From The Editor: In-plants Are Thriving

By Bob Neubauer

Whenever a company starts a new in-plant from scratch, it's great news for the rest of our industry. It shows the world that outsourcing is not the trend that defines the in-plant industry—that companies and organizations see lots of value in starting up new in-plants.

Hobby Lobby brought its in-plant to life just five years ago, and it hasn't stopped growing since. Now up to 14 employees, it has added lots of new equipment, including a five-color offset press and an HP Indigo digital color press (see story in this issue).

It's not the only new in-plant out there, either.

Out in Folsom, Calif., near Sacramento, Folsom Lake College is set to break ground in the spring on a facility for its new print and mail department. Kathy Barnes has been handling copy jobs in the temporary quarters she shares with the receiving department and is eager to move into the planned 3,000-square-foot facility and start filling it with equipment. She says the Los Rios Community College district, to which her college belongs, is a strong supporter of in-plants.

I've also been monitoring another trend that spells good news for the in-plant industry. In the past few months, so many in-plants have installed digital color presses that I can hardly keep up:

• Allstate just added a Xerox iGen3 to its Print Communications Center.

• The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign also recently added an iGen3.

• Louisiana State University Graphic Services just signed the papers for its second NexPress 2100, this one with a coater.

• Ohio State University Printing Services just took delivery of its own NexPress 2100 late last month.

• Printing Services at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington installed a new HP-Indigo 3050.

This is not to mention other digital color purchases you've already read about in IPG, like the new iGen3 at BlueCross BlueShield of Michigan, and the NexPress 2100s at Louisiana's Office of State Printing and Minnesota Life Insurance. And let's not forget the five NexPress 2100s bought by the Principal Financial Group.

All this activity, combined with the news that half of all in-plants are now insourcing printing—according to the exclusive IPG market research beginning on page 32—points to a strong and growing in-plant market. In-plants are becoming profit centers and gearing up for digital color and variable data printing. Clearly, in-plants plan to thrive in the 21st century.

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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.