Océ North America, Production Printing Systems

Two interests from early in Tom Tozier’s life have continued into adulthood: a love of music and a dedication to the graphic arts industry. Tozier, director of Imaging Services at the University of Colorado at Boulder, has carved a niche as a leader in the in-plant printing community while keeping his passion for the guitar alive. Born on a U.S. Army base in Nuremberg, Germany, and raised in California, Tozier got his first taste of the printing industry at age 14, when he went to work at a print shop east of Los Angeles owned by his stepfather. By tackling menial tasks like sweeping and helping out in the bindery, he learned a craft while putting spending money in his pocket.

Océ, an international leader in digital document management and delivery, recently hosted the first Océ Innovation VIP Event at the Océ Customer Experience Center in Boca Raton, FL. Océ executives, industry experts and a cross section of print professionals spent a full day exploring the positive impact of digital innovation on their businesses.

The move to a digital, on-demand platform was putting T.J. Keesler’s bindery in...well, a bind. Keesler, facility manager at Georgia Correctional Industries (GCI) in Buford, Ga., had to accommodate his customers’ needs for shorter runs and quicker turnaround times. “We just started out digital, on-demand printing about a year ago, and we realized that a lot of our customers wanted coil binding,” Keesler recounts. “We were farming this work out, or we were doing it at a much slower pace with some antiquated equipment and also some hand work. I wanted to automate the process.”

In preparation for our January cover story, IPG editor Bob Neubauer visited World Bank's Washington, D.C., Printing, Graphics and Map Design unit. A video showing some of the equipment in this 70-employee in-plant is now on IPG's home page.

In addition to showing the shop's two Kodak NexPress digital presses, its Presstek 52DI press and its Océ equipment, the video offers a glimpse of the World Bank's Harris web press, cranking out large runs of documents.

The World Bank uses an impressive array of digital printing and finishing equipment to help it fulfill its humanitarian mission.

Reports on Graph Expo attendance are mixed. Overall attendance was down 12.5 percent over the 2007 show, surpassing 26,000. Yet the number of companies sending buyers to the Chicago show rose to 8,800. And vendors report that those attendees were more serious than in previous years.

"Given the situation in the economy, we weren't sure what to expect at the show," acknowledged Sheryl Pattek, vice president, marketing services, production printing systems, at Océ North America. "However. the traffic [was] very steady. Sunday was the busiest Sunday I can remember in the last five years, and Monday was even busier."

The California Office of State Publishing (OSP) opened a new Digital Print Center last week, consolidating its digital printing and inserting equipment into a 40,000-square-foot facility in Sacramento. The new center became necessary, according to State Printer Geoff Brandt, because of a new $63 million, five-year contract that is bringing in a lot of digital work. The new Digital Print Center will now house the in-plant’s Kodak NexPress 2100 digital color pres, two Océ Variostream 7650 printers, two new Danka 150s and three high-speed Pitney Bowes and Böwe Bell + Howell inserters. Watch for a full story on OSP in the October issue

IF YOU look back at some of the large in-plants IPG profiled in the ’90s, you’ll quickly observe that nearly all of them have gotten smaller in the intervening years. And busier. Such is the case with one of the largest of them all: the California Office of State Publishing (OSP). When IPG ran a cover story on the colossal Sacramento printer in July of 1995, it had 540 employees. Today it employs 326. Yet revenues have gone from $56 million back then to $65 million today. State Printer Geoff Brandt says the staff shrinkage started around 1998 when the state lifted

“We have to be in a green marketing mode,” proclaims Tom Tozier, manager of Imaging Services at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Students, he says, now expect environmental friendliness from the vendors they use. And since his retail copy center—The CU Ink Spot—relies on their business, Tozier has taken steps to emphasize his in-plant’s green focus. The copy center was repainted with environmentally friendly (green) paint. The shop uses only recycled paper. And most importantly, the in-plant recently replaced two Xerox printers with a pair of Océ VarioPrint 2110s, which are reportedly more environmentally friendly than other major brands. “They use

A GOOD PRODUCTION workflow is one of the main factors in meeting deadlines and profitability. Historically, the answer to creating an effective workflow has been to throw people at it. Not only is that expensive, but with the increasing complexity of the tools and processes required, it demands very skilled operators. And finding and training these operators can be a big challenge in itself. Now, automating everything is not always practical. For example, any process that requires some subjective decision making is not usually suited to automation; however, we should be using technology to replace many of those predetermined and repetitive tasks. That is