From the Editor: In-plant Workshop

I'M ON a plane as I write this, flying home from Rochester, N.Y., after attending and presenting at a Xerox Thought Leadership Workshop. Xerox holds these events periodically, bringing a couple dozen in-plant managers together for two days of tours, presentations and networking at its Gil Hatch Center for Customer Innovation.

The bulk of the sessions were designed to give in-plant managers ideas for new services they can provide, motivate them to make positive changes and suggest ways they can increase the value they provide. These were key themes in the presentation I gave to the 30 or so higher-ed managers in attendance. They were also a big part of Peter Muir's enthusiastic presentation on "In-plant Business Excellence." The president of Bizucate Inc. urged attendees to take action on a project they have been putting off, without letting fears of failure restrain them. After all, he noted, every innovation started with a long list of failures.

With higher-ed in-plant managers from all over North America assembled in one room, the Xerox workshop was like a mini IPMA or ACUP conference. I met several new managers and learned about their operations. A couple of the schools in attendance didn't have an in-plant yet but were planning to acquire production equipment and start one up. I'll be sure to track their progress.

I enjoyed catching up with some managers I hadn't seen in years, like Mark McCarty, of Missouri State University, who told me his in-plant is busier right now than it's been in years, a sign, he thinks, that departments are finished with their recession-related print cutbacks. Dale Smith, of Utah State University, told me about the great success his in-plant has been having selling promotional products. Rocky Reynolds, of Citrus College, updated me on plans he's got for his shop's iGen3 that will save the California school big bucks.

In other cases I got the story behind the story, such as when one manager told me his shop's new DI press wasn't quite as busy as planned, after a key customer redesigned booklets so they no longer fit on the press.

It was nice to be able to chat with so many in-plants at the Xerox workshop—especially after seeing so few at the On Demand Show the week before. Overall attendance at that show seemed low, possibly due to the absence of such traditional anchors as Xerox, Kodak and Standard Finishing. Or perhaps the less central Washington, D.C. location deterred some folks. (Next year it's back in N.Y., where it belongs.)

Or maybe, as I suspect, people no longer go to shows just to gawk at all the latest gadgets, but instead they now wait until they need equipment, and then go with specific goals. I know the few in-plant managers I spotted in D.C. all had a list of equipment they were there to inspect.

As for me, I have a few weeks to rest, then I'm off to the ACUP conference in Dallas, where more than 85 higher-ed in-plant managers are planning to assemble. I should bring back some good stories from that event too.

One more thing: to the right of my editor's column in the printed edition, you'll see a QR code. Scan it with a smartphone. Here's a look at what you'd have seen if you scanned it in our March issue. (Something new will be there this month.)