GBC

Ace Hardware Downers Grove, Ill. When Mark Krammer, graphic service manager at Ace Hardware, first came to the Downers Grove, Ill., in-plant 15 years ago he was on a mission. He wanted to make Ace Hardware's in-plant that best it could be, but he also wanted to do something more. He wanted to bring the company some thing extra in the form of revenue. "In any operation there are always peaks and valleys," Krammer observes. "What better way to maximize those valleys than to subsidize your company's printing by taking on commercial work?" Insourcing revenue has helped Ace Hardware's 92-employee in-plant to offset

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

Having a wide-format color ink-jet printer in-house can provide a valuable service to your customers. To be successful—and stay alive—you must provide your customers with better service than commercial printers. That means giving the customers what they want, when they want it. For Tino Castro, this meant purchasing a 12-color 52˝ ColorSpan Displaymaker 12 wide-format color ink-jet printer last year. "For the past two to three years I've seen [demand] increase," says the printing services manager for the County of Riverside, Calif. In the past, customers would come into his 20-employee shop with work orders for posters or banners and Castro would have

Finishing equipment filled a few halls at Drupa, with computer integration more prevalent than ever. Computers have integrated themselves into the postpress world more than ever. Take Heidelberg's new Stitchmaster ST 400, shown at Drupa. Data generated at the impositioning stage of the prepress process can be loaded into the ST 400's press setting program. Also, feeding, stitching and cutting are all monitored to prevent jams. Then there's MBO's new touch screen Navigator Control system on its T 700 and T 800 buckle folders. It integrates the folder into the digital workflow, controls sheets from feeder to delivery and includes an integrated spare

The print world certainly has gone digital, and On Demand was the place to see the latest—from digital printing to Internet-based job management. If you haven't left your in-plant in a while, the recent On Demand Digital Printing & Publishing Strategy Conference and Exposition would have made your head spin. Judging by the abundance of digital technology packed into New York's Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, it was clear that the printing industry's move into the digital world is accelerating rapidly. "The world is now moving at Internet time, so fast that the landscape is just a blur," noted Charles Pesko, managing

Allstate Print Communications Center Wheeling, Ill. Operating Budget: $30 million Full-time employees: 361 Part-time employees: 84 Jobs printed per year: 20,000 To keep a huge operation like the Allstate Print Communications Center productive and cost-effective, its management team must meet the challenges of changing technology and staggering workloads—while keeping costs low and bringing top-notch service to customers. "We are very successful at answering our company's printing needs and providing the most cost-effective solutions," explains Bob Tierney, print communication director. "Our cost-effectiveness is clearly our greatest strength." The Allstate Print Communications Center is not only a leader within its company, but also in the printing industry. It has

Not only does lamination protect your printed work, it gives a professional look to your posters, displays and trade show materials. by CHRIS BAUER TWO OF the hottest industry trends—wide-format and on-demand printing—are also two of the markets laminating equipment companies are looking at to bolster sales. In the wide-format realm, says Adam Horwitz, product manager for General Binding Corp., lamination improves jobs like posters, point-of-purchase displays and training materials. In-plants that purchase wide-format printers, he says, should also get laminators. "If they don't purchase a laminator, their prints won't have the longevity," Horwitz says. "If you look at a laminated print, it

Customer-oriented, technology-focused and always looking for ways to save the university money, Mike Loyd has worked hard to build LSU Graphic Services into a leading in-plant. Ralph Gossard routinely makes key business decisions using hard facts, so it isn't often he renders judgement based upon a gut feeling. But four years ago, Gossard—the associate vice chancellor for administrative services at Louisiana State University—decided to take a gamble when he selected Mike Loyd as LSU's Director of Graphic Services. "Mike did not really have the large weight of experience you would normally look for," says Gossard. "But I knew him well enough to know he

On-demand printing may not be as cutting edge a topic as it was in the early '90s, but that didn't stop nearly 20,000 people from descending on the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York for the recent On Demand Digital Printing and Publishing Strategy Conference and Exposition. The conference, now in its sixth year, featured 275 exhibits along with daily keynotes and conference sessions. In-Plant Graphics moderated several sessions and attended many more. (Our full report will appear in a future issue.) Personalization seemed to be the big topic this year, with several vendors combining variable data with color printing to

Already one of the country's largest in-plants, Louisiana State University's Graphic and Mailing Services just got bigger, with a new facility and expanded capabilities. Louisiana State University's Graphic and Mailing Services never need worry about a shortage of customers. The Baton Rouge-based in-plant exists on a campus full of faculty and staff who are obligated to use its copying, printing and mailing services. Still, Michael K. Loyd, director, is not content with a captive customer base. He wants to be the university's preferred—not mandatory—printer. "Although departments must come to us, we would like to be their printer of choice," he says. "We want