ACUP Report: Best Practices for Managers

By Bob Neubauer

Laura Lockett, of Sacramento State University

In a very insightful session on best practices during the ACUP+ 2024 conference, three managers (Sacramento State’s Laura Lockett, Lisa Scott from Yale University, and Donna Horbelt from the University of California, Davis) offered many useful best practices tips on pricing, equipment replacement, budgeted hourly rates, and equipment planning. Scott noted she keeps a detailed spreadsheet that shows the expected life of each piece of equipment, so she knows well in advance when it needs to be replaced, and can prepare her management.

Scott noted her operation is currently installing MIS and Web-to-print software, and offered some words of caution: “Don’t go out and buy anything until you get your IT people on board,” she said.

Laura Lockett from Sacramento State, Lisa Scott from Yale University, and Donna Horbelt from the University of California, Davis, shared some great advice in their best practices session.

Market Your In-plant

They stressed the importance of marketing your in-plant and listed a number of ways to do so: tours, presentations to university groups, social media, customer testimonials, and especially printing calendars with the in-plant’s information on them. Customers really love calendars, they all agreed.

ACUP+ attendees at the session.

They also recommended being involved in campus new employee orientation events, to market to newcomers right off the bat.

The three also discussed the importance of improving the morale of your team. Lockett recommended asking them about their goals, and offering them training that will help further their careers. But also, she said, make sure they enjoy their work.

“How do you make each day fun? Laughter gets us through the day,” she said.

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Bob Neubauer Author's page 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.