Epson America

After putting up with an inefficient, Excel-based job management system for years, Ashland University Printing & Imaging Solutions acquired EDU Business Solutions' Print Shop Pro Manager software. Since then, life has been so much simpler for the in-plant's six full-time and four part-time and student workers. Customers can now pull up previous jobs and review the details, sparing staff from fielding their calls.

Brigham Young University last won the In-Print Best of Show award in 1995. Since then, Doug Maxwell, director of BYU's Print & Mail Production Center, has watched dozens of his in-plant's excellent pieces fall just short of the grand prize.

NESTLED NEXT to Omaha, Neb., the Village of Boys Town is small and self-contained, but the impact of the Boys Town organization headquartered there is far-flung and boundless. Founded by Father Edward J. Flanagan in 1917 as a home for boys who needed one, Boys Town now describes itself as "one of the largest, publicly funded non-profit child-care agencies in the country

Service is in Greg Cooper's blood. The self-described "Navy brat" lived up and down the East Coast as a child, as his father moved from ship to ship during his career in the Navy. He followed in his father's footsteps, entering the armed forces by joining the U.S. Air Force in 1989.

UNT Printing & Distribution has a range of sophisticated offset and digital printing capabilities. Here's a glimpse.

Any in-plant manager lucky enough to be in Chicago last month for Graph Expo got to witness some significant developments in the world of graphic arts. Dubbed “The Inkjet Graph Expo” by some, the show featured more inkjet technology than most in-plant managers had ever seen in one place.

A year after the disappointing attendance levels of PRINT 09, this week's Graph Expo 2010 seemed like a real trade show again. The aisles were full of people, who massed around new products, and kept vendors busy with demos.

A sudden workload increase came when cosmetics company Mary Kay Inc. shifted the printing and folding of product inserts from outside printing suppliers to the company's in-plant facility in Carrollton, Texas. "It hit us like a ton of bricks" recalls Keith Hopson. "We didn't know it was coming until we were flooded with work."

Printing a catalog of art pieces is an extremely difficult project because the customer is comparing the proofs to the original works of art. But University of Oklahoma (OU) Printing Services pulled it off with style last June when it printed an exquisite catalog of Native American art for a show at OU's Fred Jones Museum of Art.

50 YEARS ago, when the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate sought to raise funds to build a shrine, the beneficent Catholic organization relied on a priest to hand-write and mail letters soliciting donations. A one-man in-house printing and direct-mail operation, Father Edwin Guild was instrumental in the creation of Our Lady of the Snows, among North America's largest outdoor shrines—while incidentally founding what would become a fully staffed, full-service in-plant facility.