Colter & Peterson’s Challenge paper cutter earning top grades at Mercer County Community College

Ray Andrejcik goes to school every day. As Office Services coordinator at Mercer County Community College in West Windsor, NJ, he manages the day-to-day operations of the print shop and mailroom. With only two co-workers, his team produces 1.5 million pieces of work annually, including the campus in downtown Trenton.

After 13 years on the job, Andrejcik learns something every week. When he recently needed to replace a 30.5” Baum paper cutter, he was educated by the best in the business. A reconditioned Challenge paper cutter from Colter & Peterson, installed last month with safety features and a new electronics package, is saving time and raising his production levels and values.

“We bought the Baum cutter in 2007 from an outside source but had Colter & Peterson service it. The machine had no safety features and the microprocessor could not store any job information,” said Andrejcik. “We did repairs as needed but the microprocessor finally quit and the technician could not revive it. We decided to buy the Challenge because we needed a machine that was reliable and it was in the right price range.”

Mercer County Community College opened 51 years ago in 1966. Besides the two campuses, Andrejcik and his employees handle shared services for Mercer and West Windsor counties and Hamilton Township. They rely on two black and white Ricoh 8110s and 4-color 901 to print 8” x 11” and 13” x 19” work, and most department requests are in the 20,000-piece range.

The Challenge paper cutter has a reputation for accurate cutting and is a great machine for framing. Besides the safety kit, adding the Microcut® COLOR WS electronics package takes cutting to another plateau. User-friendly, it guides correct position movement of the blade faster and more accurately with computer-controlled precision. The 8” wide format touch screen display programs and stores job cut information and allows for quick and simple set-up.

“C&P did a good job of educating and telling us that as a school, why our cutting system should have safety features,” said Andrejcik. “They also helped us with the price quote. The college has a huge purchasing department and quotes are necessary for any equipment we plan to buy that exceeds $7,000.”

Andrejcik said the Challenge’s output is being driven by the Microcut COLOR WS system.

“It was only a few years ago where we printed 1.2 million pieces a year. Our output increases every year and with the new electronics, it will help since we can now pre-program our cuts. With the Baum we had to punch in the information for each individual cut,” he recalled. “Now we make four, five or six different cuts in the same amount of time. It makes the Challenge a very efficient machine.”