Plans for the In-plant Printing and Mailing Association's 50th conference are coming along well, according to IPMA officials. Registration numbers are looking good, which is great news at a time when some industry events are struggling to fill seats. "We're ahead of where we were last year at this point," says IPMA President Debbie Pavletich. "Vendor participation is going very, very well."
The in-plant for the New York State Senate has been getting a lot of scrutiny lately after being "outed" by the New York Times. The paper reported that, after Democrats took control of the State Senate, following 40+ years of Republican rule, they uncovered a number of perks and services that had reportedly only been available to Republicans. Among them was the Senate's 75-employee in-plant.
The PIA/GATF Digital Printing Council has published a study called “Digital Printing and Survivability in the U.S. Postal System.” It tested five digital presses and one offset press to find out how durable their products were once they hit the mail stream.
The presses involved were Canon ImagePRESS C7000VP, HP Indigo 5500, Kodak Nexpress S3000, Océ CS650 Pr, Xerox iGen3 and a Komori offset press. The presses printed a total of 400 postcards, which were put into the traditional mail stream through four U.S. cities. Upon delivery, each postcard was tested for marking or abrasion.
When Slippery Rock University installed a new Xerox 5000 last June, color copies jumped from 16,000 to 38,000 a month. “Everybody loves the quality,” says Sharon Isacco, manager of the five-employee in-plant, in Slippery Rock, Pa. Still, she knew the programs and brochures being printed on the 5000 could look a lot better if the shop upgraded its bindery equipment.
Late getting into digital color, Arkansas State University Printing Services has just installed a Xerox 700 color printer. According to David Maloch, assistant director, the choice was anything but a snap decision.Equipped with sheetfed presses as well as a Fairchild NewsKing web press for printing the student newspaper and class schedules, the nine-employee Jonesboro-based operation could not accommodate the growing number of short-run color jobs, Maloch says. So to find the best digital printer, Printing Services managed to convince three different vendors to install their competing machines for month-long trial runs, one after the other, at no cost to the in-plant.
OVER THE past couple of years, the term “transpromo” has been popping up across the printing industry, particularly among in-plants, where demand for it is highest. What is transpromo printing, and why is it an attractive option for many companies and organizations? Transpromo is the addition of promotional or customer education messages to regular transactional documents, like bills and statements.
AS RANDY Smith sees it, the only way his in-plant can ensure a quick response to its customers’ needs is by doing the work in-house—and that means having the necessary equipment on hand, ready for action. “I try so hard to do as much as I can under this one roof,” says Smith, director of University Printing Services at Texas Tech University. In pursuit of that goal, the 35-employee in-plant has added an impressive array of equipment over the last few months. At the top of the list is a new HP Indigo 5500. Installed in late July, it is the in-plant’s first digital color press.
FRITZ SIMS’ dedication to his customers is best illustrated by an anecdote he tells while sitting in his Camden, N.J., office. A year or so before he became supervisor of Delaware River Port Authority (DRPA) Printing Services, he overheard his previous boss turning away a customer who had brought in a two-color job—even though the shop had recently installed a two-color ABDick 9870 with a T-head. Sims was shocked. The next day his boss went on vacation. Sims called the customer back and invited him to bring in the job. That customer became one of the in-plant’s greatest advocates, and Sims later went on to become supervisor of the six-employee DRPA in-plant. Satisfying customers has been his goal ever since.
JOHN CAMERON’S grimace slowly turned into a resigned smile. He had only worked at Central Piedmont Community College’s (CPCC) Campus Printing Center for five months, but he was already aware of how things were done at the in-plant. If there was any reasonable way to exceed customers’ expectations of the timeline or quality of their jobs, Campus Printing would do it. He looked again at the project that had crossed his desk that morning. It was 14 different files—a mishmash of PDFs, Word documents and PowerPoint presentations. The customer wanted that unruly mess melded into one book, of which she wanted 19—and oh, by the way, could she get them this afternoon?
REDUCING GLOBAL poverty is an ambitious goal, but the World Bank has made great progress since it was created in 1944 by providing financial and technical assistance to developing countries around the world. To support its activities, the World Bank maintains one of the largest, most advanced in-plants in the country. With 70 employees, the Bank’s Washington, D.C.-based Printing, Graphics and Map Design unit not only utilizes the latest digital presses—including two Kodak NexPresses, an Océ ColorStream 10000 and a Presstek 52 DI press—it has begun using JDF data to preset its equipment. Plus, it recently upgraded its Avanti shop management system to add Web ordering.
