Canon U.S.A.

Despite some chilly spring weather, Milwaukee gave a warm welcome to the In-plant Printing and Mailing Association last month. More than 130 in-plant managers were on hand to celebrate IPMA's 50th anniversary during a very busy conference. Their ranks included many first-time and long-absent attendees, which added a new dynamic to the discussions throughout the four-day event. A number of government printers from the National Government Publishing Association, now part of IPMA, were there this year, as well as two attendees from Australia.

For many years at Blanchard Valley Health System (BVHS), associates had free reign to print as many brochures, booklets, flyers and forms as they saw fit, with very little monitoring of costs. When materials became outdated, thousands of copies were discarded and more were ordered.

Continuous-feed production inkjet is an exciting, evolving market. Average annual growth since 2010 has been at 93 percent, according to IT Strategies; in 2013 alone, 146 billion pages were printed globally with continuous-feed inkjet. Market-Intell estimates that this represents 350,000 tons of paper in North America in 2013.

Adding a high-speed, production inkjet press is not a "build it and they will come" endeavor. Before moving forward, you'll need a formal strategy in place that anticipates more than simply transferring jobs from existing offset or toner-based presses.

Dozens of university and government in-plants from the Mid-Atlantic region met at the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) in Washington, D.C., in April for the eighth annual Digital Printing in Government and Higher Education Forum. The event, organized by Interquest, a market and technology research and consulting firm, featured several panels of in-plant managers, hailing from the United Nations, the World Bank, GPO, the University of Virginia, Fairfax County Government, Navy Federal Credit Union and others.

Canon launched several color and monochrome printers this week in conjunction with its Canon for Business 2014 event, which took place at the Canon Customer Experience Center, in Poing, Germany. Hundreds of customers, analysts and journalists (including IPG) attended the event.

As one of the world’s largest in-plants, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ 350-employee Printing Division has some impressive equipment in its Salt Lake City facility. The sound of its Timson and manroland web presses fills the air on a typical day as they crank out long-run jobs for distribution around the world.

Ask Chris Barclay how he became interested in the printing industry, and he points back to 1976, his freshman year of high school. He remembers being hooked after taking his first graphic arts class.

Canon U.S.A. has expanded its service facilities with the opening of a new service and support center in Itasca, IL, located just outside of Chicago. The facility will provide comprehensive product repair and maintenance of Canon's professional products to Cinema, Platinum, and Gold level members of Canon's Professional Services (CPS) program, and owners of Canon professional broadcast lenses.

About five years ago, the San Joaquin Delta College Publication Center, in Stockton, Calif., retired its offset presses and moved to an all-digital production platform. This consisted of color and monochrome digital devices operated by the in-plant's staff as well as a monochrome digital press available for walk-up traffic.