Otter Tail In-plant Makes Its Move
When Otter Tail Power Co. decided to put its in-plant’s basement facility to a different use, Scott Nelson jumped at the chance to move his 12-employee operation to new quarters. And because the in-plant has a thriving insourcing business that brings in good revenue for the Fergus Falls, Minn.-based power company, Otter Tail didn’t hesitate to fund the move.
In September, the in-plant began operating out of its new 7,200-square-foot facility, just a half block from its old location. Nelson says the new plant is better in many ways.
“It’s more of a storefront operation,” he says. Customers used to have to go into the lobby of the general office, sign in, then wait to be escorted down to the print shop.
The new facility has a large loading dock, he adds. In the old plant, deliveries had to come and go through an elevator. The new operation boasts 20-foot ceilings, compared with 8-foot ceilings in the old place. There are also more windows now, including two large skylights, which bring sunshine into the pressroom.
Moving gave the in-plant a chance to arrange its equipment in a more logical order for a smoother workflow. Paper can now be stored near the presses that use it.
The move took five days, Nelson says. Vendors like Heidelberg and Agfa dismantled their equipment, and professional riggers moved it.
“It went really, really well,” he says. “Nobody got hurt and nothing got dropped.”
Since the leases on the shop’s Xerox 6060 and DocuTech 135 were up, Nelson took the opportunity to upgrade to a new Xerox 8000 and a Nuvera 144. They were installed right in the new plant.
Once the shop’s four-color 14x20˝ Heidelberg GTO was reassembled, Nelson arranged for a second press operator to be trained. This is due to the increasing volume of four-color work the in-plant is pulling in. With the only four-color press within 50 miles, the in-plant insources a good deal of outside work.
Overall, Nelson is very pleased with his in-plant’s new facility.
“It’s very pleasant to work in,” he says, “especially with the skylights.”
- Companies:
- Agfa Graphics
- Heidelberg
- Xerox Corp.
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.
