Business Management - In-plant Justification

The competitive threats to in-plants are not diminishing. The reason: print volumes are not returning to pre-recession volumes, so fewer in-plants are achieving their goals (i.e., financial break-even), leaving the door open to an outsourcing or facilities management company.

Last time I looked we’re part of the printing industry. A pretty sizeable part of it, in fact. But as usual, with the exception of In-Plant Graphics, printing and graphic arts media coverage will focus on how the unification impacts the commercial printing industry, but not the industry in general—and certainly not in-plants.

I wish there was a way to help in-plant managers see things from my perspective. I’ve worked on 50 or more projects over the past few years trying to help top management understand why they have an in-plant and why the in-plant really is “core” to whatever business they happen to be in.

The National Association for Printing Leadership (NAPL) has produced a new white paper, "How to Improve In-Plant Performance," that will help in-plant managers understand how to measure, prove and improve the value of their operations. Authored by Howie Fenton, the white paper covers a range of performance-enhancing ideas, metrics and proven tactics that are based on first-hand experience with today's in-plant production and management issues.

IT'S HAPPENING all the time in the commercial printing world. No longer defining themselves simply as print service providers, commercial printers are working hard to transition into marketing service providers. It's a difficult journey, but they see this as one of the few viable ways to grow from a price-driven, commodity operation with shrinking volumes and margins into a lucrative business with high profit potential.

In folklore, silver bullets were used to deal with exceptional problems, like monsters. Organizations are dealing with some pretty exceptional problems, too, and “outsourcing” has been touted as management’s silver bullet to deal with them.

To survive and prosper in these difficult economic times, in-plant managers need to ask themselves some soul-searching questions to establish why the department exists and confirm what it offers its host organization, both now and in the future.

The push to outsource any function not directly connected to an organization's core business overlooks the intangible costs of doing business that way, which ultimately impacts the company's bottom line. Your job is to prove your value.

What will your in-plant look like 10 years from now? That question was offered for consideration on a popular in-plant listserv recently. Responses ranged from pessimistic (in-plants will be history) to hopeful (we will provide new and varied services), with some managers sharing tales of downsizing, and others of business growth.

In partnership with InfoTrends, Xerox commissioned a research project that documents the oft-hidden value of in-plants. The results are compiled in a white paper targeted at the enterprise's senior level managers and titled "The Strategic Value of an In-House Printing Operation: Trends and Best Practices."