Ohio

Location may not be everything, but being situated inside Parkview Health's headquarters has certainly helped Printing and Postal Services secure its position as Parkview's primary provider of print and related services. What has enabled the in-plant to thrive, though, has been its consistent ability to reduce costs, raise quality and add value for Parkview, an 8,700-employee, not-for-profit community-based health system serving northeastern Indiana and Ohio.

With parts for its two aging Hamada presses getting scarce, Ohio Northern University Printing Services was at a crossroads. Jobs that the five-employee in-plant couldn't handle were being printed by local vendors, but turnaround times and quality were not always ideal.

After putting up with an inefficient, Excel-based job management system for years, Ashland University Printing & Imaging Solutions acquired EDU Business Solutions' Print Shop Pro Manager software. Since then, life has been so much simpler for the in-plant's six full-time and four part-time and student workers. Customers can now pull up previous jobs and review the details, sparing staff from fielding their calls.

WHAT WOULD you say if you learned you could earn a 40 percent margin on a product you wouldn't have to manufacture or inventory? And what if we told you that this product would be desirable to the customers who are already purchasing your printed products?

IT MAY not be a popular topic among in-plants, but sending work to outside printers is often a necessary part of an in-plant manager's job. After all, in-plants can't possibly print everything in-house. Still, some managers don't like to admit that. "At some industry conferences, it has been like hypocrisy talking about print procurement," admits Joe Tucker, administrator of State Printing and Mail Services for the state of Ohio.

Over the past few weeks, in-plants in Delaware and Ohio have installed Xerox iGen4 digital color presses. The University of Delaware, in Newark, Del., and Cincinnati-based Western & Southern Financial Group are among the first in-plants to install the latest Xerox production presses.

Both shops traded in other Xerox equipment that was nearing the end of its lease. As a result, they were able to keep lease costs at or below their previous levels.