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Despite the "glamorous" work going on in sound stages right down the hall, the real excitement for Paramount's director of graphic services lies in the print shop. There was a time when the sight of a Klingon chowing down in the company cafeteria would have made Hector Amaya's jaw drop in amazement. But these days the executive director of Graphic Services at Paramount Pictures would hardly give such alien tablemates a second glance. It's all part of life at the giant Hollywood, Calif., studio, where dozens of TV shows like Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Frasier and Wings are shot

Color printing may be the latest trend, but black-and-white copiers are still crucial parts of any in-plant. Find out more about the latest models. Numerous Sorting Capabilities The Canon NP 6035F is a modular 35-copy-per-minute (cpm) copier. Its recirculating document feeder feeds up to 50 one- or two-sided originals at a time, giving you numerous duplexing and sorting capabilities. A large-capacity paper supply option lets you increase the standard 1,050-sheet capacity to 2,550 sheets. Enhanced features like Image Combination and other automatic features reduce paper consumption and save time. The user-friendly LCD panel has a 3-D graphic display. Output options include two stapler/sorter choices.

When new technology changed the way engineering documents were produced, Lockwood Greene upgraded its in-plant to keep pace. When Lockwood Greene emptied its Boston warehouse, the 168-year-old engineering company released over 80 percent of it's archive to the Smithsonian Institute. A good portion of the rest went to David Rush's archive at the company's Spartenburg, S.C., Document Management Services department. "I've got records from the 1870s," says Rush, manager of the department. Rush says he enjoys rummaging through the archive room, located across the hall from his office. The nine-person in-plant produces engineering documents and revisions, project specifications, cost reports, meeting minutes, studies and

College and university in-plant managers enjoyed another successful ACUP conference, this one at Wright State University. Find out what they learned. When Joy Heishman agreed to host this year's Association of College and University Printers (ACUP) conference at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, she set reasonable goals. Little did she know, the conference would take on a life of its own. "I just wanted to provide some good seminars and have a little fun," said the director of Wright State Printing Services. "I was concerned that we might have 'dead time' to be bored, and it just didn't happen." In fact, attendees were

Leasing can bring the latest technology into your in-plant now. But there are pitfalls. Learn how other managers make their decisions. "Years ago, you could easily justify the purchase of a press and be confident of a 10- to 20-year productive life span. Technology changes so fast today, it's very difficult to commit to a major purchase unless the return on investment is relatively short." That comment from Dean A. Focht, manager of GPU Energy's in-plant in Reading, Pa., probably has you shaking your head in agreement. But what can you do about it? Leasing is one answer. It lets you try out

Color copier/printers are coming down in price and going up in quality. Find out why you should fit one into your in-plant's future. "INTRODUCING THE new ABC 2000000 color copier/printer/fax/coffee maker/toothbrush." OK, that's a little extreme. But color copiers are becoming more versatile every day. You can't afford a machine like that, you say? Well, prices are dropping. Even small in-plants can afford quality multi-task machines. Plus, these machines quickly pay for themselves, says Ron Potesky, Ricoh's director of color products—especially if you're outsourcing more than 500 copies a month. "The in-plant is saving at least a 40 percent margin over

The DocuTech is no longer the only choice when it comes to high-speed copying. New players in the market are now vying for customers. Equipment choices used to be clear-cut for in-plant managers: High-quality and long-run reproduction went on an offset press. Shorter-run, quick and dirty black-and-white work went on a duplicator. Copiers were low-end, low-quality devices. Not anymore. Today's crop of black-and-white copiers offer true 600x600 dpi resolution, speeds of up to 85 ppm (with tandem or cluster printing magnifying that 12-fold) and, through digital technology, networking, printing, scanning and advanced finishing. For instance, Ricoh's new digital Aficio 850 offers 85-ppm, 600-dpi output

School district in-plants print everything from tests to textbooks. Our exclusive survey and detailed in-plant profiles will teach you all you want to know. Our survey of school district in-plants pulled in an impressive 208 responses. The majority of these in-plants are small, single-person operations. Many of them combine graphic arts instruction and printing, sometimes using students to produce the schools' materials. We received 45 responses from in-plants that exist primarily as classrooms—21.6 percent of the total—but we opted not to include their data in our results so that we could focus on in-plants whose primary purpose is to print the materials that

For short-run, on-demand work—especially work that can be enhanced with variable data—digital printing is the answer. FOR YEARS the data center at Georgia Tech University was churning out up to 12 million impressions annually and was a separate department from the in-plant. Paul Thomas, director of printing and copying services, knew that if he could combine both departments, he would produce this work cheaper and faster. Last year Thomas merged the in-plant with the data center. He then made another bold move by purchasing two new 110-ppm Kodak DigiSource 9110s, distributed through Danka. He hasn't looked back since. "It enabled us to take

Spartan Stores Grand Rapids, Mich. Annual Sales: $16.4 million Operating Budget: $14.1 million Full-time employees: 90 Part-time employees: 4 Jobs printed per year: 9,620 When it started out 35 years ago with just a one-color duplicator for printing company bulletins, the in-plant for Spartan Stores seemed an unlikely candidate to become one of the largest in-house printing facilities in the nation. But as the century nears its end, that is exactly what has happened. For the second consecutive year, Spartan Stores has ranked tenth on the IPG Top 50 list. There have been some drastic changes at this Midwestern grocery wholesaler shop since the single duplicator days. The