In-plant Profiles

When Poppy Forbes upgraded her in-plant to bring it into the world of digital printing, it didn't take her long to realize that the shop's bindery would also need some improvements. Forbes, print shop manager at the in-plant serving Boulder County, Colo., added a Canon imageRUNNER 7105 black-and-white copier and a Canon imagePRESS C7000VP digital press in 2008. A year later, the government in-plant installed a Duplo System 5000 collating system and a Duplo DC-615 slitter/cutter/creaser.

Santee Cooper is South Carolina's state-owned electric and water utility and the state's largest power producer. The ultimate source of electricity for 2 million South Carolinians, Santee Cooper is dedicated to providing low-cost, reliable and environmentally protective power and water for the benefit of all South Carolina.

Tina Gray saw the end of a lease agreement for an older Duplo saddle stitcher as an opportunity to bring more automated technology into her in-plant. Gray, print shop manager of the in-plant serving the Oklahoma Department of Human Services in Oklahoma City, decided last spring to install a four-tower Standard Horizon VAC collator system in-line with a Standard Horizon StitchLiner 5500 saddle stitching system with integrated three-knife trimming.

Cutting printed jobs with a 20-year-old cutter was making life difficult for the in-plant employees at George Mason University, in Fairfax, Va.

A FEW years back, Parma City School District's in-plant faced a dilemma. The 13,000-student district, just south of Cleveland, wanted spot color on some of its documents, but the in-plant's equipment could not cost effectively provide it. Its Xerox DocuColor 8000 was up to the task, but page costs for spot color would be high. Likewise, inking up the shop's two-color presses would be expensive for short runs.

Just before Christmas I took the train up to New York City to visit a few in-plants. I do this from time to time to remind myself what the inside of an in-plant looks like and to learn more about the situations managers are facing. So I planned a rather ambitious itinerary that would take me to four different in-plants, all around the city. One was at a television network, one at a financial services company. Another was in a hospital, and the last at a famous art museum.

It was the distinctive smell of chemicals that first enticed Clarence Porter into the printing business. "There was a print shop in my neighborhood that I would pass by as a kid," Porter recalls, "and as I walked by I could smell those chemicals and look at all the printing stuff. That was my first introduction to printing, and I was fascinated. I was probably 10 years old."

LOCATED ABOUT four miles from the state capitol building in Santa Fe, N.M., the state's Printing & Graphic Services operation has been serving New Mexico for a quarter century. For most of that time, the shop has focused on black-and-white reproduction of business cards, letterhead and forms. High-quality color work, however, was eluding it, and as the demand for this work increased, the in-plant found itself losing business.

At the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture, the decision to switch from offset to digital was a practical one. "We had a 20x28˝ Sakurai offset press and some smaller Hamadas, but we couldn’t find any press operators,” remarks Jon Flaxman, director of Printing Services for the Little Rock, Ark., school. “So we just made the decision, we are going to go totally digital.” In October, the four-employee in-plant installed a new Kodak NexPress S2500 digital color press with a fifth imaging station. So far it has exceeded Flaxman’s hopes. “We definitely now get more consistent color than we’ve ever had,” he contends.

At Metro, the transit agency serving the St. Louis region, the five-employee in-house printing and mailing facility recently executed multiple, multi-faceted initiatives that have resulted in improved quality, increased efficiency and major cost savings. The in-plant has been supporting Metro for more than 20 years, producing platform schedules, training and employee documentation/manuals, forms, business cards and stationery, newsletters and board meeting materials, among other jobs. The facility also houses a full-service mail center. Both printing and mailing functions are considered part of Metro's Office Services department.