May 2007 Issue
A Helping Hand
The in-plant at Holy Cross Hospital was already small, but budget cuts have brought the number of full-time employees down to just three, including the supervisor of Printing Services, Carl Zalaznik. “Every department has had to tighten its belt, and summer is always slow in Fort Lauderdale, so business won’t pick up until fall,” he notes. That said, Zalaznik is still bringing in new work. When the hospital recently purchased an outpatient center from a competitor, necessitating new business cards and stationery, Zalaznik underbid outside vendors and captured this extra business. To make do with less staff, Zalaznik applied for volunteer help from
A More Professional Look
Sometimes you can’t get money for upgrades no matter how badly you need them—and sometimes you get a license to spend. Rocky Reynolds, reprographics supervisor at the Citrus College in-plant in Glendora, Calif., says he kept hearing requests from higher-ups for a more professional and business-oriented look to all of the campus’ publications, even for flyers and brochures. “We were sending a lot of work off-campus to get that look, even with a Xerox 2060 for color work,” he says. After investigating available digital presses, the in-plant, which has just three full-time and two part-time employees, installed a Xerox iGen3. “We’re
A Print Shop Built for Two
The in-plant employees at Lincoln University have 38 years of experience in the printing industry. Of course with only two people on staff—printing supervisor Gary Griffin (20 years) and his assistant (18 years)—a lot of that experience is about how to do more with less. “I run the press at least two-and-a-half days per week,” says Griffin. He spends the remaining time writing job specs for outsourced work, delivering jobs with a two-wheeled hand dolly and doing any number of odd jobs. To keep on top of the work at the Jefferson, Mo., campus, Griffin tries to set up his calendar year far
Above Par for the Course
Deliveries from the Visual Communications department at Lake Forest College, in Illinois, are handled in style, thanks to the vintage 1964 golf cart that the department purchased two years ago. “We had nothing but hand trucks to make deliveries,” says Leslie Taylor, director. “We’re trying to have more of a presence on campus. In the hood of the cart is a cooler, so when we deliver in the summer, we offer cold pop or water to whoever’s getting the job.” As part of its outreach program, the Visual Communications department—which is located in a large building that once served as a dog kennel—has
Anatomy of a CTP Buy
WHEN SOUTHERN Illinois University Printing/Duplicating Service installed a new Screen FT 3050 imagesetter in 1998, it was a big step forward. Gone were the days of shooting film. After nine years, though, time took its toll on the FT 3050. “It was a good machine. We were happy with it,” remarks Dennis Maze, superintendent of the 22-employee operation, in Carbondale, Ill. “But we had some problems with it a little over a year ago.” Error messages and the need for parts left the machine out of commission for days at a time—once for a full week. “So that’s when we decided to start
Community Service Aids In-plant
“Because we’re a two-person shop, we’re limited in what we’re able to accomplish,” acknowledges Richard Showers, printing supervisor for the city of Longmont, Colo. Jobs tend to back up, he adds. To ease the burden, Showers came up with a unique solution 10 years ago. Knowing that law breakers were often sentenced to perform community service, he proposed letting them carry out that service by helping in the city in-plant. His small staff would get a helping hand (without owing wages) and the mostly youthful offenders would learn a little about printing. The idea was a hit. Today, those sentenced to community service in
Digital Printing Innovations Unveiled at ON DEMAND
THIS YEAR’S AIIM/On Demand Conference & Expo certainly had some obstacles to overcome in its first year at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center. With the Boston Marathon running on the show’s opening day, hotel rooms were at a premium. Then a storm assaulted the city, discouraging some from driving in. And as if that weren’t enough, the show had to compete with other industry events, such as the Association of College and University Printers conference, taking place at the same time in San Francisco, and the PrintFest trade show, which kicked off later that week in Long Beach, Calif. Despite all
From the Editor: Coast to Coast
I JUST got back from a coast-to-coast excursion that took me from San Francisco to Boston. I flew out to California in mid-April to attend the Association of College and University Printers (ACUP) conference. The event was packed with more than 130 in-plant attendees from 33 states and four other countries. It was wonderful to see so much interaction between managers from such geographically diverse places as New Zealand, Mississippi, Alaska, Scotland, Maine and Florida, to name a few. Attendees fell easily into conversation about their mutual challenges, sharing stories and laughs as if they had been friends for years. ACUP was very well run,
Innovative Small In-plants
Despite their limitations, small in-plants are accomplishing big things. Some of their stories are included in this special coverage of innovative small wonders. Citrus College College Misericordia Bethel Public Schools Lake Forest College Cuyahoga Community College City of Longmont, Colorado Holy Cross Hospital Allegheny College Washington Athletic Club Lincoln University Georgia Perimeter College
Know When to Upgrade Your Collator
IT WAS two days before graduation at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington. Printing Services was in the process of collating 8,700 commencement programs when its 12-year-old Duplo 8000 decided to go on spring break. “We had to hand collate about half” of the programs, recalls Manager Don Harty. The shop got everything finished in time, but the situation gave school administrators a scare. “It served to back up my point to my boss that we needed to replace this thing,” says Harty. Last fall the 13-employee in-plant did exactly that. It installed a 20-bin, two-tower Duplo 5000 collator with an inline stitcher/folder/trimmer. Here’s
