Technology speeds up short runs of custom plates

The problem with short production runs, any manufacturer knows, is the expense and delays of set-up.

And like any manufacturer who faces a bewildering array of requests from customers, the team that makes Nevada's license plates turned to technology for the answer.

The license plate manufacturing operation like a good portion of Nevada's manufacturing is located at Carson City, behind the high walls of the Nevada State Prison.

There, inmates produced more than 1 million plates in the state's most recent fiscal year, and the number of short production runs has grown as the Legislature approves more special plates to raise funds for good causes.

Most recently, the state rolled out a tourism license plate it features a golf course to help raise money for tourism promotion.

In all, the state offers about 25 of those specialized plates to raise money for everything from art to rodeo.

Las Vegas has its own plate; so does the University of Nevada, Reno.

And Tom Jacobs, a spokesman for the Department of Motor Vehicles, says other types of plates the ones for members of the Legislature, for instance, or prisoners of war bring the number of individual products close to 100.

Until recently, Jacobs said, that's been a headache for managers of prison industries.

Because license plates were manufactured mechanically essentially, stamped out of rolls of aluminum, then painted prison officials waited to collect a number of requests for specialized plates then produced them in the largest possible batch.

But the delays left customers unhappy.

In recent weeks, the prison has neared completion of its transition to a digital system that allows license plates to be manufactured efficiently no matter how small the production run of an individual plate might be.

For all practical purposes, Jacobs said, the new system allows inmates to produce one set of tourism plates followed by one set of rodeo plates followed by one set of UNR plates without any delay for set up.

Another plus to the new system the colors on the plates, Jacobs says, are sharper.