In-plant Roundtable at On Demand

At the On Demand show last month in Boston, In-plant Graphics organized a roundtable luncheon for in-plant managers. Hosted by GBC, the luncheon meeting lured more than 25 in-plant managers away from the busy show floor. They came from a diverse collection of organizations, such as Portland General Electric, Principal Financial Group, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Securian Financial, Allstate Insurance, Brown University and the University of Missouri-Columbia, to name a few.

IPG Editor Bob Neubauer moderated the discussion, which covered in-plants’ equipment acquisition plans and new services they have added. Among the new services that attendees said helped strengthen their in-plants was fulfillment services. Allstate and MIT mentioned that fulfillment and kit assembly were growth areas for them, though Principal Financial said its in-plant was phasing out its pick-and pack operation and doing more on-demand printing. The Arlington Virginia Department of Environmental Services in-plant has found success by offering large-format scanning capabilities for architectural drawings.

Securian Financial’s Tom Neckvatal said he was at On Demand to see technologies related to transpromo printing. His company is evaluating the possibility of incorporating transpromo into some of its product mailings. He also revealed that his in-plant has installed intelligent inserting for company billing statements. This will bring significant savings in postage and labor, he said.

With GBC as the host of the luncheon, binding was naturally an important topic. Attendees agreed with data from a GBC survey of in-plants that showed growth in coil binding, mostly due to customer requests. Automated binding was also a key interest of attendees.

IPG has produced a short video about the luncheon. To view it, click here: www.ipgonline.com/video/video.bsp?sid=93798&var=video.