In-plant Profiles

As companies and organizations catch “the green wave” and start looking for ways to improve their sustainability, they rely heavily on the initiatives of their individual departments. In-plants can play a major part in the overall green success of their organizations. One in-plant that’s leading the way is the Reprographics department at the Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE), the nation’s largest regional education agency. Thanks to an equipment upgrade, the shop’s Océ digital printers now reportedly discharge up to 90 percent less ground-level ozone, consume up to 45 percent less energy and emit a much lower operating noise level than ever before.

AS RANDY Smith sees it, the only way his in-plant can ensure a quick response to its customers’ needs is by doing the work in-house—and that means having the necessary equipment on hand, ready for action. “I try so hard to do as much as I can under this one roof,” says Smith, director of University Printing Services at Texas Tech University. In pursuit of that goal, the 35-employee in-plant has added an impressive array of equipment over the last few months. At the top of the list is a new HP Indigo 5500. Installed in late July, it is the in-plant’s first digital color press.

FRITZ SIMS’ dedication to his customers is best illustrated by an anecdote he tells while sitting in his Camden, N.J., office.  A year or so before he became supervisor of Delaware River Port Authority (DRPA) Printing Services, he overheard his previous boss turning away a customer who had brought in a two-color job—even though the shop had recently installed a two-color ABDick 9870 with a T-head.  Sims was shocked. The next day his boss went on vacation. Sims called the customer back and invited him to bring in the job. That customer became one of the in-plant’s greatest advocates, and Sims later went on to become supervisor of the six-employee DRPA in-plant. Satisfying customers has been his goal ever since.

JOHN CAMERON’S grimace slowly turned into a resigned smile. He had only worked at Central Piedmont Community College’s (CPCC) Campus Printing Center for five months, but he was already aware of how things were done at the in-plant. If there was any reasonable way to exceed customers’ expectations of the timeline or quality of their jobs, Campus Printing would do it. He looked again at the project that had crossed his desk that morning. It was 14 different files—a mishmash of PDFs, Word documents and PowerPoint presentations. The customer wanted that unruly mess melded into one book, of which she wanted 19—and oh, by the way, could she get them this afternoon?

Kansa Technology has installed a Kansa 320 Inserter in Cal Poly’s Graphic Communication Department, providing students with the latest technology in newspaper inserters and related material-handling equipment.

The Kansa inserter supports the university’s Goss International Web Printing Laboratory, which houses a Goss Community four-high publication press. In addition to teaching web publication printing, the Graphic Communication Department runs an experiential student-run and managed printing and publishing operation, University Graphic Systems. This enterprise allows students to produce the Mustang Daily.

In preparation for our January cover story, IPG editor Bob Neubauer visited World Bank's Washington, D.C., Printing, Graphics and Map Design unit. A video showing some of the equipment in this 70-employee in-plant is now on IPG's home page.

In addition to showing the shop's two Kodak NexPress digital presses, its Presstek 52DI press and its Océ equipment, the video offers a glimpse of the World Bank's Harris web press, cranking out large runs of documents.

IPG recently compiled a list of the largest in-plants according to both annual sales and number of employees. Though the final lists (which will appear in our December issue) included in-plants from government, insurance, retail, manufacturing and other sectors, university in-plants made up the largest portion.

So here is a list of the top 20 university in-plants, according to the number of employees. (We added half of the part-time/temporary employees to the full-time figure. Ties marked with *.)

Maria S. Lefevre, chief of staff of the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO), was named executive of the year by the Stevie Awards for Women in Business for her accomplishments at the agency. The Stevie Awards honor women executives, business owners and entrepreneurs for making a positive impact in their profession.

Executives from organizations such as Dow Jones & Co., Blackboard, Travelocity and AARP were among contenders for this year’s awards.

University of North Texas Printing/Eagle Images has completed a major move that consolidated its front office, prepress and production copy areas. For years, the 33-employee in-plant’s copy operation was in a separate building. This distance often inhibited communication between staff members. “It was kind of like a team divided,” remarks Director Jimmy Friend. “Now you have everybody in the dugout with you.” The in-plant’s front office moved to a different location within the University Services Building in June. The prepress department—including the in-plant’s two HP Indigo digital presses—relocated in early July. At the end of that month, the copy operation moved into the

FOR RODNEY Vessell, Missouri State Printer, working in the printing industry was never part of his plan. A native of Farmington, Mo., a town of about 10,000 people, Vessell graduated from Farmington High School in 1980 with one thing on his mind: basketball. In fact, he attended the University of Missouri on a full basketball scholarship, and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in economics. Upon graduation in 1984, he started sending out résumés. One of them found its way into the hands of Gary Judd, the Missouri State Printer. Judd called him for an interview. “After college, I had no