IPMA 2023 Highlight: ‘Insource the Outsourced’

By Bob Neubauer

One of the In-plant Printing and Mailing Association’s biggest and newest fans, Del Shankle of CHRISTUS Health, took to the stage during the IPMA 2023 conference to give an enthusiastic presentation about his in-plant’s expansion from a small shop with slow turnaround times and no consistent standards to an award-winning-plant model that continues to push the limits.

His staff is taking on ever-more-complicated wide-format projects such as artwork for hospital walls, awards, and acrylic name plates. The in-plant prints all the health system’s braille signage and has standardized all signage across CHRISTUS Health. He cited one project: a “butterfly wall” featuring numerous acrylic butterflies that had been heated and molded to better resemble butterflies. A donor was so impressed he increased his donation to the health system. Extra efforts like this show how the in-plant understands the CHRISTUS Health mission and supports it. Shankle said the in-plant saves an average of 64% over what outside printers charge — money that can be better used to help patients.

Attendees listen to Del Shankle’s IPMA presentation.

He praised IPMA for putting him in contact with so many other in-plant managers and said he had gotten numerous ideas from them. He also lauded the Inkjet Summit, which he attended this year, and noted that his meeting there with OneVision has resulted in the implementation of software that streamlines the templating, proofing, and creation of signage, shortening this process from two weeks to two minutes.

His in-plant is always on the lookout for more work it can bring in-house, and whenever he sees a printed piece his shop did not produce, he asks who printed it.

“Insource the outsourced,” he proclaimed.

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Bob Neubauer Author's page 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 180 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.