New Data on the In-plant Market
Every two years, IPG polls the in-plant industry to learn about trends and to see how in-house printers are faring. This year 252 in-plants responded to our survey, though just 216 completed the full survey. Those are the responses from which we drew the following data.
The first big change since our 2014 survey is in the average annual budget number. Two years ago it was $4,306,341; this year the average budget is $3,325,131. Looking at the data, the average was brought down by a handful of very low budget figures; six in-plants reported budgets below $100,000. Some of these are school district in-plants whose role is more educational than production oriented.
On the high end, the top 10 largest in-plant budgets are all over $16 million; the largest is $63.7 million. All told, the median budget figure is right at $1 million, the same number as the 2014 budget median.
Two years ago, the average number of in-plant employees was 24. It’s now down to 18.6, though the median number remains eight. Few in-plants will be surprised at this drop, a manifestation of the “do more with less” culture.
For the most part, though, revenues have not suffered a similar decline. Eighty-nine percent said their 2015 revenues either increased (52.6%) or stayed flat (36.4%). And more than half expect this year’s revenues to rise over last year’s. Leading the revenue charge will be digital printing, which in-plants credit for generating an average of 61% of their operations’ total revenue.
We’ll have more data for you from our market research in the coming months.
Click here to see the full market research article featured in the April issue of In-plant Graphics.
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.