June 2008 Issue
‘We Always Have To Be The Best’
DUANE HUGHES has spent his entire career with a financial services company in St. Louis, but he’s had to “make change” recently due to shifts in employment and by his employer. Yet, despite a company transition that has altered the in-plant, Hughes has capitalized on his ability to balance people and production to keep himself and the print shop secure within the securities firm. Hughes has lived in Illinois, right across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, since he was about a year old. He received his Associate’s Degree in data processing from Lewis & Clark Community College, in Godfrey, Ill. In
ACUP in the Sunshine State
WHEN YOU combine a vibrant, amiable group like the Association of College and University Printers (ACUP) with a beautiful setting like Clearwater Beach, Fla., you have the recipe for an excellent event. Last month’s ACUP conference was exactly that. It brought together 130 in-plant managers from all over the world for four days of discussions, educational sessions and fun in the Florida sun.
Cal State Chico Gets FSC Certified
Another in-plant has attained FSC chain-of-custody certification. University Printing Services at California State University-Chico was awarded Forest Stewardship Council certification by Scientific Certification Systems last month. It is reportedly the first university in California to receive this certification. The chain-of-custody certification means that Printing Services can put the FSC logo on its products, signifying that they meet strict tracking requirements and come from responsibly-managed forests. “Now that printed pieces can bear the FSC logo, the university will gain immediate recognition for its role in understanding the importance of forest conservation worldwide,” says Sean Farrell, associate vice president for business and finance. Dale Wymore,
DIGITAL FINISHING: Go With the Flow
OPTIMAL WORKFLOW efficiency. It’s the ultimate goal in today’s cost-conscious graphic arts marketplace. Indeed, the ability to enhance the productivity and speed of book manufacturing while minimizing labor can be the difference between whether an operation is profitable or not. This is especially true when it comes to digital book manufacturing. One of the more vital keys to success is embracing and maximizing the continually expanding capabilities of on demand digital technologies. But which digital workflow approach is right for you? Should you opt for an in-line configuration, or a near-line one, or off-line? No particular approach is right or wrong for every
From the Editor: A Hot Time at Drupa
I’M GETTING ready to leave Germany as I write this, having just completed a grueling four days at Drupa, the international print show held every four years in Düsseldorf. It was a hot time—and I mean that literally. Thanks to the mugginess, and a somewhat different interpretation of air conditioning in Germany, I spent most of my time sweating and fruitlessly fanning the air with whatever press literature I picked up. It didn’t help that each day was filled with extremely long walks—miles of back and forth trudges between the hot meeting rooms where press conferences were held and the 19 exhibit halls.
McMaster University Adds iGen3 and More
When McMaster University Media Production Services installed its Xerox 2060 back in 2001, print on demand took off—particularly the “demand” part. Customers quickly began to expect color jobs almost immediately. “Their expectation is, ‘I want sun, moon and stars and I need it yesterday,’ ” quips Sue Moorcroft, senior manager at the Hamilton, Ontario-based in-plant. So if the 2060 needed service, all of that print on demand work came to a halt. “We were getting held accountable for that on campus,” she says. To build in some redundancy, the 20-employee in-plant recently replaced that 2060 with not one but three Xerox digital color
New Strategy at Ole Miss
MAY DAY, observed as a holiday in his native England, proved to be a busy day for Tony Seaman. The director of Printing and Graphic Services at the University of Mississippi put the in-plant’s new five-color Kodak NexPress 2500 digital press into service on May 1, leaving little time to dance around the Maypole. Seaman, born in Binbrook, England, just outside of Oxford, admittedly deviated a bit from the in-plant’s norm with the addition of this machine. Traditionally utilizing Xerox equipment exclusively on the digital side of shop, Seaman decided on the Kodak digital press after comparing its features to that of the Xerox
Océ Event in NY Draws A Crowd
Océ has been holding VIP Events all around the country to get the word out to in-plants that “green business is good business.” IPG attended the recent meeting in New York City, which drew 39 in-plant representatives to the Océ showroom there. Aided by former in-plant manager and consultant Vic Barkin, the group learned how Océ promotes sustainability and got ideas on how they can run greener in-plants. Eric de Goeijen, vice president of DPC Marketing, welcomed attendees and provided some background on Océ’s products, which range from wide-format printers to MFPs to high-speed printers, like the VarioPrint 6250. It uses two imaging units to
Overheard at ACUP...
Last month’s ACUP conference in Clearwater, Fla., was a great opportunity for in-plant managers to share their stories. Most of them have been very busy back home and had a lot to talk about. IPG Editor Bob Neubauer spoke with as many attendees as he could corner, to find out what’s been happening in their in-plants. Here’s what a few of them have been up to: • The University of Tennessee is replacing its four-color Heidelberg with a new four-color, 40˝ Heidelberg XL-105 with in-line coating and an image control system. The shop also purchased a pile turner for press stock preparation. • California
Sarantakos Voted IPMA President-Elect
John Sarantakos, administrator of Printing, Mailing and Document Production Services at the University of Oklahoma, has been voted president-elect for the In-Plant Printing and Mailing Association (IPMA). “IPMA plays an important role within our industry and it is my intent to see it grow, prosper and provide quality services to the membership,” says Sarantakos, whose in-plant was featured on IPG’s cover last month. An IPMA member since 1990, Sarantakos has more than four decades of printing experience. As president-elect, he will be a voting member of IPMA’s board of directors and will assume the duties of the president in his/her absence.
The State of the In-plant Industry
EARLY THIS year, In-Plant Graphics completed a major survey of the in-plant market. We asked in-plant managers about the equipment they use, their purchasing plans, how much digital and four-color printing they do, their insourcing activities and much more. We have compiled the results of this survey into a Market Data Report, which will give you an idea of the state of the in-plant industry. To download it, click the link in the “Related Items” column to the right. —Bob Neubauer
Trivia Time
First the question: How many years has Editor Bob Neubauer been in that position? 11 12 13 14 100 Answer: The first issue he worked on was November 1994, so this fall it will be 14 years.
University of Houston-Clear Lake Adds Océ
When your printer has to stop and cool down after printing just 99 pages, it can be tough to keep your productivity high. That’s what the Copy Center at the University of Houston-Clear Lake faced with its previous printer. “It would also not run different types of stock, and we had a lot of jobs that needed to go on a variety of paper,” explains Dmitri Melendez, Print Shop technician and Copy Center assistant. So the three-employee in-plant recently replaced that indolent printer with a new Océ CS550. Among other benefits, it can run a variety of stock instead of being limited
University of Washington’s iGen3 Sets Record
The University of Washington’s Xerox iGen3 has been a smashing success since it was installed in October. In April, it set a new record when it produced nearly 400,000 prints, shattering the previous record of just under 300,000. “We are currently way ahead of the initial volume projections,” says Frank Davis, associate director of Creative Communications. Since installation, the iGen3 has printed more than 2 million sellable prints. Two of those jobs won Gold and Silver awards in the In-Print 2008 contest.
Web-to-print for In-plants
You probably don’t need to be convinced that it is important to offer your customers a way to do business with you using the Internet. After all, print e-commerce, commonly referred to as Web-to-print, has been on the scene for more than a decade. Although the dot-com bust of 2001 put mass adoption on hiatus until the past couple of years, today it is not only an accepted way to do business, but an expected one. Web-to-print solutions address, among other things, consumers’ desire for self-service options. Do people really want to serve themselves? Yes—and more so every year. According to the third annual
