IPI Visits Vanderbilt, State of Tennessee In-plants
While in Nashville recently for the Canon Summit, a meeting of 300 or so Canon dealers, I took the opportunity to visit two in-plants: Vanderbilt University Printing Services and the State of Tennessee’s Document Services operation.
Vanderbilt’s in-plant, you may recall, was slated for closure in early 2020 until the pandemic revealed an urgent need for COVID signage and clinical forms. Several laid-off employees were summoned back and the shop returned to life. Since then a new director has been hired, Mike Puckett, and he has been rebuilding the operation and bringing in new work.
I walked with Mike to the in-plant’s two locations, a wide-format area with flatbed and roll-fed printers, a Colex contour cutter, and an engraver; and a production shop with Ricoh and Xerox devices. The engraver was busy creating name tags, and Mike hinted that an upgrade to a laser engraver was in the plans.
Mike Puckett (left) and Sean Carroll of Vanderbilt University.
As we crossed the empty campus to the production operation, we stopped to watch construction signage being installed on fencing. The in-plant printed branded signage to cover the fences after Mike convinced the “powers that be” that it would look much more appealing. As we walked, he pointed out other wall and window graphics around campus that the in-plant had printed.
The production shop was in the midst of printing a food services booklet on the Xerox Iridesse when we arrived. Since the dining area is also under the jurisdiction of Sean Carroll, senior director of Marketing and Auxiliary Operations, it tends to be one of the in-plant’s biggest customers. I later met with Sean in his office, which boasts an outstanding view of the Nashville skyline, to talk about plans to further grow the in-plant – after almost losing it in 2020.
The Ricoh InfoPrint 5000 continuous-feed inkjet press at Tennessee Document Services.
Later that day, I traveled to Nashville’s capitol hill to tour the state’s Document Services operation with Tammy Golden, assistant commissioner of Document Solutions, and Kathy Fontana, director of customer support. I saw the shop’s Ricoh InfoPrint 5000 continuous-feed inkjet press and also toured the mailing operation. The in-plant installed smart lockers during COVID to get incoming mail to recipients, many of whom were working from home. The operation also does some mail scanning for certain departments who request it.
I got to peek through a window at the bio hazard station where suspicious packages are opened in a secure manner so that no potential contamination can leave the room.
It was a fast but thorough tour of one of the country’s largest state government in-plants. My thanks go out to both of these Nashville in-plant managers for taking the time to show me around.
- People:
- Mike Puckett
- Tammy Golden
Bob has served as editor of In-plant Impressions since October of 1994. Prior to that he served for three years as managing editor of Printing Impressions, a commercial printing publication. Mr. Neubauer is very active in the U.S. in-plant industry. He attends all the major in-plant conferences and has visited more than 170 in-plant operations around the world. He has given presentations to numerous in-plant groups in the U.S., Canada and Australia, including the Association of College and University Printers and the In-plant Printing and Mailing Association. He also coordinates the annual In-Print contest, co-sponsored by IPMA and In-plant Impressions.
