Summer In-plant Meeting in Milwaukee

Last month, Ricoh’s Production Printing Business Group (PPBG) brought a dozen in-plant managers to Milwaukee for its annual In-plant Advisory Council meeting. Attendees toured the world-class Briggs and Stratton in-plant and attended two days of meetings, during which they were asked for opinions and feedback on new Ricoh products, services and strategic directions.

“The objectives of these councils are to maintain and deepen our understanding of the in-plant printing marketplace and to gauge the effectiveness of our strategies of working with it,” says Greg Cholmondeley, Ricoh PPBG In-plant Segment Marketing Manager

In-plant managers on the panel were selected to represent a variety of industries, sizes, geographies and sophistication. They included Ricoh and non-Ricoh customers.

At the meeting this year were

• Glenda Miley (Auburn University);
• Debbie Pavletich (Briggs & Stratton);
• Ken Macro (Cal Poly San Luis Obispo) along with students Heather Blakley, Jenna Sigler and Kristin Ericksmoen;
• Margaret Kling (EMC Insurance);
• Gail Konrath and Julie Bonnell (Hamacher Resource Group);
• John Sarantakos (IPMA president);
• Ellen Hartnett and Susan Ledet (Oceaneering International);
• Al Schmidutz (Steelcase Inc.);
• Maury Kane (Temple -University);
• Jon Whetstone (Toll Brothers);
• Jimmy Robinson (University of West Alabama);
• Katherine Goodrich (Wells Fargo).

“The benefits of these councils to Ricoh are immeasurable,” says Carl Joachim, vice president of Marketing for PPBG, “and everyone who participates gains from the experience. The council members not only see new ideas, they directly impact the direction and decisions of the products and services of one of the major vendors in the production printing space. Their comments and ideas go back to all levels of United States and global headquarters operations.”

(Read about the presentation Cal Poly students gave at this meeting.)