The World Bank's Printing & Multimedia Services Shows In-plants A Glimpse Of The Future

By Jimmy Vainstein

Video Conferencing

Sharing feedback between our teams was another challenge we faced at The World Bank’s Printing & Multimedia Services operation. To make sure all jobs kept moving on the production stream, we started to rely heavily on video conferencing between both locations. We added Web cameras on all desktop computers relevant to our operation. Cameras were installed on stations on our production floor, in our prepress area and in all appropriate office environments.

Skype has become second nature for our operators when they need to check print quality issues with CSRs or get a second opinion on daily bindery questions. We also inaugurated a state-of-the-art conference room powered by an HD video conferencing interface. We use that room every morning for our production meetings where we are not only able to see each other, like in the old days, but we can also bring up a shared screen to show any technical details about a print run.

The World Bank's Printing & Multimedia Services operation went through a roller coaster of changes last year when we moved our main printing facility 11 miles away from downtown Washington, D.C., to Landover, Md. The move was part of our institution's space realignment project, which affected a section of our facilities downtown. Our operation was split, with our production staff relocating to Maryland and our customer service reps (CSRs), designers and others remaining in downtown Washington.