In-plant Profiles

Printing Services at the New England Journal of Medicine produces a host of materials designed to educate medical professionals. By Mike Llewellyn Jim Collins took over as manager of Printing Services for the Massachusetts Medical Society, publishers of The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), two years ago. He says anybody would be hard-pressed to find a more beautiful in-plant in which to work. Nestled in the mountains of Waltham, Mass., the in-plant is lit by the sun pouring in from towering, eight-foot windows. The New England Journal of Medicine, says Collins, is the oldest continuous medical publication in the world. And it's the

A life-long printer, Mike Renn has found success through communication and industry involvement. By Mike Llewellyn BORN AND raised in Philadelphia, Mike Renn, assistant vice president of Corporate Services at Mellon Financial, is loyal to his hometown—and his employer. On his sister's recommendation he took a job in the print shop at Philly-based Girard Bank in 1974, a decade before Mellon purchased it. Printing was a great fit for Renn even then, as he was a bit of an art aficionado, and he had taken printing in high school. The job put him close to his passion. "What I like about printing is

NRF Distributors' Graphics & Printing Department has moved into a new and larger facility in Augusta, Maine. By Bob Neubauer NRF Distributors didn't become New England's largest flooring distributor by being slow. When its suppliers decide to have a sale, NRF needs to get that information to its customers before its competitors—somewhat of a challenge for a company tucked away in chilly Augusta, Maine, far from many of its clients. The family-owned company has long relied on its four-employee in-plant to print the sales announcements and other customer communications that keep NRF competitive. "I can get a mailing out in one day," boasts

Kamehameha Schools Design & Production Services recently brought a Xerox Gold Award home to its Honolulu facility. By Bob Neubauer While winter sends snow and bitter cold across much of the country, Reid Silva and his crew at Kamehameha Schools, in Honolulu, live in a world without jackets, where eucalyptus trees grow in a lush valley visible through the windows in their in-plant. But their location in the virtual paradise of Hawaii belies the hard work the nine employees at Design & Production Services handle every day. The three operators in the Digital Document Center (or DDC—part of Design & Production Services) churn

City government in-plants have to be fast, flexible and politically savvy. By Mike Llewellyn IT WASN'T too long ago that brush fires were gorging themselves on Southern California scrub and turning the nation's attention to the seemingly endless struggle firefighters had set before them. As the nightly news broadcast eerie aerial shots of glowing fire lines snaking their way across mountainsides, in downtown San Diego, uncomfortably near the blazes, Mayor Dick Murphy put in a call to the city manager's office. If the mayor and other city leaders were to decide how to address the wildfires, they had to work from the same report.

By building an in-plant from scratch, Lufkin Independent School District is both preparing students for employment and saving money. By Bob Neubauer When the Lufkin Independent School District decided to create an in-plant at its Lufkin, Texas-based high school, it went all out. First it hired Brian Crews, who had spent the previous 10 years running the in-plant and graphic arts instructional program for the Gladewater School District, an hour and a half away. Then it installed new prepress, offset and finishing gear worth close to $600,000, including computer-to-plate (CTP) equipment and two-color presses. "They told me to put together my Christmas list

The new NexPress at World Bank Printing Services is filling in service gaps, providing variable output and winning awards. By Mike Llewellyn TWO YEARS ago, when she was looking for ways to bring short-run color more effectively into the World Bank's Washington, D.C.-based in-plant, Jane Bloodworth considered her options: the Heidelberg NexPress 2100, the Xerox iGen3 or HP-Indigo digital color presses. "The iGen wasn't available, and we found some concerns with the Indigo," says, Bloodworth, business manager of the World Bank's Printing, Graphics and Map Design unit. "We found that the NexPress brought a lot more flexibility." Not to mention a lower cost

At number 10 on the Top 50 list, John Hancock Financial Services is a mailing juggernaut. By Mike Llewellyn JOHN HANCOCK Financial Services' Document Solutions Group is one big operation. Boasting $19.5 million in annual sales (a 26.6 percent increase from last year) and a staff of 145 full timers, the in-plant jumped up one slot on the Top 50 this year to join the top 10. All of this follows up a 2000 consolidation of the company's four printing and mailing operations together under one suburban Boston roof—and under the jurisdiction of General Director Scott London. The effects of the three-year-old move haven't

As Arnold Schwarzenegger steps into the governor's office, the folks at California's Office of State Publishing are waiting to see how his administration will affect them. By Bob Neubauer The arrival of a new governor can be a source of tension for a state printing operation. For one thing, most people serving in the roll of state printer were appointed by the previous governor and stand to be replaced by the new one. For another, a new governor may have different views about the future of the state printing operation. So just imagine how secure you would feel if your new governor was often

With an ear for his customers' needs, Randy Stahl and his team have built a tight, efficient in-plant. By Mike Llewellyn Although central Pennsylvania's Messiah College Press recently added a 42˝ Hewlett-Packard 5500 wide-format printer to its lineup, and even though it's been checking out Xerox DocuTech, Canon and Océ printers to beef up its digital services, Manager Randy Stahl says the in-plant's chief talent is its ability to flourish in a tough economic environment. "One of the biggest things is always doing more with less," he says from his office on Messiah's pastoral, 350-acre campus in Grantham, just outside the state capital. What