Business Management – Market Research

The in-plant printing market segment is a critical component to the overall U.S. printing industry. In 2008, InfoTrends estimated that the overall industry had a value of shipments of $143 billion. The total in-plant printing market had just over an 18 percent share of the overall market, with $26 billion in value of shipments.

Almost 100 college and university in-plants responded to a recent IPG survey. They ranged in size from one employee to 105, with a median employee count of nine. Download the 2010_University_Inplant_Survey.pdf to read some of the interesting facts we learned.

WE LIVE in a multi-channel world where print is just one component of customer communications. As an in-plant printer in difficult economic times, you should consider how you can provide additional value to your organization. This may be through mailing and fulfillment services or a greater focus on applications that go into the mail stream—like direct mail, transaction and transpromo—using a personalized (1:1) communications strategy.

For the first time, in-plant managers are now saying they buy less paper than they bought two years ago. This was just one of the revelations that came to light in our biennial paper buying survey, which pulled in 375 responses.

A few things have changed since we last surveyed school district in-plants in 2005. Fewer of them run offset presses now. Four years ago, 90 percent had them; today just 79 percent are inking up presses. Digital color printing, on the other hand, has grown from 62 percent to 82 percent. More are likewise providing design services. About 66 percent handled design in 2005 and 80 percent offer it today.
While school district in-plants print many of the same items they did four years ago, there’s been a noticeable increase in the number of shops that produce course materials, tests, posters and direct mail. Here are some other interesting facts we learned:    

According to a new study, the number of government in-plants using conventional printing equipment has declined steadily in recent years. Lithography now accounts for less than 30 percent of the printing produced in house.

INTERQUEST, a leading market and technology research and consulting firm serving the digital printing and publishing industry, today announced the release of Digital Production Printing in the Federal Government: Market Update.

A new report on the in-plant industry shows a 2.5 percent decline in establishments between 2006 and 2007, and estimates a grand total of 52,078 in-plants in the U.S.

The report, released in February, was based on research conducted by InfoTrends, a market research and consulting firm for the digital imaging and document solutions industry. It points to a large growth in digital printing at in-plants, particularly digital color printing. In a 2004 InfoTrends survey, 63 percent of respondents offered digital color printing services; in 2008 nearly 86 percent said they offered it. Black-and-white digital printing has grown from 71 percent of respondents offering it in 2004 to more than 85 percent last year.

While the printing industry has been hit hard by the economic downturn, it is by no means alone. Based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Manufacturers’ Shipments, Inventories, & Orders report, printing was one of 10 major manufacturing groups in which shipments fell in 2008. However, printing’s 3.9 percent decline for the year was not the worst, points out NAPL's Printing Economic Research Center (PERC). Seven other industries recorded steeper declines, with textile products (-12.3 percent) and transportation equipment (-10.3 percent) topping the list. Total manufacturing shipments were up 2 percent for the year.

The salaries of in-plants managers in the Manufacturing and Wholesale/Retail industries are among those that have risen sharply in the past two years. This is according to IPG's biennial in-plant salary survey, the results of which will be published in our February issue.

According to data collected from 424 in-plant managers, the industries that increased their managers' salaries the most are manufacturing (up $29,537 over the average 2007 salary), wholesale/retail (up $23,512), religious (up $20,067), health care (up $15,893), non-profit (up $13,562) and school districts (up $8,674).