A Tale of Two In-plants

"The majority of in-plants today have some type of Web-to-print," noted Jeff Hayes, president of InfoTrends, at the beginning of an IPG webinar earlier this week. And those that don't, he added, "you're likely losing customers or jobs."

The webinar, "Achieving & Attaining Web-to-print Success," was sponsored by Rochester Software Associates, and featured two in-plant managers detailing their Web-to-print experiences. First Tawsha Worrall, manager of the Print Center at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, noted the advantages that RSA's WebCRD brought to her in-plant. It has allowed her to monitor costs, track jobs, report, charge back, manage forms and control UPMC branding.

Thanks to Web-to-print, she said, customers have much easier access to the in-plant. Order volumes are now up 20 percent over last year, she added, thanks to Web-to-print. She plans to use WebCRD to create reports on outsourced jobs, then use this data to improve the in-plant's capabilities and bring that work in-house.

Following Worrall, Abbas Badani, director of Penn State's Multimedia & Print Center, revealed how his 50-employee in-plant "failed miserably" in its first attempt at Web-to-print nine years ago. Because the in-plant hosted and maintained it, he said, but couldn't dedicate the resources to upgrading it, it quickly became antiquated. What's more, he added, it was not marketed and customers felt no motivation to use it.

PSU's in-plant is about to implement WebCRD, he said, and this time Badani has secured university buy-in and support from all areas. A project manager has been assigned to keep the project on target with goals. The in-plant will focus its marketing on getting key customer acceptance by emphasizing the savings in money and time that Web-to-print will bring. The in-plant will offer training and will promote the system through open houses and mail campaigns. Badani expects to be testing the system in May.

At a follow-up webinar on June 24, Badani and Worrall will offer an update on their experiences. To play back this week's webinar, follow this link.