As Michigan Farm Bureau Centralized Print and Mail Services prepares to move into a larger facility, the in-plant is also expanding its services with a new flatbed cutter.
Karen Meyers
"I wanted to be a graphic designer when I started out," reflects Karen Meyers, business manager of Printing Services at Michigan Farm Bureau. Enthralled by a high school graphic arts course, the Grand Rapids, Mich., native enrolled at Central Michigan University, where she majored in industrial supervision and management with a graphics concentration. While at CMU, Meyers took an internship with The Planning and Zoning Center where she helped lay out newsletters during school breaks.
To keep Michigan Farm Bureau's Printing Services operation running efficiently and effectively, Karen Meyers depends on Avanti's Graphic Arts Management System. Its estimating, order entry, inventory management and reporting modules, as well as Avanti's eAccess Web-to-print software, have streamlined the in-plant.
Once their digital color presses are up and running, in-plants often discover a few things they wish they had known ahead of time. We asked four managers to tell us what they learned—and what they wish they had known ahead of time.
The strong turnout of in-plants at Graph Expo took me by surprise. With all the travel cutbacks of recent years, I thought we'd have trouble filling seats at the roundtable luncheon we hosted; we ended up with a packed room. I could hardly turn a corner at the show without bumping into an in-plant manager.
Avanti Computer Systems held its 19th annual user’s conference in Washington, D.C., in June, bringing together a mix of both in-plant and commercial printers. During the three-day event, attendees networked with their peers, swapped ideas and attended numerous sessions on industry topics.