From the Editor: Success, Lies and Videotape

GRAPH EXPO seemed much busier than usual for me this year—probably because, in addition to visiting booths and attending press conferences, I gave myself the added task of shooting video. Trying to capture the essence of a 630-vendor event with more than 21,000 verified attendees is no simple task, as I found out. But the videos I recorded should give those of you who couldn’t come to Chicago a good taste of what it was like there. Watch for them here on our home page in the weeks ahead.

Amidst all my rushing around, I ran into a handful of in-plant managers there and spent some time catching up with them. It was nice to see so many in-plants looking at equipment and planning upgrades.

One shop that has undergone a very impressive series of upgrades is the subject of our cover story this month. Simon Fraser University Document Solutions has gone from a shop on the verge of shutting down to a model of on-demand printing.

Since this is the first Canadian in-plant to be featured on our cover (about time, eh?), that alone should tell you this shop is doing something note­worthy. It has spent $3.5 million over five years to replace antiquated offset equipment with the latest Xerox digital printers, including an iGen3 and a 6060. To address the university’s growing need for variable data printing, the in-plant is implementing XMPie software (soon to become part of Xerox) to help produce personalized marketing programs.

Director Raj Nadrajan is a busy man and not easy to track down. (In fact, we put the finishing touches on the article via e-mail while he was in Sri Lanka.) But the fruits of his labor—the turnaround of SFU’s in-plant—stand as a model for all in-plants to emulate.

Nadrajan praises SFU’s upper management for supporting his efforts, understanding the importance of having an efficient in-plant, and following through to make sure the in-plant succeeded. This is the kind of support I wish all in-plants had. Then I wouldn’t get calls like the one I got this morning from a long-time in-plant friend whose parent organization just handed him a vendor-influenced assessment of his operation that included the naïve and inflammatory statement “in-plants are becoming obsolete.”

There’s nothing like this spurious rehash to get my blood boiling.

I fired off some data with actual research behind it to refute that fiction, including a list of thriving in-plants, but still, the unfortunate truth is that many of your bosses know nothing about the in-plant industry and will believe whatever they hear. So make sure they hear from you about the strength of the industry and the benefits a well-equipped in-plant can provide, before they hear the opposite from a facilities management firm drooling for your business.