One Heck of a Ride
Allen Palovik’s tenure at Knott’s Berry Farm Amusement Park, in Buena Park, Calif., resembles a ride on a roller coaster. It’s filled with ups and downs but keeps moving forward. Thirty-three years ago, as a high school student, Palovik took a job at the amusement park. He never left. Now, as supervisor of Reprographics, Palovik, sits back at his desk while the loud roar of the renowned Ghost Rider roller coaster shakes his office, and reflects on his time at Knott’s Berry Farm with fond memories and a deep appreciation of his place in the park’s rich history. Palovik was born and raised in Buena Park,
One-man Workout
There aren’t too many private athletic clubs that have their own in-plants. But for nearly 17 years now, John Ashby has been serving as the one-man print shop for the Washington Athletic Club, a 17,840-member club in downtown Seattle. Using a two-color Ryobi 512, he produces more than a million impressions a year, handling about 80 percent of WAC’s printing. This includes four-color jobs, like the 28-page “menu of services” he recently printed. He single-handedly cranked out 2,500 of the 4x5.5˝ pieces, each with an 80-lb. cover. “That job took me a little while,” he recalls. Ashby prints three membership mailings a
Organized for Work and Study
In early 2005, the in-plant at Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland, Ohio, underwent a radical reorganization due to the adoption of “5S,” a Japanese system for maintaining a healthy work environment. The shop removed dozens of dumpsters of unneeded materials, painted and repaired the workspace, then organized the equipment efficiently and placed visual aids everywhere. In-plant manager Warren Hauser says the adoption of 5S “completely redesigned the shop. We now have a much more streamlined and logical way of doing business.” The shop plans to bring in a Xerox 8000 digital press soon, which will require layout changes. The most recent addition to
Passing the Test
The in-plant for the Bethel, Wash., public school system turned out more than 44.6 million impressions in 2006, most of them in the form of booklets. “We average between 20-25,000 booklets a day,” reports Diane Karl, print shop manager. The in-plant initially adopted the booklet format in order to help students. “If students can do their general work in the same fashion as the tests they have to take for an assessment of scholastic learning, they’ll be more proficient when they take the tests,” says Karl. “It’s cost effective for us to make the booklets and easy for our students to use.
Presstek Sees Strong Demand for DI Presses
HUDSON, NH—April 30, 2007—Presstek Inc. (Nasdaq: PRST), the leading manufacturer and marketer of digital offset printing business solutions, following the release of its 10K reported a 25 percent increase in 2006 shipments of its Direct Imaging (DI®) presses over the previous year and a 72 percent increase in DI equipment revenue over 2005. Significantly exceeding market expectations, Presstek shipped 244 DI presses in 2006, and more than 3,000 DI presses are now installed worldwide. Helping drive this record number of DI sales were the new Presstek 52DI and 34DI presses. “DI presses have grown into a mainstream product that has been embraced by an increasing
Rate Case Realities
FOR THOSE of us who work in the postal world every day, a rate case is an interesting but not overwhelming event. Most of us generally understand where it comes from, how it’s litigated and what it all means in the end. But for many professionals—such as printers—who may be less directly involved in the production of mail, the arcana of postal matters gets even murkier when there’s a rate case. So, as the rate increase takes effect this month, it might be useful to step back, consider what it’s all about and draw some general conclusions. First, don’t get confused by the process.
Small Shop, Big Color
While many small in-plants only dream of adding a large digital color press, Printing Services at Georgia Perimeter College made that dream happen four years ago when the five-employee shop installed an HP Indigo 1000. Though Associate Director Barbara Lindsay originally thought she would justify the press based on the variable data printing opportunities it would create, so far the digital press’s on-demand color capabilities are what have made it such a success at the Clarkston, Ga., college. “Our business cards and our letterhead were all three-color,” she says. “This was relatively expensive to have printed outside.” With the HP
Teaching the Craft
When Jim Sabulski, manager of Printing and Mailing Services at College Misericordia in Dallas, Pa., asked to bring non-college work in house, he was given the O.K.—as long as the clients were other non-profit institutions. Misericordia lies between two school districts, so Sabulski reached out to them and started bringing in work. What’s more, Sabulski and one of the school districts are developing a training program in graphic arts for middle and high school students. “As soon as we start teaching printing, we can apply for grants that help us with equipment or space,” he says. “We also develop potential College Misericordia students.
Two for the Price of One
Meeting the printing needs of a 2,100-student liberal arts college is tough enough with just three employees. But when your main digital color printer can’t keep up with the growing volume of work—and you still have two years left on the lease—it’s time to take serious action. After shutting down its offset presses for good last June and putting its trust in its Canon CLC 4000, Allegheny College Printing Services, in Meadville, Pa., saw volume on the machine skyrocket. Clicks jumped from 19,000 to more than 40,000 a month. Unfortunately, the number of service calls grew as well. So Manager Mark Pritchard talked
