Business Management - In-plant Justification

Customers want more control of the production process. Frank Romano (I think) coined the term “ransom note typesetting” not long after the first Macintosh came out. The early Macs offered 30+ fonts. Suddenly fonts were available to everyone. Customers became typographers and graphic designers.

In June 2009, the In-Plant Printing and Mailing Association (IPMA) met in Rochester, NY, for a successful conference that drew more than 100 in-plant managers.

WHILE ATTENDING the Digital Printing in Government & Higher Education Forum in Washington, D.C., a few weeks ago, I listened to Leslie Rutledge, manager of ReproGraphic Services at San Diego State University, describe how she saved her in-plant.

"WE DON'T tell upper management everything that the machine can do. If they knew, well… (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) then there would be more work for us."

RECENTLY, I had the pleasure of meeting an exceptionally kind and open in-plant manager who works for a pharmaceutical company. I was told the shop was recently placed "in scope" by management and was looking for help on how to deal with the situation.

In this column by Richard Griffin, whose passing is being mourned by the in-plant community, he urged fellow managers to be motivated by service to your organization more than profit to your unit.

There is nothing wrong with failure if you learn something from it—especially if you use what you learned to fix a problem.

I had an experience several years ago that illustrates this point. It was a Saturday, and one of our press operators was running the program for an event at our performing arts facility. The pressman noticed a mistake—a photo had an incorrect caption, as I recall—so he shut down the press. And he went home, but that’s another story.

Only about 20 in-plant managers attended the Southeastern University Printing & Digital Managers Conference. Those who made the trip, though, say it was a great meeting nonetheless.

NEW ORLEANS' devastation at the hands of Hurricane Katrina was witnessed on TV screens worldwide. But seeing the aftermath first hand, as attendees of the recent National Government Publishing Association conference did, left a far more poignant impression.

LAST MONTH, in-plant managers from Texas colleges and universities met in Austin for the Texas Association of College and University Printers' (TACUP) conference. While billed as a regional conference, TACUP was actually the largest gathering of university in-plant managers this year, with 40 managers in attendance from as far away as Arizona, Indiana, Pennsylvania and Virginia. And judging by their responses, it was also one of the best events of its kind.