In-plant Profiles

Linda Balsamo enjoys Walgreens' ethical work environment and her dedicated staff. By Maggie DeWitt THE FACT that Linda Balsamo's father worked for Chicago-based commercial printer R.R. Donnelley & Sons most of his career may have somewhat influenced his daughter's employment decisions, but hers is more a case of being in the right places at the right times. Its not like the in-plant manager of Walgreens, in Deerfield, Ill., was purposely gearing up to walk her particular career path. "None of my education directly relates to my printing career, except for providing a well-rounded background for running a business," explains Balsamo, who recently received a

Despite never considering a career in printing, Dean Sutera has turned a required job into a three-decade-long profession. By Kristen E. Monte WHEN FRED Meyer Inc. merged with Kroger, in 1999, its in-plant was in a position to expect the worst. Yet, thanks to lots of analysis, and 26 years of hard work by Manager Dean Sutera, he says he never even heard any outsourcing talk. Sutera was born in South Dakota and spent the majority of his youth in Kansas City. His father worked in the printing industry, for Intercollegiate Press, yet it had never crossed Sutera's mind to go into the business.

University of Kansas may have closed one in-plant, but it relocated and expanded another, to the delight of its customers. By Bob Neubauer TWO THINGS happened at the University of Kansas last year: The school closed the in-plant on its main campus in Lawrence, and it moved and expanded the in-plant at the University of Kansas Medical Center an hour away in Kansas City. Why would a university close one shop and expand another? Matt Doughty thinks he knows the answer: Service. Doughty, director of Publishing and Postal Services at KU's Medical Center, feels his 20-employee operation collaborates so closely with its customers, and

Despite having a six-color, 40˝ press, a digital "Quickcopy" center and a top-notch Web storefront, Rick Wise felt his in-plant's capabilities weren't quite as advanced as they could be. That all changed in December when the University of Missouri-Columbia installed a new Xerox iGen3 digital production press in its 81-employee operation. "It's a huge part of our future," enthuses Wise, director of Printing Services. "To be all that we can be to the university and provide the full service, we had to have what we feel are top-drawer capabilities in both offset and toner." While researching the purchase, the in-plant looked closely at

When your company is one of the leading makers of sewing machines, vacuum cleaners, floor scrubbers and ceiling fans, you tend to generate a ton of product literature—which means your in-plant goes through lots of plates. The five-employee in-plant at Tacony Corp., in St. Louis, was spending close to $100,000 a year to have plates produced by a neighboring vendor. And despite the close proximity, it usually took one or two days for the shop to get plates back. So last spring, Tacony purchased a Screen PlateRite 4300 thermal platesetter to supply its two- and four-color Heidelberg presses. According to Kristi Humes, vice president

WHAT IS the best way to advance in the printing industry? Buy your own press and start printing jobs on the side, says Jimmy Friend, director of Printing, Copy Center and Mail Services at the University of North Texas. It worked for him. After growing up in Abilene, Texas, Friend moved to Dallas in 1969, and studied electronics at his community college. He landed a job as a press operator with the Drawing Board, a chain print shop, eventually working in prepress and bindery, as well. "I immediately enjoyed the printing industry and changed my education focus to business and later to quality

No segment of the printing industry was as impacted by the Xerox DocuTech than in-plants. It seems hard to believe that revolutionary introduction took place 15 years ago. To celebrate the DocuTech's 15th birthday, a group of senior Xerox executives got together in December at Xerox's Gil Hatch Center for Customer Innovation, where many employees were instrumental to the original launch currently work. Holding a cake to mark the occasion were: (from the left) Xerox Executives Mike Kucharski, Frank Steenburgh, Tony Federico and Val Blauvelt. (Inside scoop: The DocuTech turned down a piece of this cake.)

WITH GLOBAL prescription sales now topping $550 billion, it's clear that pharmaceutical products play an important role in many of our lives. One of the top firms in this industry is Merck, maker of drugs such as Zocor, Maxalt and Fosamax. The Whitehouse Station, N.J.-based company was ranked fifth in the world by Pharmaceutical Executive magazine in its May 2005 ranking. Though Merck's downsizing plans may have made recent headlines, its $21.493 billion in global pharmaceutical sales are certainly nothing to sneeze at. Neither is this: Merck is a huge supporter of in-plants, maintaining not one but four in-plants to serve its

Tom Malone had an excellent reason for wanting to replace his old paper cutter. "It broke and could not be repaired," says Malone, production manager at St. Joseph's University's Philadelphia in-plant. After having the cutter's chassis rewelded a year before, he was disappointed, to say the least, when the machine broke again. "I just was in the beginning of the production of a 500-page book, and I needed my cutter," he says. He managed to talk his boss into letting the 18-employee shop buy a new Heidelberg Polar 78X cutter. He has not been sorry. The features on the new model have made

Sick of poor service and price increases, Georgia-Pacific kicked its outsourcing firm out and brought its in-plant back to life. By Bob Neubauer The old joke goes: Price, Quality or Service: Pick any two. A few years ago, Georgia-Pacific couldn't even get those two from its print provider. The facilities management firm with which Georgia-Pacific had contracted—so full of promises in the beginning—had gradually revealed itself to be less than fully committed to the company's interests. Andy McDonald puts it more bluntly: "It really was a disaster," declares McDonald, manager of administrative services. "They did not work with the business units or