In-plant Profiles

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

JUSTIFYING NEW equipment on paper is one thing, but real-world verification is far more satisfying. For Jim Sebes that happened not long ago when a customer of the Cuyahoga County Central Services Printing and Reproduction (CSPR) Division asked for a quote on 50,000 single-color, one-sided documents, to be run on the in-plant’s two-color Sakurai press. A local copy shop also made a bid. The customer’s eyes nearly bulged at the result. “They couldn’t believe the price difference,” recalls Sebes, senior printing coordinator for the eight-employee in-plant. It was $1,400 cheaper to print the job on his in-plant’s offset press. This incident only underscored the

IT WAS a particularly painful memory from Kim Knox’s early career: a former boss remarked that as the youngest and least-paid, Knox would be the one taking extra overtime. The comment drew laughs from more tenured employees, but not from Knox. “I will never forget how it made me feel, like I was worth less and could be worked harder just because I was paid less,” comments Knox. “That made a big impact on me and how I treat those that work for me.” Today, Knox, supervisor of Print and Mail Services for The Regence Group, in Portland, Ore., has

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

SITUATED ALONG the San Joaquin Delta waterway, about 80 miles east of San Francisco, San Joaquin Delta College has a student body of about 20,000 educated by more than 400 teachers. To help ensure students’ academic success, instructors provide assessments of each student’s progress just before final grades are assigned. The teacher identifies particular areas that need focus so students can gear their efforts accordingly. To produce a variable data piece such as this Academic Progress Letter, the college turns to its 12-employee Publication Center. “With our number of students and faculty, we probably do a half a million sheets of VDP a

THROUGHOUT MY years as editor of IPG, what I’ve enjoyed most has been meeting the managers who make up this industry. I’ve found them to be extremely approachable and accommodating, and I count many of them among my friends. One man I’ve run into at conferences a few times over the years is Wes Friesen, who oversees Portland General Electric’s in-plant. Our last meeting, at the TransPromo Summit in New York, inspired me to pursue a feature story about his printing operation. Imagine my surprise when I learned I wasn’t the only one impressed with his in-plant. NAPL has just announced

SERVING A major utilities company like Portland General Electric (PGE) can be a challenge, to say the least. After all, PGE provides power to over 1.5 million people in Oregon, covering 52 cities in a 4,000-square-mile radius. Its in-plant, Print and Mail Services, handles virtually all of PGE’s printing in its 7,000-square-foot facility. This includes customer billing and notices, mapping books for the line crews, training manuals, engineering/architectural drawings, presentations, self-mailers and more. This amounted to 35 million pages and 12 million mail pieces in 2007. Despite this monumental workload, the 13-employee in-plant has not only impressed PGE with its proficiency, it

The Xerox digital printers at Mt. San Antonio College have certainly gotten plenty of use over the years. “We just pretty much ran them into the ground,” reports Jim Carl, supervisor of printing. So the in-plant dug them up, traded them in and brought four new printers into its Walnut, Calif., shop: n A new Xerox DocuColor 5000 n Two Xerox DocuTech 135s, with FreeFlow digital workflow n A Xerox 4110 Since swapping its old Xerox 2060 for the 5000, Carl says, color printing at the four-employee in-plant has doubled. “We were averaging from 25,000 to 30,000 [monthly impressions] on the...2060,” he says. “But since we’ve got the 5000, we’ve

PATRICK O’DONNELL is a man who values tradition. Married to his wife, Patricia, for nearly 38 years, O’Donnell has been committed to the print industry even longer. “I took printing at our local high school and just fell in love with it,” the Dearborn, Mich., native recalls. “I’ve always lived in the metropolitan Detroit area, and I’ve never done anything else but the printing business.” Today, O’Donnell is the manager of Document Production Services for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, for which he oversees three facilities—a main plant, with offset and digital printing capabilities, and two reproduction centers that