San Juan School District’s In-Plant Shop
Makes the Grade with RIPit CtP Solution
Anyone with school-aged children is accustomed to what seems like mountains of paper that come home in backpacks
everyday. Multiply that by 40,000 students; plus the teachers, administrative staff and PTAs, etc. found in a typical school
district, and the sheer number of printed materials might seem to approach the height of a small mountain. Scaling the
peaks of documents produced from to year to year is David Tralle, San Juan Unified School District’s in-plant print
operation manager.
The San Juan Unified School District serves more than 40,000 students in 78 schools, special education centers, preschools,
and adult education programs in Sacramento County, California. The district serves the northeast area of Sacramento
County, including Sacramento, Arcade, Arden, Carmichael, Citrus Heights, Fair Oaks, and portions of Folsom, Gold River,
and Orangevale. Tralle estimates that overall, his print shop produces 28 million documents annually.
Not surprisingly, the majority of the work is on-demand. Typicalprint jobs for Tralle and his production staff of 4 include
curriculum-based documents, business forms, correspondence, board report mailings, business cards, graduation programs
and newsletters.
To help the print shop run as smoothly as possible, Tralle has implemented PDF and web-based workflows utilizing RIPit’s
Pro Poly Computer to Plate (CtP) solution that integrates the award-winning OpenRIP workflow and the SpeedSetter 300
Platesetter. OpenRIP® Symphony is an Adobe® PostScript® 3™ RIP featuring a multi-task, multi-device, workflow that
automates complex prepress tasks and helps eliminate human error by integrating scanning, trapping, proofing, and
imposition in a single package.
OpenRIP Symphony’s multi-device functionality allows users to drive over 100 output devices including:
imagesetters, platesetters, digital copiers, digital presses as well as inkjet printers and plotters. The complete turnkey,
CtP solution was engineered to improve prepress productivity by streamlining the entire platemaking process.
Tralle and his staff designed an intranet-based print order system and workflow. San Juan District members sign into the
system and using their browser, can find basic curriculum, stock forms, business cards, and othertemplates posted. These
can be easily customized by the user, who can then easily place his or her job order. Integrated billing is automatic.
“We can, and do, scan 90 pages per minute; and use a combination of PostScript printers, 2 DocuTech 6180s, and 4 Xerox
490s to get the jobs done,” Tralle says. RIPit is used to prepare and RIP the PDFs, and then they are printed on one of 3
small offset presses or a color copier.
Clients such as Parent Teacher Student Organizations typically submit CYMK color files in PDF when they really only want
spot color output. San Juan’s printing in-plant builds the 2 spot colors from the CYMK file in OpenRIP Symhpony. The spot
colors are then plated via the RIPit Speedsetter, run on the offset presses and then pulled, post-fuser, at the Docutech, to
complete the newsletter.
“We’ve been using RIPit for 4 to 5 years….its just been the greatest thing since sliced bread,” Tralle remarks, “Just a few
years back we were still using darkrooms to process our film for plates, and now they are gone.”
Tralle says that the decision to go with RIPit was easy once his team completed their evaluation. “RIPit’s complete, CtP
solution replaced an antiquated system and now provides the San Juan School District with an advanced, networked, direct
to plate system that has been functioning flawlessly for years (over 5). For the volume of work we’ve done and continue to
do, it's been bullet proof.”
In the last few years, San Juan School District, like so many other districts around the country, has faced declining
budgets, Tralle says that as a result, the work he sees in his in-plant has changed, as well. “Economics are requiring that
we find the most cost-effective ways to produce everything; usually on demand.
We’re posting more documents to web, delivering in shorter turn around times, and have a wider variety of documents
posted to an online library and intranet areas; all to speed the process. We’re also trying to continue to pioneer new
technologies and applications. For example, we’re working to establish variable data printing for San Juan District.”
Despite the budget cutbacks, Tralle feels there are many potential growth areas for the operation. “It’s a sign of the times
that everyone is lean and maxed-out,” he says. “The only way to jump ahead is to figure out how to integrate better
technologies and efficiencies into your workflow system, and how to do more with less. RIPit continues to give us the
edge in meeting the rigorous demands of a very busy school district.”
