The university has undertaken an equipment replacement programme in which it has replaced eight existing printers with a trio of the Océ ColorWave machines.
In doing so, MMU, which caters for more than 3,000 art and design students, has transformed peak term-time 72-hour-queues to less than an eight-hour turnaround.
According to Lawrence Paulson, MMU deputy campus ICT team leader, the ColorWave 600 has proved more than five times faster than existing colour technology.
He said: "Printing time has improved from over 15 minutes to just two minutes. In addition, we have witnessed a greater retention of students’ work in-house, which is a good outcome, improvements in our customer feedback on quality, and significant reductions in time spent servicing the printers."
The university's suite of 42" ColorWave 600 machines can each print an A0 page in 31 seconds and hold up to six substrate rolls.
John Haigh, MMU Campus ICT team leader, added: "The investments at MMU have certainly helped remove the pressure of peak workloads, and means that we no longer have the same degree of bottlenecks in production. The feedback from staff and students has been overwhelmingly positive."
Manchester university slashes turnaround times with Océ ColorWave 600 install
Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) has cut the turnaround times of its in-house art production by 90% after taking delivery of its third Océ ColorWave 600 wide-format printer.
