Business Management - Industry Trends

The In-plant Printing and Mailing Association just announced another keynote speaker for its 2020 Perfect Vision educational conference, taking place June 7-11, 2020 in Bonita Springs, Fla.

Which topics interested in-plant managers the most last month? We delved into our data to find out.

Drawing record attendance, the 26th Avanti Computer Systems User Group Conference was held last week in Nashville, Tenn., bringing together in-plants and commercial printers.

I felt like I was back at a trade show in the mid-’90s, so packed was PRINTING United with people and exhibitors. Booths stretched off into the distance as far as the eye could see, giving the hundreds of in-plants at the show plenty to investigate.

The past year has brought a number of changes to our annual ranking of the largest higher-ed in-plants. Six of the top 10 on our list have increased their revenues over the past year, resulting in some reshuffling of the ranks.

In a public letter issued on November 24, HP rebuked Xerox's threat of a hostile takeover, stating the proposal undervalued HP, along with addressing other concerns. Now, Xerox has responded, stating it still intends to mount a hostile bid attempt, while addressing what it claims to be misleading information in HP's letter.

According to the AF&PA report, total printing-writing paper shipments decreased 10% in October compared to October 2018. U.S. purchases of total printing-writing papers decreased 13% in October compared to the same month last year.

The U.S. Senate Rules and Administration Committee has voted to report the GPO Director nomination of Hugh Halpern out of committee to the full Senate for consideration.

In New York City this week, managers from five of the city's in-plants met in a lower Manhattan skyscraper for some deep discussions on how they can work together. IPI Editor Bob Neubauer attended and gave a presentation on in-plant trends.

The U.S. Government Publishing Office has digitized Hearings dating back to 1958 and made them available on its website. This is one of a series of recent projects in which GPO has worked to expand free public access to Congressional information in digital formats.