Carol Brzozowski

With demand rising for quick-turnaround, short-run color, in-plants are looking to half-size presses to give them the versatility and shorter makereadies they need. By Carol Brzozowski For Rodney Brown, a half-size press is, in many ways, the perfect size press for his in-plant. "There's very few jobs that we can't do for the university on this press," says Brown, manager of University of Delaware's Graphic Communications Center. His shop's 20x28˝ Komori is compact enough to fit in his facility, and it allows the in-plant to stay competitive, since materials cost less than they would on a 40˝ press. Plus, the quality it produces

In-plants that have installed wide-format ink-jet printers are finding many unique and unexpected uses for the devices. By Carol Brzozowski It was an odd request. A young man walked into the printing department at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and asked the shop to print a life-size picture of himself, mount it on foam board and cut it out so it would stand by itself. Why? He planned to give it to his girlfriend as a summer break gift. "It was more of a reminder of him as much as it was a deterrent to any other boys, but it was funny,"

Retaining customers at a large institution like the University of California-Davis requires a mix of customer service and cutting-edge technology. By Carol Brzozowski One of the most distinctive aspects of the University of California-Davis' Repro Graphics department is that it commands 85 percent of the university's market share—even though there's no mandate that campus departments utilize the operation. "Most in-plant operations in other academic environments require departments go to that in-plant for printing," contends Ed Dunn, design services and business development manager. "We like to believe we are doing something right." Across the country, campus in-plant operations are cognizant that they are competing with

Whether it's for the environmental benefits or the cost and time savings, an increasing number of in-plants are installing computer-to-plate systems. By Carol Brzozowski With a year of computer-to-plate (CTP) experience under its belt, Arkansas State University's in-plant has no desire to ever go back to film. "It's probably one of the best investments we've ever made here," says Director David Maloch of his shop's Heidelberg Prosetter 74. That's what an increasing number of in-plants are discovering. According to an In-Plant Graphics survey, 34.7 percent of in-plants have installed CTP—and the number is growing. The environmental benefit is one of the prime reasons.

For 25 years, Rick Levine has toiled to build up his in-plant at the Washington Metro Area Transit Authority. By Carol Brzozowski The biggest compliment Rick Levine ever received was being told that if his department were a commercial printing operation, it would be one of the country's top 10 firms, based on output per employee. Levine heads up Replication and Digitizing Services (RADS) for the Washington Metro Area Transit Authority in Washington D.C. The authority serves a half-million bus riders and 700,000 rail riders daily, requiring the in-plant to provide millions of pieces of printed matter: brochures, maps, bus timetables, forms, flyers,