You Can't Print It All In-house

Each in-plant, though, has its own criteria for deciding what to outsource and where to send it. For instance, Keats turns to a small number of pre-approved vendors when faced with a job his shop is not equipped to handle.

"I can't do perfect binding in-house, and we do a number of jobs each year that require perfect binding," Keats notes. "We have two or three approved bindery vendors, so we use them. In the case of a long-run, full-color job that does not lend itself to be produced digitally, we do the same thing—we have three or four pre-approved vendors who we contact for prices and turnaround times."