Many architecture, engineering and design firms understand that color can add tremendous value to construction plans and blueprints. However, designers and contractors struggle with the actual output of color prints. The average architecture, engineering and design firm has one or more low-priced, low-volume inkjet plotters, which means their color printing plotting experience leaves much to be desired.

One architect told Océ, "Plotting is the number one time waster in our business." After describing his work environment, it was evident why he felt the color printing process was a tedious one. This particular architecture firm had numerous designers who worked on multiple floors of the firm's office building and each shared a couple of centralized inkjet plotters. The result was a lot of running up and down the stairs, standing around the wide format plotters waiting for something (or nothing) to come out, jostling for queue position, and then correcting mis-plots.

Unfortunately, this type of scenario incites wasted labor at high hourly rates. In addition, an inefficient wide format inkjet plotting system slows the design process and frustrates designers, project managers and general contractors. There are numerous other reasons that lead to negative attitudes about color inkjet printing.

Among architecture, engineering and construction firms, the market perceptions of color inkjet printing indicate that:

• Color printing is too slow
• Color prints come out wet and require curing
• Color prints require expensive coated media and messy ink
• Color prints need to be trimming, manually collated and stacked
• Color and black and white mixed sets are cumbersome to produce

For all these reasons, architecture, engineering and design firms consider wide-format color prints to be a luxury. Many firms employ color inkjets only to print check-plots and single sets to sign and stamp. For batch plotting plans and documents, most firms use monochrome wide format printers or outsource their printing projects to a reprographic service. And, because many reprographers share these same challenges, which is why wide-format color printing prices can be prohibitive.

Inkjet printers often have a low cost of entry, high output quality and represent the industry standard for color plotting. However, they are not conducive to high-volume, low-cost output. Faster, cheaper color printing is the key that will unlock the acceptance of wide format color printing as a standard throughout the lifecycle of architecture, engineering and construction projects.

Fortunately, there are now wide format color printers on the market that use color toner instead of ink. The speeds are radically faster than inkjet, and the per-square-foot print costs are comparable to those of monochrome wide format printing. Reprographic firms are starting to use this new technology for production work and equipment manufacturers and their resellers are offering this toner-based wide format color plotters. This is good news for the architecture, engineering and construction industries, since the new technology accelerations color printing job completion and reduces color CAD printing costs.

Architecture, engineering and construction firms have to overcome the negative perceptions of color inkjet printing. Currently, there is a paradigm shift taking place, and the sooner AEC firms embrace it, the sooner these firms can start reaping the benefits of wide format color printing.

Resource Center Home Printing Construction Documents in Color