In-plant Profiles

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

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

A new five-color press is just the beginning for Spartan Stores, which plans to expand its in-plant even more. Wander through any grocery store and you are likely to see thousands of dollars worth of printing. Posters line the windows, inviting shoppers to come inside; stacks of circulars greet them as they walk through the automatic doors; and multi-color shelf cards point out sale items. Then there are the endless ad inserts in the Sunday paper. Who designs and prints up all this material? For a group of grocery retailers in the Midwest, it's the in-plant print shop at Spartan Stores. Forget

When a tornado virtually leveled his campus, Brad Johnson turned to a fellow in-plant manager to help him print his college's documents. When the tornado hit, it hit hard. Like a chainsaw, it tore through the once-serene campus of Gustavus Adolphus College, tearing up trees, smashing buildings and inflicting some $68 million in damage on the St. Peter, Minn.-based school. When Brad Johnson got a look at the wreckage the next morning, he couldn't believe his eyes. "I was in shock," recalls the director of printing services. "I've never seen anything like it. It was one of the hardest moments of my life."

Montgomery County Public School's in-plant explains why going the digital route enabled more customer satisfaction—and created more jobs. Once upon a time, taking a school test meant sharpening your No. 2 pencil and concentrating on filling out the answers on a piece of paper. Today, in some circles, that procedure has given way to the click of a computer mouse. An end result of this trend has been the reduction of unnecessary waste. With that in mind, and the explosion in the use of digital printers/copiers, in-plant managers are starting to rethink their production processes. Some educational institutions are already taking notice. At

After initially turning down the job, Hitachi Data Systems' in-plant ended up producing an intricate invitation worthy of being named Best of Show. Sometimes the best work is masked by its apparent simplicity. That's the case with the 1998 In-Print Best of Show winner. To look at the winning piece, a holiday party invitation printed by Hitachi Data Systems, the untrained eye might notice only the lack of colorful artwork and grandiose design. But the trained eyes of our five judges took in all the detail: the intricate spot varnishing, the near-perfect stitching, the sharp registration, the accurate crossovers.