In-plant Profiles

Spartan Stores Grand Rapids, Mich. Growth would be an understatement when talking about the changes that have taken place at Spartan Stores' in-plant over its 35-year existence. The Midwestern grocery wholesaler, located in Grand Rapids, Mich., began its in-plant with just a one-color duplicator used for printing company bulletins, according to David DeWildt, director of printing and design at Spartan. Since then, Spartan's in-plant has grown into a 36,000-square-foot, full-service print shop, which includes three Heidelberg sheetfed presses, four Goss webs, 43 Macintosh workstations and full binding and copying capabilities. And there are no plans for stopping there, let alone downsizing. DeWildt

Cigna Charleston, S.C. STARTING OUT with several small in-plant facilities at locations across the country, Cigna Printing & Distribution eventually centralized into one main printing shop located in Charleston, S.C. This is where the majority of the insurance company's printing work is done today, although there is one smaller in-plant located in Santa Fe Springs, Calif., and a few copy centers spread throughout the nation. The in-plant serves about 50,000 Cigna employees, according to John Panhorst, who oversees printing in both in-plant locations. The majority of in-house work is black and white, he says. What's the in-plant's secret of survival? "We

When you've been at the same in-plant as long as these folks have, you see a lot of changes. Company loyalty may not be as prevalent as it was 30 years ago, but it's not gone yet. Around the country, scores of in-plants are being run by seasoned managers who, in many cases, started decades ago as press operators at the same shop. Like the craftsmen and women they are, they take pride in what they have built and continue to work towards making it better. To honor some of these long-term managers, IPG conducted a nationwide search. Though we couldn't reach

USAA San Antonio, Texas With a customer base of more than 3.5 million people—a figure that grows every year at a rate of 6 to 8 percent—the USAA in-plant in San Antonio, Texas, is kept busy on a daily basis. This insurance and financial services company's in-plant department was founded about 40 years ago to primarily print business forms and declaration pages for automobile policies. Today, the operation boasts a 40,000-square-foot facility and averages 36,000 jobs per year—a figure that is expected to grow annually, according to Jack Mondin, executive director of publishing output services. Despite this anticipated growth, Mondin put some pressure

Allstate Print Communications Center Wheeling, Ill. The Allstate Print Communications Center does everything an in-plant is designed to do—and then some. The main function of any in-plant is to save the parent company money on its printing needs. That's exactly what the in-plant at Allstate does well. According to Jerry Grouzard, print operations manager at Allstate, the in-plant expects to save the company millions of dollars this year. "We save them money on print applications," says Grouzard. "Allstate knows we can print items cost effectively." Over the past half century, the in-plant has evolved from a small duplicating shop with about

University of Washington Publications Services Seattle, Wash. As the largest university in-plant on the IPG Top 50 list, University of Washington Publications Services has an impressive operation. Not only does it fill a three-story, 48,000-square-foot building on the edge of the Seattle campus, but it includes 16 copy centers, two of which are located off campus. In addition to printing and copying, the mega-in-plant handles all of the university's incoming and outgoing mail—a massive undertaking, and part of the reason that Publications Services employs a staggering 160 full-time employees and 112 part-timers. But why? Why does a university need such

Globe Life & Accident Insurance Oklahoma City, Okla. For Globe Life & Accident Insurance, which goes after new customers through direct mail campaigns, the in-plant print shop is a vital part of the company. Currently Globe is saturating the market with over 300 million pieces of mail annually, almost all of which are printed and processed in-house at the 112,000-square-foot Oklahoma City in-plant facility. These huge volumes have grown slowly over the years, but that pace seems to have picked up within the last decade, according to Bill Leavell, manager of printing and building administration. He has been seeing an increase in

California Office of State Publishing Sacramento, Calif. Sometimes when you're big you've got to get smaller to survive. That's what happened in 1996 at the California Office of State Publishing (OSP), the largest state printing operation in the country. That was the year the Sacramento-based operation went non-mandated—when state agencies were no longer required to use the in-plant's services. The result was a significant drop in sales—10 percent over two years—and a corresponding reduction in staff. But the move also reduced some of the privatization challenges being directed at OSP by private sector printers and won the operation a lot of

Meeting tight deadlines is even tougher when your equipment breaks down. Sometimes selecting the right paper is the key to productivity. When the duplicating department at New York law firm Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson receives a printing request from one of the firm's attorneys, it knows the urgency and quality requirements that come with the request. Whether it's a brief from a bankruptcy case, a subpoena or a client document, the in-plant knows it must produce the material right away—no matter what time of day it is or what day of the week. With constant deadline pressure, the 18-employee in-plant must

Though the publishing industry is infused with digital technologies, the in-plants that serve publishers often run more modest operations. In remote Madawaska, Maine, digital printing technology is about as common as a winter sunbather. "We haven't seen much up here, because we're in a very rural area," says Maurice Morin, in-plant printing manager of the St. John Valley Times. Morin, who oversees five full-time and three part-time employees in this town on the Canadian border, takes this all in stride, however. "Digital technology is something that larger firms can afford to buy. The money's just not here. People here want