Business Management - In-plant Justification

The first In-plant Innovators Conference challenged in-plants to think in innovative ways. They took this message to heart.

By adding promotional product distribution and a new HP Indigo 10000, the University of North Texas has cut costs and added value.

"The threat of outsourcing is evolving." That's how Consultant Howie Fenton put it on Tuesday when he addressed the In-plant Innovators Conference in Washington, D.C.

The Association of College and University Printers met in Cincinnati for its 52nd conference, which boasted the highest attendance in years. The conference featured sessions Web-to-print, variable data, wide-format and bindery, and several sessions were devoted to in-plant justification, benchmarking and marketing.

University in-plants are very different from corporate and other in-house printing operations. For one, their goals are different, and they can frequently shift as administrative focuses change from year to year.

Often, the VP and the in-plant manager have different perceptions of which data is important to measure and report on. The in-plant manager needs hard numbers to guide shop performance. But the VP needs to know why these metrics are important. Make sure you ask which metrics management wants to see.

We often assume that in-plants know each other and that they know about resources in the industry like In-plant Graphics, IPMA and ACUP. This is an incorrect assumption. New people are entering the in-plant community. These newcomers likely won’t know who their fellow in-plants are.

The word “innovation” is not one of the typical subjects discussed in trade magazines or at shows, but maybe it should be. Considering the relentless outsourcing threats and fierce competition in-plants face, perhaps innovation should be a critical success factor for in-plants.

Over the past week I had two conversations about outsourcing, one with a vendor and the other with a manager. One theme that popped up in both chats was how important it is for in-plant managers to have a good relationship with the vendors who call on them — even the vendors whose companies have outsourcing divisions. You can get a lot of great ideas from vendors, they both said.

In this webinar, you’ll learn how this award-winning in-plant uses the latest technology to streamline workflow.