At the awards ceremony this afternoon at the On Demand Conference & Expo, InfoTrends, a leading market research and consulting firm in the digital imaging and document solutions industry, announced the winners of the fourth annual On Demand Best of Show Awards program.
Even successful digital printing operations need a little offset sometimes. Take Simon Fraser University Document Solutions. In 2006, IPG detailed how this in-plant had moved from antiquated offset equipment to state-of-the-art digital printers like a Xerox iGen3. The shop didn’t completely abandon offset, though. It retained a four-color 20x29? Heidelberg Speedmaster 74. Now the in-plant has replaced that press with a five-color Heidelberg Speedmaster 52 with a coater. Not only has the shop’s productivity soared, the in-plant is keeping more work in-house as a result.
Xerox has honored 15 business partners for their contributions, chief among them Rochester Software Associates Inc. and C.P. Bourg. Xerox works with software and hardware providers to create integrated solutions that extend the capabilities of Xerox products. The awards recognize leading partners in two categories: workflow software and document feeding and finishing solutions.
So much work had been flooding into one school district in-plant that the manager knew something had to be done. Test booklets, recruitment brochures, covers for student handbooks and many other items were testing the limits of the eight-employee in-plant’s equipment. To handle the work, the shop recently added a long list of new equipment—including a Xerox iGen3—and built a 3,000-square-foot addition to house it all. New on the shop floor are: • A Xerox iGen3 90 digital color press • A second Kodak Digimaster 9110 with an inline bookletmaker • A C.P. Bourg bookletmaker for the shop’s other 9110 • Two Konica Minolta
The Xerox Production Systems Group presented Partner of the Year awards to 16 business partners for their continued contributions to Xerox, its customers and the printing industry. Rochester Software Associates was presented with the 2007 Production Systems Group Software Partner of the Year Award for providing customers in vertical markets, such as healthcare and education, with solutions that improve and enhance print production workflows. Additional Software Partner of the Year Awards were presented to: • Atlas Software - Variable Information Partner of the Year • Avanti Computer Systems - Business Management / MIS Partner of the Year • Elixir - Data Transformation Partner of
With $14.65 million in annual revenue, University of Washington Publications Services is the largest university in-plant, according to sales. But until August, it was one of the few big in-plants that had neither a digital color press nor computer-to-plate equipment. That just changed. The Seattle-based operation recently added both a Xerox iGen3 and an Agfa :Avalon chemistry-free CTP system. “Now it’s an all-digital workflow,” proclaims Frank Davis, associate director. “Whether it goes to the pressroom or it goes on the iGen, it’s all digital now.” So far the speed and quality improvements are making a huge difference. “Our designers and customer service reps
With on-demand printing making book production easy, in-plants are increasingly upgrading their perfect binders. Here are some of the latest models. By Elise Hacking Book Block Gluing Machine American Binding's Book Block Gluing Machine Type ID 5000 is specifically designed for the production of high-quality gauzed books. The machine is equipped with two glue trays, one for cold glue at the entrance (with infrared drying) and one with hot-melt glue and lateral gluing. Dimensions and processing of the gauze can be electronically adjusted. The ID 5000 handles paper sizes ranging from 3.9x5.9˝ to 11.8x20.5˝ in thicknesses of .11˝ to 3.2˝. www.americanbindingco.com
Sick of poor service and price increases, Georgia-Pacific kicked its outsourcing firm out and brought its in-plant back to life. By Bob Neubauer The old joke goes: Price, Quality or Service: Pick any two. A few years ago, Georgia-Pacific couldn't even get those two from its print provider. The facilities management firm with which Georgia-Pacific had contracted—so full of promises in the beginning—had gradually revealed itself to be less than fully committed to the company's interests. Andy McDonald puts it more bluntly: "It really was a disaster," declares McDonald, manager of administrative services. "They did not work with the business units or
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
