Xerox Corp.

For 25 years, Rick Levine has toiled to build up his in-plant at the Washington Metro Area Transit Authority. By Carol Brzozowski The biggest compliment Rick Levine ever received was being told that if his department were a commercial printing operation, it would be one of the country's top 10 firms, based on output per employee. Levine heads up Replication and Digitizing Services (RADS) for the Washington Metro Area Transit Authority in Washington D.C. The authority serves a half-million bus riders and 700,000 rail riders daily, requiring the in-plant to provide millions of pieces of printed matter: brochures, maps, bus timetables, forms, flyers,

From CD-ROM reproduction to labeling innovation, Beckman Coulter Central Printing Services has advanced to meet its company's changing needs. By Bob Neubauer Just because your in-plant has been in business 45 years doesn't mean you've got it made. You have to be willing to change when your company's needs shift. That knowledge has driven Beckman Coulter Central Printing Services to look in new directions in recent years. Not only has the 25-employee in-plant picked up new business in CD-R duplication—outmaneuvering a local supplier in the process—but it has innovated a label printing process, making its label supplier take notice. Operating out of a

Top 50 in-plants say one of the keys to their success is modernizing their offset and digital printing capabilities. By Eric Martin You're probably sitting at a desk, not winded or breathing hard—but in all likelihood, at this very moment, you're racing against competitors to get work printed. This competition is even more apparent at the in-plants on the IPG Top 50. They operate in a "get it done yesterday" mind-set, and that goal has pushed these successful operations to update their printing equipment with an eye solely on speed. In 2003, for example, John A. Sarantakos, administrator of University of Oklahoma Printing

Probably the first thing you'll notice when you look at this year's IPG Top 50 is that, for the first time, there is a new in-plant in the number one slot: Allstate Print Communication Center. Though Allstate reported $10 million in new sales over last year and a staggering $8 million in insourcing business, those aren't the only reasons the 380-employee in-plant jumped into the lead. The Government Printing Office (GPO), which ruled the Top 50 since we started it in 1998, decided not to participate this year. Public Printer Bruce James has been striving to transform GPO into a digital information distribution

Top 50 in-plants know the importance of having the right bindery and mailing tools. By Eric Martin Printing fabulous-looking work quickly and cheaply is all well and good, but having the finished product merely sit in your in-plant won't make customers too happy. The in-plants that make up this year's IPG Top 50 understand the importance of having the right bindery and mailing tools to get the job done and in the hands of customers as soon as possible. That's one reason Tim Steenhoek, head of Document Management for ING, in Des Moines, Iowa, integrates mailing and labeling with the basic printing

By uniting data center and in-plant printing services under one roof, organizations are discovering extreme workflow solutions. By Maggie DeWitt With today's emphasis on doing business better, faster and more cost-effectively, it was inevitable that management would see the wisdom of merging in-plant printing services with data centers. For those who have not done so already, there is good news and bad news. The bad news is, with each day that goes by, your parent organization is squandering resources, losing operating efficiency and wasting money. The good news is, the task is not as daunting as you might think, and the two departments

Both digital duplicators and color copiers have made major strides to meet changing customer demands. Which is right for you?

As offset printing gives way to high-speed digital printing, your operators may need time to adjust and accept the changes. By Erik Cagle When Georgia Perimeter College installed an HP Indigo digital color press a year ago, a special training challenge lay ahead for Barbara Lindsay, assistant director of Printing Services. Among the offset press operators who needed to learn how to use the digital device was a 65-year-old man with limited computer experience. "Other than surfing the Web, he was not a computer user," Lindsay relates. "But he was courageous enough and interested in learning a new technology. Plus, he thought it would

In-plant managers got a chance to see the technologies they've been reading about at the recent Graph Expo show. For the many in-plant managers in attendance, the recent Graph Expo and Converting Expo 2004 show in Chicago was a graphic arts fantasy land. "I felt like a kid in a candy store," observes Mike Renn, of Mellon Corporate Publishing, in Philadelphia. "I went to take a look at the latest direct-to-plate systems and software management packages and came away with numerous options." Attendance this year was pretty healthy, he adds: "I had to wedge myself between bodies to check out the latest gear." Other managers agreed. "I

Making money for your organization's bottom line by insourcing can mean all the difference in whether or not your in-plant survives.