Xerox Corp.

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

Hobby Lobby's in-plant has gone from a one-man, one-press shop when it started five years ago, to 14 employees, four presses and a new HP Indigo digital color press. By Bob Neubauer Brad Smith can still remember the good old days. "It started off small—one press, one person," recalls Smith, offset printing manager for Hobby Lobby's Oklahoma City-based in-plant. But he doesn't have to think back very far to summon up this memory. It was the fall of 1999, five short years ago, when he was hired to run the new Hamada 234 the company had ordered to print its forms. Having spent 12

Whenever a company starts a new in-plant from scratch, it's great news for the rest of our industry. It shows the world that outsourcing is not the trend that defines the in-plant industry—that companies and organizations see lots of value in starting up new in-plants. Hobby Lobby brought its in-plant to life just five years ago, and it hasn't stopped growing since. Now up to 14 employees, it has added lots of new equipment, including a five-color offset press and an HP Indigo digital color press (see story in this issue). It's not

After working in Alaska government print shops for 32 years, Harold Pence is about to retire. By Kristen E. Monte In 1972, Harold Pence began working on his first press, an A.B.Dick 360. More than 30 years later, and on the brink of his retirement, he still feels that printing is in his blood. Pence, Duplicating Services manager of the State of Alaska's Legislative Printshop, was born and raised in Illinois. After graduating high school in 1967, though, he was looking for a change, so he moved with his mother to Douglas, Alaska, a small island across the channel from Juneau. He has been

The print shop dynamic is generally driven by the conflicting demands of cost, speed and quality. Today's copiers and digital printers are the kings of speed, for example, yet the payment plans imposed by manufacturers might drive the cost so high on large jobs that printers must turn elsewhere. That's where offset presses still shine. Despite all the hype from printer and copier manufacturers, offset presses still provide benefits that can't be

The three largest state government in-plants are all on the West Coast. Despite budget cuts and calls for privatization, they continue to thrive--but changes are afoot. By Erik Cagle Don't let the calendar fool you. It may not read 1849, but tremendous wealth is still being mined in the largely untapped western portion of our country. Instead of prospectors dredging local waterways for gold nuggets, though, government in-plants are reaping a fortune by producing print and communications-related products for their respective agencies. Look at the figures. Each of the three West Coast states cracked the top 10 list on the In-Plant Graphics Top

ICTP may get all the attention, but at some in-plants imagesetters still have a few advantages. By Vince DeFranco Though computer-to-plate (CTP) and direct-to-press digital printing steal much of the technological spotlight, imagesetters still hold a place among in-plants and small commercial printers. Since many in-plants use older imagesetters that are paid for, the idea of re-engineering their plants to accommodate new, pricey CTP devices isn't a very popular one. "We didn't go CTP a few years ago because the cost to get an aluminum platesetter at that time was prohibitive to us," explains Michael Schrader, printing and publishing manager for Mercury Marine,

In-plant managers from all over the country met in downtown Philadelphia for the 40th annual IPMA conference. By Bob Neubauer To celebrate its 40th anniversary, the International Publishing Management Association went back to its roots: Philadelphia. That was where the group got its start back in 1964. And that was where about 150 IPMA members gathered recently for the 40th annual conference. Since Philadelphia is also In-Plant Graphics' home turf, more IPG staff than usual were on hand to mingle with managers during the four-day event, which included educational sessions, an exhibition hall and several evening outings. One of those outings took

Finding the high-speed/high-volume printer that provides the maximum productivity and cost savings for your in-plant is not easy. Here's some help. By Michael Fego There are many printer/copier manufacturers, but relatively few offer high-speed/high-volume models. Since "high-speed" and "high-volume" can be somewhat relative terms, let's first define what constitutes a high-speed printer. Most experts consider devices with print/copy speeds of 70 pages per minute (ppm) or more to be high-speed devices. For the purpose of this article, we will use this definition. Manufacturers offering products with speeds between 70 and 90 ppm include Konica Minolta, Kyocera Mita, Sharp, Xerox, Canon, Ricoh and

The demand for black-and-white printing continues in an increasingly colorful world. By Gretchen Peck Digital color printing has been stealing the spotlight from black-and-white in recent years. But the black-and-white technology developers have had no fear; they realize it's still, very much, a black-and-white world out there. According to Paul Preo, business line manager of distributed printers for IBM Printing Systems, recent data indicates that as much as 75 percent of the work managed by in-plants is of the black-and-white kind. "Monochrome is still a lot less expensive and now offers excellent quality," he notes. "Today's digital monochrome technology boasts the strongest image