From the Editor: Part of the Mission
"My university is not going to close me."
With those words, Cathy Skoglund wrapped up her presentation at last month's Association of College and University Printers (ACUP) conference, after describing how her in-plant at Arizona State University utilizes students almost exclusively as its work force. Her certainty of her in-plant's strong position stems from the fact that the Print & Imaging Lab aligns closely with ASU's educational mission by giving students hands-on experience, which helps them launch their careers. In fact, Cathy noted, 45 of her past student workers have found jobs in the printing industry. With a record like that, how could any school consider closing its in-plant?
In a time when outsourcing weighs heavy on the minds of most managers, Cathy seems to have found the perfect recipe for peace of mind: incorporating students into the in-plant to support the university's core mission. She currently has 30 student workers, with only two full-time staff members.
All 82 ACUP attendees got a chance to visit the in-plant on the last day of the conference and talk with the students running the equipment and designing printed pieces. With an HP Indigo 5500, a pair of HP Designjet wide-format printers (including a new HP Latex 260), a two-color Heidelberg QuickMaster 42, a Halm envelope press and a PSI digital envelope printer, it was an impressive operation. About 75 jobs a day come through the shop's Web-to-print system, Skoglund said.
The visit to ASU's Print & Imaging Lab capped off a very successful conference, which included sessions on customer service, equipment justification, strategic business plans and wide-format printing opportunities. Some very interactive roundtable discussions had managers sharing their experiences with 3D printing, scanning, mailing, revenue strategies and the right of first refusal (though the consensus was that "centralized printing" was a less contentious way to refer to this). We've got some photos from ACUP on page 24, but the full conference recap will be in our June issue.
Two weeks after ACUP, I traveled to another in-plant event in Washington, D.C., the eighth annual Digital Printing in Government and Higher Education Forum, organized by Interquest and held at GPO headquarters. It featured an impressive lineup of in-plant speakers, including The United Nations' Narendra Nandoe, Jimmy Vainstein of The World Bank, Kelly Hogg of the University of Virginia, Mike Gatti of Fairfax County Government and several other in-plant managers.
Andrew Sherman, the GPO's chief of staff, opened the forum and welcomed managers. He also took me on a brief tour, where I got to see some of GPO's latest equipment additions, including a new Smyth book sewing machine. Next up for me: the IPMA conference in Milwaukee, where close to 125 in-plant managers are expected.
Bob has served as editor of In-plant Impressions since October of 1994. Prior to that he served for three years as managing editor of Printing Impressions, a commercial printing publication. Mr. Neubauer is very active in the U.S. in-plant industry. He attends all the major in-plant conferences and has visited more than 180 in-plant operations around the world. He has given presentations to numerous in-plant groups in the U.S., Canada and Australia, including the Association of College and University Printers and the In-plant Printing and Mailing Association. He also coordinates the annual In-Print contest, co-sponsored by IPMA and In-plant Impressions.
