Canon U.S.A.

The Electronic Document Systems Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to the document management and communications marketplace, has announced its 2007 Board of Directors and officers. Retiring Chair of EDSF, Brian Baxendale, who served in the position for five years, will be succeeded by new EDSF Chair Quincy L. Allen, corporate vice president and president, Production Systems Group, Xerox. The 2007 EDSF Executive Co-Vice Chairs are Don F. Lowe, CEO, Franchise Services, and Tod D. Pike, senior vice president, Imaging Systems Group, Canon U.S.A. The Secretary-Treasurer will be Wolfgang Pfizenmaier, Heidelberg Americas (retired).

AT ONE time, the idea that an in-plant could take a document from start to finish on one machine was akin to science fiction. The advent of the multifunctional device (MFD), though, has enabled in-plants to provide more comprehensive service at greater cost savings. An MFD typically consolidates printing, faxing, scanning and copying into one device. Today’s MFDs offer even more features, such as finishing, variable data printing, scanning software that routes documents to various destinations, systems that track paper and toner usage, job status indicators, workflow features and customizing capabilities. Inline bindery features open more possibilities; perfect binding, saddle stitching, stacking,

BRIAN CHEPREN, supervisor of Central Printing Services at Pinellas County Schools, is a fixture in the Florida printing business. His father was a lithographer who taught his son the trade, and Chepren began working in his dad’s business when he was just 12 years old. He worked weekends and summers until he went to Eckerd College where he earned a BA in business administration. Chepren went back to printing even after college; in 1969 he secured a position in the blueprints department at ECI, a defense contractor now called Raytheon. He then moved into the offset area and ultimately found himself supervising a

IT MAY not be a new topic, but on-demand printing can still pack a room—or a trade show floor, as was the case at the recent AIIM On Demand Conference and Exposition. More than 20,000 visitors from 50 states and 62 countries traveled to Philadelphia in May for the annual event. Waiting to greet them were some 450 exhibitors, all displaying their latest wares. Despite the show’s successful two-year run in Philadelphia, though, the city will not be hosting next year’s event (and no, the annoying cab strike on the first day had nothing to do with it). Questex Media Group, the

DESPITE THE rise of digital color printing, in-plants still have a pressing need for good black-and-white printers. These devices form the backbone of many an in-plant. In-plants can sink or swim depending on which printer they choose, though. To help you make the right choice, here are some tips from in-plant managers who have gone though the selection process. First Tip: Know what you’re getting “We did a lot of research,” says Bev Lucas, “and determined what features we needed, and determined which equipment would fulfill our requirements before we contacted vendors.” As manager of Printing Services at Bellevue Community College, in

SOFTWARE E-ticketing with Hardcopy Jobs Rochester Software Associates has introduced QDirect.SCAN Connector for eCopy Share­Scan OP. QDirect.SCAN enables electronic job ticketing with hardcopy submission directly from multi-function printers (MFPs). Users log in for accounting purposes and specify options such as duplex, stapling and paper stock. Those choices, along with the scanned documents, are transmitted to QDirect, which generates a confirmation receipt that is printed at the requestor’s MFP. An electronic job ticket is automatically created from the user entry. The resulting print-ready file can be sent to any printer in the in-plant. Software Delivers Jobs ‘To Spec’ Quickcut has introduced QuickPrint 5, the

ALL COPIER manufacturers are now offering hybrid color copier/printers that any company can afford. These products, suitable for business-quality color applications, generally produce less than 40 pages per minute (ppm), with even faster units promised by the manufacturers for 2006 and 2007. Canon, Xerox, Konica Minolta and Ricoh (also offered under the Savin, Lanier and Gestetner labels) have been the hybrid copier/printer manufacturing leaders to-date, but Kyocera Mita, Toshiba and Sharp have also offered hybrid products of merit. This article will explain the reasons for the hybrid copier/printer revolution and what the advantages and challenges are to consumers going forward. Color Hybrids Defined

University of Kansas may have closed one in-plant, but it relocated and expanded another, to the delight of its customers. By Bob Neubauer TWO THINGS happened at the University of Kansas last year: The school closed the in-plant on its main campus in Lawrence, and it moved and expanded the in-plant at the University of Kansas Medical Center an hour away in Kansas City. Why would a university close one shop and expand another? Matt Doughty thinks he knows the answer: Service. Doughty, director of Publishing and Postal Services at KU's Medical Center, feels his 20-employee operation collaborates so closely with its customers, and

WHAT IS the best way to advance in the printing industry? Buy your own press and start printing jobs on the side, says Jimmy Friend, director of Printing, Copy Center and Mail Services at the University of North Texas. It worked for him. After growing up in Abilene, Texas, Friend moved to Dallas in 1969, and studied electronics at his community college. He landed a job as a press operator with the Drawing Board, a chain print shop, eventually working in prepress and bindery, as well. "I immediately enjoyed the printing industry and changed my education focus to business and later to quality

The in-plant is in a potentially crucial position in a world of increasing digital media convergence. By Richard Vines The modern world is indebted to print. Gutenberg's legacy gave rise to mass literacy and established the foundation for an era of mass production. But the rise of computer networks and Internet protocols is already spawning a new era. Some of the important features of this emerging world are personalization and mass-customization (instead of mass production), accessibility of content from the desktop and print-on-demand. Most enterprises now use a combination of print-based and Internet-based communication channels. Both workflows are crucial. But