In-plant Profiles

THE STATE of Washington’s King County Library System is reportedly the second busiest library in the nation. As the county continues to grow, the library system is being called upon to expand its collection and to provide more resources for its 43 community libraries. J. Tarner manages the five-employee graphics department in Issaquah, Wash., part of the public relations team for the library system. The team develops concepts, creates graphic design and manages print production for a range of promotional and program support materials. The group had been using a two-color A.B.Dick duplicator and Digital PlateMaster (DPM), as well as two Canon image

THE LEANDER (Texas) Independent School District has been growing continually for more than a decade, going from six campuses in the mid-1990s to 30 campuses for the current school year—and there’s still more to come. “We’re opening two elementary schools and a high school this summer,” says Jennifer Espinoza, the district’s manager of document production services. Volume has grown from 35 to 47 million impressions over the past three years. What’s even more amazing than the volume is the number of orders. “We don’t have lots of long jobs or packets that are constantly printing,” says Espinoza. “We take any order of

IN SOME people’s minds, “in-plant” equals “print shop.” Dan Adams, duplicating assistant at Chippewa Valley Technical College, in Eau Claire, Wis., views his job more broadly: To provide clients with whatever they want. “Five years ago we started taking on other responsibilities,” says Adams. The mail room was the first acquisition. The in-plant then took on commercial work, mostly from non-profits. The help desk for the IT department was outsourced, so Adams became first in line to repair the copiers. When the bookstore was outsourced, the in-plant started selling envelopes and other paper items. The shop now processes the student evaluations of

SPEND SOME time talking with Jimmy Robinson and you’ll quickly learn a few things about him. He’s a proud Navy veteran who’s fond of college football, loyal to his friends and proud of his Alabama upbringing. Knowing all this, you might be surprised to learn that Robinson, director of the University of West Alabama’s Department of Printing for more than two decades, actually hails from New Eagle, Pa. That’s where he spent his first five years, until that fateful day in 1965 when the printing company where his father worked—McGregor Printing—pulled up stakes and moved south to York, Ala. It was a move that

JOHN SARANTAKOS is not shy about revealing his intentions. “I want to print everything,” declares Sarantakos, administrator of Printing & Mailing Services at the University of Oklahoma (OU). “Obviously that’s not feasible, but that’s always been the goal.” To bring his award-winning in-plant closer to this lofty ambition, he and his staff recently made a move virtually unheard of in the in-plant sector. They installed an eight-color sheetfed offset press in their Norman, Okla., facility. Adding the rebuilt 28x40? Heidelberg Speedmaster 102 perfector had become something of a necessity, Sarantakos contends, “because of the vast amount of four-color work we’re doing—and it’s almost

Customers and staff of The University of Texas at Austin Printing Services gathered recently to hear a powerful and entertaining presentation on sustainable business practices given by Derek Smith, president of Derek Smith and Associates. Smith’s firm specializes in highlighting the business opportunities presented by the sustainable environmental market, stressing that “green is good for business.” Approximately 25 university print buyers attended the event, co-hosted with Clampitt Paper Co. Smith challenged them to consider the entire eco chain rather than just recycled paper content when producing their documents. UT staff suggested the idea of a sustainability event after hearing the topic discussed during

THE UNIVERSITY of Vermont Print & Mail Center has gone underground. More specifically, the 22-employee in-plant opened a retail center on the lower level of the new Dudley Davis Student Center last fall. Called Underground Copy, it has been slowly building business, with gross monthly revenues averaging more than $10,000. “The students like the convenience; they like the array of service offerings,” says Rick Carlson, director of the UVM Print & Mail Center, in Burlington, Vt. Those offerings include design workstations, self-service copiers, photo kiosks, wide-format printing, tape and coil binding, mailbox rental and, of course, mailing and shipping. “At least 50 percent of

When some in-plants close down their offset operations, they permanently lose a big chunk of business. When Missouri University of Science and Technology (formerly University of Missouri-Rolla) sold off its presses a couple years ago, the in-plant not only kept its school’s offset work in the in-plant arena, it put the proceeds into an equipment fund to ensure its own future growth. Recently the 10-employee Printing and Mail Services department tapped that fund to purchase a new Xerox DocuColor 252—without even trading in its older Xerox 1632 or Xerox 3535. By purchasing instead of leasing, notes Manager Jesse Singleton, the shop got a better

IT MAY sound like a popular television crime drama, but CSI, the in-plant facility serving Development Dimensions International (DDI), is writing its own script by leveraging the latest printing technologies, empowering its dedicated staff, and keeping focused on providing the best possible customer service. The evidence is clear that this in-plant has taken a page from its Pennsylvania-based corporate parent, a global human resources consulting company specializing in the design and implementation of selection systems to help companies hire better employees faster. DDI prides itself on identifying and developing exceptional leaders who will create a high-performance workforce. CSI takes that goal to heart.

Two years into a five-year lease, York Technical College Printing Services outgrew its Xerox DocuColor 12. Demand for color pages had skyrocketed to about 30,000 color prints per month. “Because of the slow, internal processor and only running at 12 copies per minute, the Doc12 ran all day and most nights after we left,” says Steve Mauney, Printing Services manager at the Rock Hill, S.C., college. So when the contract neared its end, the in-plant researched all brands and models of color printers in the 25-50 cpm range, using Xerox quality as a baseline. The department made a test CD and took its