Planning Ahead For Growth

"We've tried to change to a more customer-friendly environment," he says. "Our greatest improvement has been in communication. We try to listen to our customers' needs and help them find solutions in ways we might not have in the past—even if it means outsourcing."

The in-plant is developing a Web site to provide customers with information about the shop's capabilities and answer their common questions about job setup. He also hopes to allow customers to reorder jobs over the Internet. Currently most jobs come to the in-plant through the mail, either on disk or on paper.