For in-plants eager to show their commitment to their organizations' sustainability policies, earning chain-of-custody certification from the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) has been worth its weight in gold. Sustainability has become a critical strategic initiative, particularly at universities, and becoming FSC certified has helped many in-plants show their support of this goal.
U.S.
Although U.S. institutes of higher education might feel they are the only ones facing revenue shortfalls in this sour economic climate, these challenges are world wide. To better understand how U.S. colleges and universities are seeking alternative sources of revenue, a delegation of Russian university senior administrators recently toured four campuses in the northeast, accompanied by Ed Danielczyk, president/owner of business eXcellence consulting, who organized the visit.
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.
After serving as Acting Public Printer for the past 19 months, Davita Vance-Cooks can finally drop “Acting” from her title. The U.S. Senate unanimously confirmed her as the 27th U.S. Public Printer, the first African-American—and the first woman—ever to lead the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO). She was officially sworn into office on August 21 by Judge Gerald Bruce Lee of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, with John Crawford, a GPO employee since 1966, acting as master of ceremonies.
Last month I had an opportunity to moderate a webinar on the topic "Justifying Your In-plant's Value in Tough Times." It's obviously an important subject for in-plants, as evidenced by the 250+ people who signed up for the live event. I was glad to see so many familiar managers on the attendee list from all over the U.S. and Canada.
It's a familiar story: an organization needs the space occupied by its in-plant, so the in-plant is sent packing. Most of the time no studies are done on whether this is a cost-effective plan; an administrator just makes the call, leaving the in-plant's customers to deal with the aftermath as best they can.