Wal-Mart Printing & Mailing Distribution Center Bentonville, Ark. Annual sales: $22,052.310 Operating budget: $22,037,626 Sales minus costs: $10,858,458 Full-time employees: 325 Jobs printed per year: 12,000+ As the largest general merchandiser in the world, Wal-Mart Stores serves more than 100 million customers weekly at its 2,485 stores. In Fortune magazine's latest Fortune 500 list, the 37-year-old company overtook Exxon to become the third largest firm in the U.S. So it's only fitting that a company of this magnitude also has one of the country's top in-plants. Located about a mile from Wal-Mart's Bentonville, Ark., headquarters, Wal-Mart Printing & Mailing Distribution Center (PMDC) boasts 325 employees—or "associates," in the company's
Xerox Corp.
University of Washington Publications Services, Seattle Annual sales: $15.8 million Operating budget: $16.2 million Full-time employees: 162 Part-time employees: 110 Jobs printed per year: 6,500 At 48,000 square feet in size and with 270 full- and part-time employees, University of Washington Publications Services is a monster of a university in-plant. And Acting Director Frank Davis predicts it will only get bigger—in terms of services, if nothing else. Of course, when you're serving a campus of 36,000 students and 18,000 faculty and staff members, it's hard to keep things on a small scale. Take color printing for example: A year ago, the Copy Services division averaged 10,000 to 15,000 color
California Office Of State Publishing Sacramento, Calif. Annual sales: $61,333,656 Operating budget: $57,996,000 Full-time employees: 456 Part-time employees: 21 Jobs printed per year: 24,380 When the California Office of State Publishing (OSP) installed a new eight-color Heidelberg M-1000B web press recently it was major news in the in-plant world, where such giant webs are rare. Still, for OSP the installation was, in a way, just a continuation of the growth it experienced through much of the 1990s. "We went [from] having some of the most obsolete technology in our greater Sacramento area, to having some of the most current, sophisticated technology, especially in prepress and in our digital print
Spartan Stores Grand Rapids, Mich. Annual Sales: $16.4 million Operating Budget: $14.1 million Full-time employees: 90 Part-time employees: 4 Jobs printed per year: 9,620 When it started out 35 years ago with just a one-color duplicator for printing company bulletins, the in-plant for Spartan Stores seemed an unlikely candidate to become one of the largest in-house printing facilities in the nation. But as the century nears its end, that is exactly what has happened. For the second consecutive year, Spartan Stores has ranked tenth on the IPG Top 50 list. There have been some drastic changes at this Midwestern grocery wholesaler shop since the single duplicator days. The
This year's Manager of the Year has brought savings to his university through research, networking and an innovative managing style. IT WOULD be an understatement to say that this has been Mike Loyd's year. Going back to last December when Louisiana State University Graphic Services was ranked number 18 on the In-Plant Graphics Top 50 list and number five among all college and university shops, through June when he was named IPG Manager of the Year for 1999, it has been a year that he can look back on with pride. "Winning this award has brought prestige to me personally and to the organization,"
At investment banking firms like U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray, confidentiality is a major concern—surpassed only by deadline pressure. IN THE world of high finance, you often have to move quickly to secure the best rate or make the smartest investment for your clients. For in-plants at these power brokerage firms, the pressure is on to get the documents customers need into their hands quickly and confidentially. At U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray, an investment banking firm dealing in stocks, securities and mutual funds, confidentiality is a major concern for the in-plant. Convenience copiers have been put in all departments to avoid intermingling of reports between
Ralph Sperrazza has been at the forefront of the digital revolution and has brought new technologies and techniques to the in-plant at Pitney Bowes. by CHRIS BAUER ATTENDING THE 1990 IPMA conference, Ralph Sperrazza recalls walking through and seeing a table covered with copies of the May 1990 issue of the then IN-PLANT Reproductions magazine with his picture on the cover. He sums up that experience with one word: "Amazing." "Ten years goes by very fast," admits Sperrazza, 1990 Manger of the Year, who is general manager of the document services division for Pitney Bowes, of Stamford, Conn. He remembers getting a warm response
The management team at The Principal Financial Group worked together to improve their in-plant and were rewarded with being named Managers of the Year. by CHRIS BAUER WHEN REMEMBERING some of the dominant teams of the 1990s, a few come quickly to mind. The Chicago Bulls in basketball. The Dallas Cowboys in football. The Atlanta Braves in baseball. But when thinking of the in-plant world, one team stands out: The team from The Principal Financial Group, winners of the Manager of the Year award in 1995. Consisting of Dick Croll, Diane Goodson and Mel Zischler, this team is the only group of managers from
Bank in-plants face big changes as banks continue to merge and expand. With bank mergers on the rise, and online banking changing the way people deal with their banks, the in-plants that serve these institutions are undergoing alterations of their own. Print volume is increasing and work is migrating from forms to marketing pieces. Digital job delivery is becoming more common, as is on-demand printing. In Memphis, Tenn., Mike Sprayberry, print shop manager for First Tennessee Bank, is about to add a Xerox DocuTech 6135 so he can store jobs digitally and reduce the amount of work that is warehoused. "We've got several
Wide-format printers bring a new dimension to your in-plant and allow you to offer customers jobs that are larger than life. IMAGINE GIVING your customers the option of making anything they want into a poster. Now think about the cost savings you could pass onto them by doing it in-house—not to mention the increased exposure and business for your shop. Many in-plant managers already have made this a reality, and are reaping the benefits of providing wide-format printing in-house. "In addition to the cost savings from not having to outsource, the in-plant gains greater control over the final print," says Kelli Ramirez, director of
