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 is the Technical Services Coordinator for Information Technology Services (ITS) at RMIT. ITS provide printing services for students who are able to send images to print from the various faculties on the Melbourne CBD campus. Remi 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 Remi who purchased the printer through HP Channel Partner Celmac.

Z6200“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, Remi and his team considered three different print devices including competitive brands before settling on the HP Designjet Z6200, which he says, has proven its worth already. “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. Remi says students are also able to use their own media and he 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”.

Remi and his team manage 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 Remi 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. Students control their own printing sending electronic files to the appropriate device”.

HP Graphic Arts
www.hp.com.au/graphicarts
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