Bill Walker

Even the most efficient in-plant may be questioned after a corporate merger. Learn how to prepare. You keep your in-plant well tuned, giving it regular maintenance, changing the machines' belts as needed and adding fluid regularly. But no matter how well your in-plant handles the curves and bumps of the day-to-day operations, you still can't be sure how it's going to fare when a corporate merger approaches. And with new mergers being announced almost daily, you don't have the luxury of just closing your eyes and hoping for the best. Don't worry, though. You can take steps to protect and prepare yourself so that

Boeing Printing & Output Service Seattle Annual sales/budget: $56 million Full-time employees: 330 Jobs printed per year: 240,000 Bill Walker, senior manager of printing operations at Boeing, has seen a lot of changes in his 33 years—and he knows that as soon as one technology is mastered, it's time to prepare for the next. "We've about maxed out the gains in our printing operation," says Walker of the shift from camera ready art to the digital original. "Ten years ago, it was tough to get an electronic original because customers didn't think that way. Today, 95 percent of our originals come to us digitally." That change