In-plant Profiles

As demand and customer base was increasing at the Olathe (Kansas) Public School District's Graphic Communications and Printing Department, Erica Derrington, manager, turned to EFI's Digital StoreFront. Customers can now order print jobs digitally thanks to personalized portals where their own individual documents and orders are stored.

With his combined IT and business background, Ohio native Roger Chamberlain was the perfect person to run The Cincinnati Insurance Companies' printing operation in Fairfield, OH. “It was a place to settle in and call home,” says Chamberlain.

By consolidating four printing operations into one, Fidelity Investments’ Document Printing Services has already saved $1 million in costs. An influx of new equipment and software enhancements promises to further boost efficiency and effectiveness.

Sometimes design is part of an in-plant's responsibilities and sometimes not. But for Valdosta State University's in-plant, providing customers with a little file design help is translating into more business and better turnaround times.

As the University of Alabama at Birmingham's in-plant prepares to relocate, IPG tours the plant they are soon to leave behind.

Ted Bailey’s dedication to printing began at an early age. During his high school years in Ontario, Calif., Bailey, now manager of printing and graphic services at Boise State University, worked for a commercial printer, along with his brother, doing miscellaneous bindery work. After taking some graphic arts classes, he was hooked.

in 2008, Yale University decided to begin construction of a new Yale School of Management. Yale Printing & Publishing Services was located in a building that was scheduled for demolition. To determine whether outsourcing made sense, the university did a complete financial review of the in-plant. The study revealed that it would be more costly to close the shop and outsource than to move it.

Student workers are a common sight at higher-ed in-plants, but it's rare to find one where 79 percent of the employees are students. That's the scenario at the Arizona State University Print & Imaging Lab.

Before adding a digital color press in 2010, Donna Cooper Horbelt says her in-plant at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) was not nearly as busy as she wanted it to be. "I was losing color copy business to everybody in town," recalls the director of Auxiliary Enterprises, Printing and Media Services. "Our quality just wasn't good enough."

At University of Washington Creative Communications, the in-plant's implementation of Lean production practices have been critical to its rapid financial turnaround from a $200,000 deficit to a $300,000 profit—a half-a-million-dollar swing from one fiscal year to the next.