Showing Value Helps Marist In-plant Expand
"Space is one of the most precious things on campus,” declares Alexander Podmaniczky.
Few in-plants would argue with those words.
And yet space was exactly what the Digital Publications Center at Marist College needed to reach its potential. Podmaniczky and his three employees were squeezed into a 900-sq.-ft. room on the second floor of an academic building, across the hall from a student cafeteria — not the best deal for diners.
The new facility has a large customer service area separated from the production floor.
“When we were cleaning up the press, the place really stunk,” notes Podmaniczky, assistant director of the Enterprise Solutions Group at the private liberal arts college.
The cramped quarters hampered the shop’s ability to grow. When the Poughkeepsie, N.Y.-based in-plant added a Xerox Color J75 digital press two years ago, it didn’t have space to include an in-line bookletmaker.
“I just felt there was a great opportunity to improve the service to the campus community and to increase the range of services we could offer the college,” he notes. “But space was pretty limited.”
The in-plant had been in that room since 1978, and Podmaniczky was more than ready to expand.
“I’d been asking for more room just about from the time I arrived here,” he says — and that was in 2001. Each request was turned down.
Persistence Pays Off
In July, however, Podmaniczky’s persistence paid off at last. Thanks to the opening of a new science building on campus, the science labs in his building relocated, and he was given the green light to move his operation into the vacant space. At nearly 2,200 sq. ft., the new facility is enormous by comparison.
“We went from a terribly cramped space, with very little storage, with very little support space for the equipment, and now we have an extraordinarily well lit, open production area,” reports Podmaniczky. He feels that the decision to give the in-plant additional space had less to do with his requests than with the college’s recognition of the in-plant’s value.
“It was the growth in our services that I think gave the confidence to upper management that we deserve the new space,” he contends.
The in-plant has, after all, transitioned itself from a “basic copy shop” producing exams and syllabi into a provider of high-end marketing pieces for enrollment services and advancement, Podmaniczky says.
“We’ve been able to offer much more sophisticated kinds of work because of the equipment that we’ve been able to add,” he attests. “It’s very confirming that there’s a high level of confidence at the upper management level that this is a space we deserve based on our history of providing high-quality materials for the institution.”
Designing a Modern Facility
Podmaniczky had a hand in designing the layout of the new facility. After learning the Digital Publications Center would be able to move last March, he met with the architect to explain the shop’s equipment and space requirements. Plans were drawn up and modified. The result was a spacious facility with a large customer service area separated from the production floor, but visible through windows. Equipment is positioned to minimize the distance jobs must travel and provide a smoother workflow. The stock that’s used most frequently can now be stationed near the production equipment.
The in-plant’s self-service area with Mac and PC workstations is much larger so students no longer have to form a line stretching down the hallway. The new facility has a store room so the in-plant can keep more stock on hand, instead of storing it in an off-site campus warehouse. The shop is also on the ground floor now, with much easier street access for deliveries.
“We also, for the first time, have all of our wide-format printing” on site, Podmaniczky proclaims. Previously the shop’s Epson Stylus Pro 7800 and 9800 inkjet printers were located in a storage closet inside a physics lab, one floor below.
“So we were not really able to print and mount anything wide-format unless there were no physics classes going on,” he laments. “Now we’ve got everything under one roof here. It’s a great improvement. We are growing that business.”
One of the departing labs donated their lab tables, which the in-plant is putting to good use by situating them next to the equipment.
“What that allows us to do is to always have an excellent workflow of taking stock out of storage, preparing it for the printers, moving it off the printers over to the cutter or folder or scorer or bookletmaker,” he explains, “and in each one of those areas we have a place to put the work that’s waiting to go onto the equipment.” This beats the previous alternative of stacking stock on top of the equipment.
On July 18, the Digital Publications Center closed down for two days and staff began rolling equipment down the hall, into the elevator and over to its new home. The Xerox J75 went first so it could start producing work right away. Moving the large Challenge cutter was, as its name implies, a bit of a challenge. Since then it has been replaced with a new programmable MBM Triumph 5560.
Digital Envelope Press
JR DeBard prints envelopes on the new Neopost HD-CX1600.
Earlier in the year, the operation had revamped its envelope printing capabilities by adding a Neopost HD-CX1600. Previously, envelopes were printed on a Heidelberg QM 46-2, but when the press operator left, the college asked Podmaniczky to modernize that process.
“It’s a very reliable machine,” he praises. He particularly likes its straight paper path. “The flatter the paper path, the less jamming you’re going to get,” he explains.
Podmaniczky is pleased that the Neopost HD-CX1600 can print the logo and return address at the same time it’s addressing envelopes. Previously envelopes were sent to Mailing Services for addressing.
“This saves significant production time,” he notes.
Overall, Podmaniczky has nothing but positive things to say about the Digital Publications Center’s new facility and the confidence it represents in the in-plant’s contributions.
“That sense of affirmation by the institution is powerful,” he says.
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.
