Across the country, several in-plants have added production inkjet presses. Excellus BlueCross BlueShield installed one about a year ago and is seeing significant cost savings as a result. The State of Colorado is about to add one as well.
Colorado
The first thing he noticed was the door. A thick, wooden, swinging door, it separated the print shop from its customers in Arapahoe County's government offices, sending the clear message that no one but in-plant staff was allowed to pass.
When will an inkjet production press make its way into your in-plant? The technology is advancing steadily, and a handful of in-plants have already invested in it, but for most managers, inkjet means wide-format, not high volumes and high speeds.
Anyone who thinks in-plants are in decline should have been tagging along with me the past two weeks. Between PRINT 13 and the Southeastern Printing and Digital Managers Conference (SUPDMC) a week later, I've lost count of the number of managers I've seen. So heavy was the in-plant participation at PRINT 13 that I could not cross the trade show floor without spotting a manager.
PRINT 13 was a busy show, but perhaps no group of printers had a busier time there than in-plant managers. Between the luncheons, sessions, receptions and other forums designed specifically for in-plants, managers were challenged to find time for the show floor itself.
With traditional offset exhibitors like Heidelberg giving the Chicago trade show a pass, the digital print vendors were the new kings. Xerox, Canon, Konica Minolta and Fujifilm led the pack in booth size, and each of them had new inkjet production presses to proclaim.