IPMA Goes Full Throttle in Milwaukee
Numerous other interesting presentations filled out the IPMA conference:
- Barbara Stainbrook and Erik Holdo, of Konica Minolta Business Solutions, again treated attendees to their culinary wizardry by cooking Milwaukee beer cheese soup while giving a presentation on new opportunities for in-plants. "One ingredient does not make a dish," noted Holdo, as the two discussed opportunities in direct mail, data mining, electronic signs and production inkjet printing.
- Mike Lincoln and Teddy Abad-Perez, with the State of Colorado, described how they used Lean processes to overhaul the state's multifunction printer program, reducing devices from one for every 2.6 employees to one for every six people.
- Canon convened a panel of two in-plants to relate their experiences: Sue DaBaco, of Alverno College, talked about her in-plant's advances into wide-format, document digitization and "insanely awesome customer service"; and Jason Plum, with Schneider Electric, described how his company went from outsourcing its Operations and Maintenance manuals to bringing the work in-house in 2009 and producing it on Canon equipment, saving the company $1.1 million that year.
- Tricia Bhattacharya of Xerox noted that in-plants can be more strategically relevant, deepen their relationships with customers and enhance the value of their documents by moving into e-publishing. She described a solution that will optimize files for both print and e-delivery.
- Mike Gatti, of Fairfax County Government, discussed the types of data managers must compile to show a return on investment, develop a business case and justify new equipment.
- Kodak's Debra Payne Benson, backed by her team of Kodak "print geniuses," talked about how in-plants can use past experiences to reinvent themselves and move forward with new ideas. She solicited innovative ideas from managers in the audience as well.
- Ricoh Americas' Toby Saalfeld went over color management basics, noting that many in-plants spend more time tweaking files to get color right than they would if they provided proper color management.
The conference ended with an awards banquet honoring the winners of the IPMA Awards and the In-Print 2014 awards. At the end of the evening, the Best of Show winners were revealed: Brigham Young University and East Carolina University.
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.
