Attendance was up yet again this year at the In-Plant Printing and Mailing Association conference, which ended its three-day event on Wednesday evening. Nearly 150 people attended the in-plant gathering, up from 135 last year and 100 the year before. President Tony Seaman noted during the business luncheon that the association remains financially solvent and is in growth mode.
Though it takes place later than usual this year, the 53rd In-Plant Printing and Mailing Association (IPMA) conference promises to be an exciting, action-packed event when it kicks off Sunday evening in Kansas City. In-plant managers from all over the country are already packing their bags in anticipation of the opportunity to see old friends and make new ones.
In-plant Graphics Editor Bob Neubauer is in the midst of a media tour of Canon's Tokyo headquarters facility and MFD manufacturing operation in Shanghai, China. On Tuesday, he and a small group of U.S. editors and analysts met with Canon Chairman and CEO Fujio Mitarai to learn more about Canon's strategy.
IPG Editor Bob Neubauer will be visiting Canon facilities in Japan and China next week, joined by several industry analysts. The group will tour Canon headquarters in Tokyo and meet with Canon executives to discuss the company's product development strategies and continued integration with Océ. In China, the group will visit the Canon Suzhou factory, about 90 minutes west of Shanghai.
In-plant Graphics Editor Bob Neubauer visited Canon Inc.'s Tokyo headquarters facility last week and met with Canon Chairman and CEO Fujio Mitarai to learn more about Canon's strategy, before traveling to Shanghai, China, to tour a Canon manufacturing operation where imageRUNNER and imageRUNNER Advance printers are made.
Taking place only once every four years, the drupa international printing trade fair is a huge show. By the time it wrapped up its two-week stint in Düsseldorf, Germany, last month 314,500 visitors from more than 130 countries had walked its 19 halls and visited its 1,850 exhibitors.
By consolidating four printing operations into one, Fidelity Investments’ Document Printing Services has already saved $1 million in costs. An influx of new equipment and software enhancements promises to further boost efficiency and effectiveness.
After wowing those who saw its inkjet printheads in action at Graph Expo last year, Memjet is making a splash at Drupa right now. It just announced partnerships with several top print vendors, including Oce, Toshiba and Xanté.
IPG recently visited Canon's impressive 18,000-square-foot Customer Experience Center, in Boca Raton, Fla. for a tour of the facility and a peek at Canon's new monochrome mid-production digital press, the Océ VarioPrint DP 135.
At University of Washington Creative Communications, the in-plant's implementation of Lean production practices have been critical to its rapid financial turnaround from a $200,000 deficit to a $300,000 profit—a half-a-million-dollar swing from one fiscal year to the next.
