IPMA Breakfast Session Focuses on In-plant Best Practices
During PRINTING United Expo, dozens of in-plants gathered for a breakfast hosted by the In-plant Printing and Mailing Association and sponsored by Ricoh USA. Ricoh’s Debbie Pavletich laid out a crisp road map for in-plants looking to boost relevance, lower costs, and modernize workflows — all grounded in what she’s seeing across the field.
Ricoh's Debbie Pavletich laid out a road map for in-plants looking to boost relevance, lower costs, and modernize workflows.
Pavletich emphasized that in-plants consistently deliver meaningful savings versus outsourcing, citing typical reductions of 25–35% for sheetfed work and 40–45% for wide-format and signage. The structural reasons matter when you’re selling value upstream: commercial providers carry full profit markups and broader overhead for HR, marketing, and facilities, while in-plants “right-size” equipment and staffing to internal demand. As she put it, “When you right size, you're lean, you're mean, and you're more cost effective.”
That right-sizing naturally leads to capability choices. Wide-format remains a high-impact expansion path. According to Pavletich, “right now, 72% of in-plants are offering wide format in one way, shape or form.” She noted the market’s shift from roll devices with mounting to more compact flatbeds that deliver better quality, simpler operation, and less space demand.
On the automation side, web-to-print is now table stakes for departmental work intake.
“Web to print used to be an option, but it's not an option anymore. You have to have a web to print,” insisted Pavletich. Beyond convenience, modern storefronts enable templating and personalization for brochures and direct mail.
Optimization isn’t just about engines, though — it’s about the whole document lifecycle. Pavletich urged in-plants to map every step, from intake and file prep through production, mailing, and analytics, then automate aggressively to eliminate manual touches. Rules-based prepress and workflow tools can collapse hours into minutes, freeing staff to spend time with customers and on revenue-generating work.
Capture metrics, build dashboards, and use the numbers to guide staffing, scheduling, and investment, she said — and to communicate value. As she urged, “use the data to drive your business. Use the data to communicate the benefits of your business.”
Cost stewardship extends to sustainability. Pavletich encouraged checking with local recyclers about structured programs for paper, plates, strapping, and more. In a previous in-plant she managed, recycling generated $110,000 annually — funds that helped pay for other priorities. Sustainability wins can also include reduced logistics emissions thanks to proximity to campus or corporate customers.
Finally, keep the customer experience front and center. Pair that with proactive internal marketing: hold focus groups, run open houses, and meet regularly with departments to ensure they understand the in-plant’s full capabilities. When work is still being outsourced, bring comparable samples, demonstrate quality, and quantify the savings to build trust and repatriate jobs.
During her presentation, Pavletich questioned in-plant managers in the room to get their ideas.
They described using data and automation to make faster, better decisions. One manager’s shop exports storefront data to build dashboards, then uses AI tools to spot trends, forecast staffing, and even model ROI for new equipment in minutes. Others rely on AI (e.g., Microsoft Copilot) to transform “outside” language into organization-specific messaging, draft evaluations and emails, and auto-summarize operational data — speeding approvals and freeing time for customer work. Shops are expanding workflow automation with tools like Enfocus Switch and similar rules-based systems to preflight, route, and batch jobs overnight so “the first time anybody sees them is at the binder.” Managers emphasized that automation shifts work, it doesn’t eliminate it — the goal is to redeploy people into customer-facing and revenue-generating roles.
Mike Loyd welcomed attendees to the breakfast.
Pavletich’s bottom line for in-plants: right-size and modernize your platform; make web-to-print and automation your default; expand into wide-format and other adjacent services where there’s proven internal demand; run on metrics; and keep selling your strategic advantages — lower cost, security, speed, brand control, and sustainability. Do those things consistently and the in-plant becomes not just a print provider, but an indispensable operations partner.
Operators also shared concrete growth efforts: modern storefronts (WebCRD plus Avanti Slingshot, for example), adding wide format, labels, envelope printers, and digital die-cutting to keep work in-house. One shop cut name-tag costs from about $9 each externally to under $1 in-house; another’s roll-to-roll label press turned departmental trials into sustained, million-label annual volumes.
On talent, leaders promote from within, cross-train using SOPs, tap interns and temp-to-hire pipelines, and formalize change-management and communication so staff have a voice in tech choices. The common thread: instrument the shop, automate the routine, add the capabilities your customers already need, and use policy levers and relationships to keep print spend — and expertise — in the in-plant.
