantly reduces paper jams," he explained.

"The Digimaster produced documents at the speed we needed and proved to be an extremely robust and well-engineered printing machine," said Steenekamp.

He was also impressed by the built-in diagnostics systems that make it easy to perform maintenance and troubleshooting, as well as by the attentive customer service said Nexpress.

Steenekamp reported that Discovery continues to receive exceptional service from Nexpress engineers.

"Whenever there is a new technology, or new software, I am informed and my machines are upgraded immediately," he added.

About 18 months after the first installation, Discovery's increasing print volume required another acquisition.

According to Steenekamp, it was a simple decision as to which machine he would choose.

The first Digimaster had proved itself so well, that Discovery purchased a second identical system.

As of October 2004, the two machines have produced 89 million images.

Discovery Health has 12 operational staff in its printing department working with two shifts of six people.

There are four printing machines, including the two Digimasters and two Kern collating machines.

Three job controllers ensure that all output consistently meets Discovery's standards.

Discovery Health's print volumes are continually growing as the job controllers explore new ways to tap the capabilities of the Digimasters.

The firm provides health coverage for approximately 1.6 million clients and the servicing requires timely delivery of paper-based information.

High quality and faster turnaround times are crucial.

Back to top