Xerox Corp.

When new technology changed the way engineering documents were produced, Lockwood Greene upgraded its in-plant to keep pace. When Lockwood Greene emptied its Boston warehouse, the 168-year-old engineering company released over 80 percent of it's archive to the Smithsonian Institute. A good portion of the rest went to David Rush's archive at the company's Spartenburg, S.C., Document Management Services department. "I've got records from the 1870s," says Rush, manager of the department. Rush says he enjoys rummaging through the archive room, located across the hall from his office. The nine-person in-plant produces engineering documents and revisions, project specifications, cost reports, meeting minutes, studies and

After creating Missouri's state printing operation out of several scattered shops, Gary Judd worked tirelessly to grow it into the powerhouse it is today. This article was published in September, 2000. Gary Judd passed away in November, 2002. Prior to 1980, government printing in the state of Missouri was a bit disorganized. There were 17 scattered print shops, each using outdated equipment. And then Gary Judd took charge. Under his leadership, 12 of these in-plants were consolidated into one centralized unit—and that operation has grown from $1.5 million in sales in its first year to $7.1 million in fiscal year 1999.

Having a wide-format color ink-jet printer in-house can provide a valuable service to your customers. To be successful—and stay alive—you must provide your customers with better service than commercial printers. That means giving the customers what they want, when they want it. For Tino Castro, this meant purchasing a 12-color 52˝ ColorSpan Displaymaker 12 wide-format color ink-jet printer last year. "For the past two to three years I've seen [demand] increase," says the printing services manager for the County of Riverside, Calif. In the past, customers would come into his 20-employee shop with work orders for posters or banners and Castro would have

Meldisco's in-plant prints for three retail shoe chains—and insources to boot. MIKE KAPLAN loves challenging his in-plant. As if Meldisco Printing Services wasn't busy enough tackling nearly 5,000 jobs a year for three major shoe chains, Kaplan also finds the time to insource more than $100,000 of business each year. "It's been working out great for years," he says. Kaplan started insourcing eight years ago when Meldisco—the Mahwah, N.J., company that owns and operates all of K-Mart's shoe departments—was a division of the Melville Corp. He printed for Melville divisions that did not have in-plants. "I saw the opportunity to generate income and

College and university in-plant managers enjoyed another successful ACUP conference, this one at Wright State University. Find out what they learned. When Joy Heishman agreed to host this year's Association of College and University Printers (ACUP) conference at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, she set reasonable goals. Little did she know, the conference would take on a life of its own. "I just wanted to provide some good seminars and have a little fun," said the director of Wright State Printing Services. "I was concerned that we might have 'dead time' to be bored, and it just didn't happen." In fact, attendees were

When used properly, multiple-use papers can be an asset to any in-plant. Find out how they can benefit yours. IT SOUNDS like a printer's dream come true—one paper that can be used for offset, ink-jet and digital applications. This paper can do it all. Well, sort of. While it is true that the market for multiple-use papers is growing, there is a definite trade-off for the versatility these products offer. Certainly multiple-use papers can run on different types of print processes, but their quality isn't quite that of job-specific papers. The key is knowing when multiple-use papers can be most effective in cost

Color copier/printers are coming down in price and going up in quality. Find out why you should fit one into your in-plant's future. "INTRODUCING THE new ABC 2000000 color copier/printer/fax/coffee maker/toothbrush." OK, that's a little extreme. But color copiers are becoming more versatile every day. You can't afford a machine like that, you say? Well, prices are dropping. Even small in-plants can afford quality multi-task machines. Plus, these machines quickly pay for themselves, says Ron Potesky, Ricoh's director of color products—especially if you're outsourcing more than 500 copies a month. "The in-plant is saving at least a 40 percent margin over

Drupa 2000 was the best of the old, the best of the new and the best of what's yet to be for true integrated digital prepress. As far as prepress was concerned, Drupa 2000 affirmed the reliability of the old, elevated the promise of the new and positioned leading market players in new strategic patterns. All that, in just 14 days. Drupa 2000 registered a strong vote for the necessity of true digital prepress integration—as well as the health of proven technologies, from imagesetters to scanners. Drupa also marked the true affirmation of PDF as the globally accepted next standard—with more

At least 60 print-related Internet companies offer services in-plants can use. Find out how they can help your operation. The Internet has changed much more than the way we tell jokes, spread rumors and waste time at work. It's also reformulated the speed at which businesses must operate. New companies used to take years to work up business models, secure funding, market themselves, hire a staff and enter the market. Now that whole process has to happen within months—even weeks. The ability to transmit messages, text, graphics and more instantaneously has also created new business operations—operations that can help businesses squeeze the potholes

Leasing can bring the latest technology into your in-plant now. But there are pitfalls. Learn how other managers make their decisions. "Years ago, you could easily justify the purchase of a press and be confident of a 10- to 20-year productive life span. Technology changes so fast today, it's very difficult to commit to a major purchase unless the return on investment is relatively short." That comment from Dean A. Focht, manager of GPU Energy's in-plant in Reading, Pa., probably has you shaking your head in agreement. But what can you do about it? Leasing is one answer. It lets you try out