Discuss the reprographic equipment normally used in the teaching learning process.

If you want to view other related topics. Click Here.

Answer:

This article describes about the suitable reprographic equipment for office reprography. It also awares you about the crucial factors on which the process depends and modern features that have evolved with time. Besides, it also informs you about the maintenance procedures and certain legal policy that one needs to be kept in mind before carrying on with the process.

Reprography
The copying or duplicating of documents in offices is done by the reprographic department. Here, comes the importance of the reprographic equipment that produces several copies of important documents, notices for the office notice boards and even small magazines and pamphlets. Normally, in offices different types of reprographic equipment are used to accomplish different tasks. Reprography is the process that refers to the reproduction of the printed documents, handwritten documents, charts, drawings, designs, graphics, plans etcetera.

Factors on which reprography depends
There are different equipments of reprography that are used to produce duplicates from the original documents. One may get several duplicate print copies through the computer printers, offset printing machines, electronic scanning etcetera within a stipulated time-period. But there are certain factors on which reprography depend like the number of documents to be printed, time taken to perform the reprography, the quality of output required and the cost involved in the whole reprographic process. Of course, a prudent entrepreneur has to consider these factors before he/she opts for a particular method of reprograhy or settles down for a particular type of reprographic equipment.

Office reprographic equipment
Generally, an entrepreneur has to make certain reprographic decisions which may include distributing several copies of the original documents to his employees and sending copies of important copies of a document to the branch or head offices. He/she may employ professionally trained reprographers to serve the purpose of the office. To give you a better understanding on the subject I would discuss here some of the important reprographic equipment and their basic functions which are as given below:

1. Offset lithography machine: This machine has the capacity to perform printing in the bulk volumes. During the process of printing the images get transferred from the metal plates of the machine to the roller and finally into the print medium. The images thus generated is of high quality. The offset printing process is used today for performing small and big column printing.

2. Letterpress printing duplicates: In the letterpress printing duplicate there is a hard metal printing surface. With the help of ink, and this hard printing surface (usually a plastic printing surface) it carries out the work of printing. This is still very much in demand and is popular for suitable printing jobs irrespective of the fact that lithography is dominating the printing process arena.

3. Stencil duplicator machine: As the name suggests it simply works by letting the ink pass by stencil onto a paper. It is also put-upon offices for the printing purposes. Normally, this machine or equipment is used where low volume of printing is required. It is also known as mimeograph machine. Besides, the automatic stencil duplicator is also available that can be operated either manually or electrically. These are sophisticated to adjust the working speed with the flow of ink accordingly. It also has an intelligent temperature controller.

4. Gelatine duplicator machine: It is a copying or duplicating system that is very low in cost. Especially those offices and business firms which cannot afford to buy a high cost duplicator due to shortage of fund could rely or bet on this. It excludes the requirement of electricity and installation of typewriters or any other expensive equipment. The advantages of this is that it is very simple to use and a lot cheaper than other duplicating machines. The downside is that it works very slowly but then one also needs to consider the fact that it is sophisticated to give an output of 50 copies each time it is made to work. Moreover, it is also very durable and could serve the purpose of a firm for a long time.

5. Electrostatic copier machine: The electrostatic copier works when an image is placed on the grass plate. There are a series of mirrors inside on the drums that are photo-conductive in nature. When light falls on the image it gets reflected through the mirrors. Thus through a methodical way it produces photocopy of images.

Features of advanced reprography
With time, technology has taken a big leap and this holds true to reprography also. Certain reprograpic machines have been replaced with the introduction of the new ones and there is also advancement in the overall reprograpy features. Some of the most advanced reprography features that deserve a mention here are duplexing (copying on both sides), switching to color photocopying, copying multiple copies of documents, great memory storage facility to store items, the facility of enlargement and reduction according to one's needs.

Maintenance of reprograpic equipment
The regular and timely maintenance holds crucial to any machinery for a prolonged life and quality output. Regular minor maintenance could be done by the reprographer or the person who uses the machine. If major problems occur one should take the help of the service personnel of the company from where the product is purchased. Generally, when the digital or electrical reprographic equipment in the office goes out of order they display some code on the screen. Each code denotes a particular type of error. The service person or a technician is technically savvy or equipped to understand these problems and rectify these errors. Hence, one should always contact the service center in cases of major failure in these machines

Reprography and legality
Though reprography helps to produce copies of documents, pictures, drawings etcetera but one should also be aware of the legal aspect of it. Certain reproductions are not allowed by the law or the government of a country and one should abide the same. For instance, reproduction of identity cards, driving licenses, passports without the prior permissions are illegal under the law. Hence, before doing any such thing one should be aware of the legal aspects that concern these.