Agfa Graphics

Boeing Printing & Output Service Seattle Annual sales/budget: $56 million Full-time employees: 330 Jobs printed per year: 240,000 Bill Walker, senior manager of printing operations at Boeing, has seen a lot of changes in his 33 years—and he knows that as soon as one technology is mastered, it's time to prepare for the next. "We've about maxed out the gains in our printing operation," says Walker of the shift from camera ready art to the digital original. "Ten years ago, it was tough to get an electronic original because customers didn't think that way. Today, 95 percent of our originals come to us digitally." That change

Wal-Mart Printing & Mailing Distribution Center Bentonville, Ark. Annual sales: $22,052.310 Operating budget: $22,037,626 Sales minus costs: $10,858,458 Full-time employees: 325 Jobs printed per year: 12,000+ As the largest general merchandiser in the world, Wal-Mart Stores serves more than 100 million customers weekly at its 2,485 stores. In Fortune magazine's latest Fortune 500 list, the 37-year-old company overtook Exxon to become the third largest firm in the U.S. So it's only fitting that a company of this magnitude also has one of the country's top in-plants. Located about a mile from Wal-Mart's Bentonville, Ark., headquarters, Wal-Mart Printing & Mailing Distribution Center (PMDC) boasts 325 employees—or "associates," in the company's

University of Washington Publications Services, Seattle Annual sales: $15.8 million Operating budget: $16.2 million Full-time employees: 162 Part-time employees: 110 Jobs printed per year: 6,500 At 48,000 square feet in size and with 270 full- and part-time employees, University of Washington Publications Services is a monster of a university in-plant. And Acting Director Frank Davis predicts it will only get bigger—in terms of services, if nothing else. Of course, when you're serving a campus of 36,000 students and 18,000 faculty and staff members, it's hard to keep things on a small scale. Take color printing for example: A year ago, the Copy Services division averaged 10,000 to 15,000 color

Wide-format printers bring a new dimension to your in-plant and allow you to offer customers jobs that are larger than life. IMAGINE GIVING your customers the option of making anything they want into a poster. Now think about the cost savings you could pass onto them by doing it in-house—not to mention the increased exposure and business for your shop. Many in-plant managers already have made this a reality, and are reaping the benefits of providing wide-format printing in-house. "In addition to the cost savings from not having to outsource, the in-plant gains greater control over the final print," says Kelli Ramirez, director of

Polyester plates are helping many in-plants bring computer-to-plate technology into their shops, saving them time and money. The addition of computer-to-plate (CTP) technology is saving in-plants money. It eliminates the expense of outsourcing film or plates, a savings that is passed on to customers. In addition, in-plant employees are learning a more advanced way to go to the press, furthering their skills and increasing their value to the organization. At St. John Health Systems' in-plant, located in Warren, Mich., polyester plates are produced using an imagesetter, saving the shop money over outsourcing to a service bureau, as it did until two years ago.

In-plants that have moved to a digital workflow have streamlined their operations—saving time and money and eliminating costly errors. TO REALLY join the digital age and take advantage of all the benefits it has to offer—like faster turnaround times and fewer production errors—in-plants need more than just digital printing gear. Recognizing this, some shops have taken it a bit farther, receiving jobs digitally and often routing them directly to digital output devices. For example, after the State of Maryland linked its two in-plant sites—one in Baltimore and one in Annapolis—last summer, it eliminated the need for courier services between the two. Sam Cook, director

The weather was warm but the sessions were hot as more than 300 college and university print and mail managers got together in sunny Scottsdale, Arizona. College and university in-plants are thriving, and nowhere was this more apparent than at the recent Association of College and University Printers (ACUP) conference in Scottsdale, Ariz. This year's event, which marked ACUP's 35th year, broke new ground by partnering with the National Association of College and University Mail Services (NACUMS). As a result, a record 325 people attended the event, which was hosted by Arizona State University (ASU) and organized by Bob Lane, ACUP president, and

Acrobat and PDF are starting to fulfill their prepress potential. Find out how to make them work for you. Unless you've been stranded on a remote Pacific atoll, there's virtually no way you could have avoided hearing about Acrobat and PDF (Portable Document Format). Not only has Adobe churned out numerous news releases, but other vendors are jumping on the bandwagon, as well—and with good reason: This application and its derivative file format are now coming of age. To recognize Adobe for its efforts to develop and promote PDF, In-Plant Graphics is honoring the San Jose, Calif.-based company with the 1999 Industry Leader of

In-plants that have integrated digital printing systems into their shops are racing ahead and not looking back. IN JULY of 1997, CCH, of Riverwoods, Ill., made a bold move. The publisher decided to retire two of its offset presses and bring in digital printing equipment to produce its business law publications. The goal was to do away with the practice of overprinting and warehousing books, as well as to increase quality and make it easier to update materials. But CCH had to find a product with dynamic database management capabilities that could print on 8.6-pound bond—akin to the paper in phone books.

With on-demand digital printing on the rise, vendors are offering better digital gear at more reasonable prices. These days, warehousing is just not as popular as it used to be. Now that customers know they can get short runs printed cost-effectively, that's what they want. The makers of digital printing equipment are wise to this, and they are continually upgrading their offerings—and making them more affordable for small shops. "They are starting to show the corporate user and the in-plant user that there are more affordable ways to get short-run documents—especially unique documents—into the hands of the users," says Stan Bradshaw, president