Eastman Kodak Co.

Stepping into The World Bank’s bright, spacious Printing & Multimedia Services operation on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., one is immediately struck by how much this in-plant has advanced from its days in the basement of the Bank’s downtown D.C. headquarters.

Spring is in full bloom, but astute in-plant managers may have noticed one thing missing from the graphic arts garden this year. For the first time since it took root nearly two decades ago, the On Demand show is nowhere to be seen.

For many years, running the bulk mail processing equipment at University of Oregon Printing & Mailing Services was a lonely job. Since 1993, the in-plant’s inserting, tabbing and addressing equipment has been in the basement of its building in Eugene, Ore., down a steep set of metal stairs, out of earshot of the rest of the shop.

After sprouting in 1994 and quickly blossoming into the industry's main spring event, On Demand has faded quietly from sight. Questex, owner and producer of the event, had planned a more modest two-day conference this year, focusing on the life cycle of content, but it never came to fruition.

The World Bank’s Printing & Multimedia Services operation has become one of the first in-plants to install a production inkjet press. Last month, the 42-employee in-plant fired up an HP T230 Color Inkjet Web Press in its Landover, Md., facility, 11 miles away from downtown Washington, D.C. With duplex printing speeds of 400 feet per minute, the inkjet press is a quantum leap over the speeds of the in-plant’s two Kodak NexPress 3000s and Océ ColorStream 10000. In fact, the first job run on the T230—800 copies of a 92-page book—would normally have taken up to eight hours to print.

Four years after installing a Kodak NexPress 2500 digital color press, University of Oklahoma Printing & Mailing Services has just upgraded to a NexPress SX3300. The new digital press brings a 31 percent boost in speed, improved quality output and a new set of ink solutions that will allow the 94-employee in-plant to produce scores of specialty applications.

Kodak on Monday put out its financial results for 2012 overall. And the numbers were generally lousy, chief among them a net loss of almost $1.4 billion for the year. But minus the slightly more than $1 billion the company spent last year on restructuring and on all the costs associated with bankruptcy, such as vast fortunes spent on various attorneys and consultants, and Kodak lost $308 million last year—hundreds of millions less than it did in 2011 or 2010.

Kodak gave Caroline Tucker, Rochesterhomepage.net, a sneak peek at what the new company will look like beyond the cloud of bankruptcy. "This goes in as a roll, gets cut into a sheet, and the end roll gets cut into a book," showed Chris Payne, director and vice president marketing commercial business.

Here's a look at some of the latest computer-to-plate technology available to in-plants from companies like Fujifilm, Glunz & Jensen, Heidelberg, Kodak, Presstek, Xanté and more.

Established 90 years ago to fill the educational mission of faculty, staff and students, Iowa State University Printing & Copy Services is constantly breathing new life into its products and services.