In-plant Profiles

Though she never became a teacher like she planned, Jan Hale found another way to help students. By Mike Llewellyn Well before Jan Hale got into the printing business—years before she became Printing Services manager at Douglas County School District—she was on her way to becoming a teacher. She had even worked as a teacher's aide at a special education high school. While attending Arizona State University, though, she decided to major in graphic communications. The sudden change in interest can be traced back to one man, Dr. Zeke Prust, a printing industry veteran on staff at ASU who introduced her to the craft.

The four-color Illumination magazine has won the University of Missouri-Columbia its third Best of Show award. By Bob Neubauer Some jobs get everyone's attention. Illumination magazine is one of them. "When Illumination comes through the plant, everyone kind of perks up," says Rick Wise, director of Printing Services at the University of Missouri-Columbia. That's because the publication repeatedly wins a top prize in the In-Print contest. Pride in this accomplishment makes in-plant employees take just a little more time to ensure that each issue is as perfect as it can be. "It always gets our best effort," affirms Wise. That extra care paid

When Rustin Myers first joined the in-plant at Grocers Supply Co. his top priority was changing attitudes. From there, he went on to increase productivity. By Kristen E. Monte UPON HIS arrival at Grocers Supply Co., Rustin Myers quickly realized that the in-plant was neither productive for the parent company, nor service-oriented for the customer. "I came from the environment where you have to be customer-oriented," says Myers, senior printing services manager of the 26-employee operation. "Once you start helping people, they want to use your services." For the past 17 years, that's what he's been trying to do at the family-owned Houston-based company.

Thanks to strong support from corporate management, Printing Services at Advocate Health Care is now a state-of-the-art in-plant… with an iGen3 to boot. According to Webster's Dictionary, an advocate is a person who pleads for a cause or propounds an idea. For Printing Services at Advocate Health Care, this definition couldn't be more apt. While some in-plants struggle to justify their existence to an ever-skeptical parent company, at Advocate, upper management fully supports Printing Services. So much so that, over the past five years, the corporation has made massive improvements to its 28-employee, 25,000-square-foot in-plant, replacing nearly every piece of production equipment. Based

Thanks to two back-to-back installations, Ball State University Printing Services is producing work faster and at a lower cost. By Bob Neubauer For 10 long years Ken Johnson and his crew at Ball State University Printing Services have been slowly building an equipment reserve fund. Now payoff time has come. Over the past couple of months, the Muncie, Ind., in-plant has used its savings to make two major installations that will completely overhaul the 11-employee operation. First the shop installed a six-page thermal Screen (U.S.A.) PlateRite 4100 platesetter. Then, in April, it added a four-color Heidelberg Printmaster 52 perfector. The new capabilities will

In Australia and Canada, in-plant associations are hard at work educating their members and giving them the tools they need to thrive. By Bob Neubauer In-plants are certainly not just a U.S. phenomenon. Though the International Publishing Management Association (meeting this month in suburban Chicago) and the Association of College and University Printers (story on page 14) are probably the world's most successful in-plant groups, other country's in-plants have also formed associations. Two of these groups are NIPPA, (the National In-plant Print & Publishing Association), which draws members from Australia and New Zealand, and CUPMAC (the College and University Print Management Association of

One of the largest university in-plants, the BYU Print & Mail Production Center is reorganizing to make itself more efficient and customer friendly. By Bob Neubauer When Brigham Young University merged its print and mail operations in 1998 to form the Print & Mail Production Center, it improved communication between the departments and enhanced its workflow. Now Doug Maxwell wants to take that merger even farther. The new director and his team are reorganizing and streamlining the 65-employee in-plant so that printing, copying and mail functions are completely integrated, not independent services with separate staffs, reporting structures and scheduling. "We felt that we

Don Landwehr begin his printing career by peering into a print shop window. After 40 years, he has opened many windows for many print shops. By Kristen E. Monte THE GRACIOUS nature of Don Landwehr is one good reason he has been able to grow several print shops over his lifelong career. It is also the secret to Landwehr's success as a manager: He surrounds himself with good people and keeps challenging them. "It's important to keep 90 percent of the criticism and to only pass on 10 percent of it; to pass on 90 percent of the recognition and keep only

In-plants produce a diversified range of products. Their collators must be just as versatile. By Kristen E. Monte FLEXIBILITY, VERSATILITY and productivity are three key qualities in-plant managers look for when choosing a collating system, says A.B.Dick's Dennis James. More specifically, he adds, in-plants look for equipment that can handle a variety of paper stocks without taking up a lot of floor space. In-plants today produce a diversified range of products, adds Ron Bowman, vice president of sales for Rosback Co. "Many of the items [in-plants] wish to collate...are varied and come in all sizes, shapes and weights," says Bowman. "They require a heavy-duty,

Retaining customers at a large institution like the University of California-Davis requires a mix of customer service and cutting-edge technology. By Carol Brzozowski One of the most distinctive aspects of the University of California-Davis' Repro Graphics department is that it commands 85 percent of the university's market share—even though there's no mandate that campus departments utilize the operation. "Most in-plant operations in other academic environments require departments go to that in-plant for printing," contends Ed Dunn, design services and business development manager. "We like to believe we are doing something right." Across the country, campus in-plant operations are cognizant that they are competing with