Business Management - In-plant Justification

There is nothing wrong with failure if you learn something from it—especially if you use what you learned to fix a problem.

I had an experience several years ago that illustrates this point. It was a Saturday, and one of our press operators was running the program for an event at our performing arts facility. The pressman noticed a mistake—a photo had an incorrect caption, as I recall—so he shut down the press. And he went home, but that’s another story.

Only about 20 in-plant managers attended the Southeastern University Printing & Digital Managers Conference. Those who made the trip, though, say it was a great meeting nonetheless.

NEW ORLEANS' devastation at the hands of Hurricane Katrina was witnessed on TV screens worldwide. But seeing the aftermath first hand, as attendees of the recent National Government Publishing Association conference did, left a far more poignant impression.

LAST MONTH, in-plant managers from Texas colleges and universities met in Austin for the Texas Association of College and University Printers' (TACUP) conference. While billed as a regional conference, TACUP was actually the largest gathering of university in-plant managers this year, with 40 managers in attendance from as far away as Arizona, Indiana, Pennsylvania and Virginia. And judging by their responses, it was also one of the best events of its kind.

How do you know your print shop is not doing a good job? What we’re really talking about here are perceptions, that is, what do your customers and the managers in your organization think about you? Are you the guys they think of first—the "go-to" guys—or is your shop just someplace people have to go? There’s a big difference.

WE LIVE in a multi-channel world where print is just one component of customer communications. As an in-plant printer in difficult economic times, you should consider how you can provide additional value to your organization. This may be through mailing and fulfillment services or a greater focus on applications that go into the mail stream—like direct mail, transaction and transpromo—using a personalized (1:1) communications strategy.

All too often we—in-plant managers—put our heads in the sand and hide from management. Here are two questions we should all be concerned about: "How do you know your print shop is doing a good job?" and "How do you know it’s not?"

In his many years as an in-plant manager, industry consultant Ray Chambers gained a lot of experience defending in-plants against outsourcing proposals. Now he'll be sharing that information with you in a new blog called "Management Counts." He'll cover management strategies and tools that will give you an edge when it comes time to defend your shop.

FEW INDUSTRY discussions are as contentious as the debate about how a large company or organization should handle its printing needs. It is often impacted by prevailing management trends that swing from owning equipment and managing the staff to using a facilities management (FM) service to hiring a company to outsource the printing. After working with many companies, we have seen each of these options work or fail in different circumstances.

In-plant print providers reported their biggest challenge was being viewed as a "must-have" function within their company. Other issues facing the group ranged from establishing new services, declining print budgets and meeting demand without sacrificing quality.