A Great Move in Missouri

After 30 years in its plant, the Missouri State Printing Center moved into a new facility along with the state’s mailing operation. Today, things are better than ever.

FOR THREE decades, Missouri's state printing operation was run out of a bustling 18,000-square-foot facility on the west side of Jefferson City, the state capital. Named the Gary L. Judd State Printing Center, after the man who consolidated the state's scattered print shops in 1980 to create the centralized operation, the facility was perfect for handling all the state's sheetfed, web and digital printing needs.

But in 2008, something happened that would change all that. The state merged print and mail, placing both operations under the control of State Printer Rodney Vessell. Though the fit was good, the logistics were not. Mail was consolidated into a facility on the east end of town; printing was on the west. Over the next two years, Vessel found himself pining for a single plant that could house both.

A little over a year ago, he got his wish. Both operations were relocated into a leased 250,000-square-foot building about seven miles from the State Capitol.

"We've got about 50,000 square feet of that building," remarks Vessell. "Because so much of what we print gets mailed anyway, it's really nice to have us all here together."

Now, instead of driving printed pieces across town to be mailed, they are simply moved across the plant floor. And with about 23 million mail pieces being processed each year, that's a lot of saved driving time.

One of the Largest

With annual sales of $14.8 million and a staff of 64, Missouri State Printing is one of the country's largest in-plants. It ranked ninth in sales in IPG's December listing of the largest in-plants. The operation prints between 185 and 210 million impressions a year, which translates to about 16,000 jobs annually.

State Printing boasts two Didde-Glaser web presses, a pair of two-color Ryobi 3302 presses, and a four-color Ryobi DI press, which the in-plant has used to satisfy the large demand for short-run, four-color work in the state. The in-plant also uses an array of Xerox DocuTechs, both in its main plant and in three quick print centers located in state buildings. Digital color is produced with an Ikon CPP 550, which Vessell says will be upgraded very soon.

Though the in-plant provides variable data printing for such jobs as benefit statements, pre-filled forms, admission tickets and certificates, Vessel says its "bread and butter" is the two-color web work, such as voter registration cards, surveys, forms and brochures. The in-plant has the right of first refusal, but for long-run offset work, it has a reciprocal contract with the University of Missouri's in-plant in Columbia, which has a six-color Heidelberg press.

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