Heidelberg

When your company is one of the leading makers of sewing machines, vacuum cleaners, floor scrubbers and ceiling fans, you tend to generate a ton of product literature—which means your in-plant goes through lots of plates. The five-employee in-plant at Tacony Corp., in St. Louis, was spending close to $100,000 a year to have plates produced by a neighboring vendor. And despite the close proximity, it usually took one or two days for the shop to get plates back. So last spring, Tacony purchased a Screen PlateRite 4300 thermal platesetter to supply its two- and four-color Heidelberg presses. According to Kristi Humes, vice president

WITH GLOBAL prescription sales now topping $550 billion, it's clear that pharmaceutical products play an important role in many of our lives. One of the top firms in this industry is Merck, maker of drugs such as Zocor, Maxalt and Fosamax. The Whitehouse Station, N.J.-based company was ranked fifth in the world by Pharmaceutical Executive magazine in its May 2005 ranking. Though Merck's downsizing plans may have made recent headlines, its $21.493 billion in global pharmaceutical sales are certainly nothing to sneeze at. Neither is this: Merck is a huge supporter of in-plants, maintaining not one but four in-plants to serve its

Full-color variable data printing is not an "if" technology, but a "when." So ask yourself: "What happens if I don't?" And, "If I don't, who will?" By Vic Barkin MAYBE YOU'VE heard this one: A customer walks into your office and says, "We need 50,000 full-color variable data brochures by Friday!" O.K., maybe you haven't. For the past decade, full-color personalization has been proselytized as the printing technology of the future. The vision of millions and millions of pages being produced digitally, in full color, at rated speed, for an audience of one, has been the proverbial pot of gold at the

Tom Malone had an excellent reason for wanting to replace his old paper cutter. "It broke and could not be repaired," says Malone, production manager at St. Joseph's University's Philadelphia in-plant. After having the cutter's chassis rewelded a year before, he was disappointed, to say the least, when the machine broke again. "I just was in the beginning of the production of a 500-page book, and I needed my cutter," he says. He managed to talk his boss into letting the 18-employee shop buy a new Heidelberg Polar 78X cutter. He has not been sorry. The features on the new model have made

A number of in-plants have added DI presses, speeding their turnaround times and saving money. Here are some of their experiences. Offering their observations for this story were: Gerard Catrambone Associate Director Office of Publications University of Illinois, Chicago Heidelberg QuickMaster DI 46 Hal Cypert Communication Services Manager Print and Mail Services County of Tulare, Visalia, Calif. Heidelberg QuickMaster DI 46 Dan Lee Group Manager, Prepress and Special Services Printing LDS Church Printing Division Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Salt Lake City Ryobi 3404 DI Scott Lipsey Quality Control Coordinator Printing Services Mississippi State University Starkville, Miss.

THROUGHOUT HIS years as director of materials management for the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, Dean Gray has always used a mix of coated and uncoated paper. Recently, at the request of a designer, he switched the annual report—traditionally printed on coated paper—to uncoated paper. The results were pleasing. In fact, by printing on uncoated stock, the in-plant met the PCOM marketing department's goal of softening up the annual report's previously stiff and formal look. "It gives an air of less formality and stiffness," Gray notes. For years, using uncoated paper meant taking risks on quality. That is no longer the

Creating a centralized copier management program will save your organization money while boosting your in-plant's credibility. By Carol Brzozowski Before Kris Davis took over the copier management program at West Virginia University five years ago, six different vendors were providing 80 copiers for departments on the Morgantown campus. Each vendor pushed machines with capabilities departments didn't need, pricing varied between customers and the multiple invoices were an accounting imbroglio. The situation was, quite frankly, not in the school's best interest. So Davis and his team took action. "We consolidated everything we had, when we wrote a new request for proposal, into one vendor with

Despite losing its original hotel to Hurricane Katrina, the National State Publishing Association rebounded, holding a successful 29th annual conference in Tunica, Miss. By Bob Neubauer Joe Tucker said it all in his opening statement as he addressed the crowd at last month's National State Publishing Association conference. "I can't tell you how happy I am to see today come, after all that's happened," said Tucker, NSPA president and State of Ohio Printing Administrator. "All that's happened" includes Hurricane Katrina, which wiped out Biloxi, Miss., the intended location for the 29th annual meeting of government printers. The Casino Magic Biloxi—the conference's original venue and

Implementing a chargeback system, says Steelcase's Al Schmidutz, was one of wisest moves he has made. By Kristen E. Monte "IT IS something that continually needs to be tweaked to make it better, and we constantly have to measure and update it." "It," according to Al Schmidutz, is the chargeback system he implemented at Steelcase's in-plant a few years ago. This system, he says, is the foundation for the many significant changes he has made during his nearly five-year tenure with the company. His entry into the printing industry, though, started several years earlier. Born and raised in Flint, Mich., Schmidutz left home after

For years the University of Texas at Austin operated two distinct in-plants that seldom worked together. With a new director and a new strategy, they are slowly discovering the strength of unity. By Bob Neubauer It's an indelible Texas image: the longhorn stampede. It's also the analogy Richard Beto uses to describe the changes coming to University Services at the University of Texas at Austin. "In the beginning of the stampede you see the dust," says Beto, director of document services. "As it moves toward you, you can feel it." Likewise, he notes, the stampede of new ideas, new equipment and better service