Rick Wise

Bob has served as editor of In-plant Impressions since October of 1994. Prior to that he served for three years as managing editor of Printing Impressions, a commercial printing publication. Mr. Neubauer is very active in the U.S. in-plant industry. He attends all the major in-plant conferences and has visited more than 170 in-plant operations around the world. He has given presentations to numerous in-plant groups in the U.S., Canada and Australia, including the Association of College and University Printers and the In-plant Printing and Mailing Association. He also coordinates the annual In-Print contest, co-sponsored by IPMA and In-plant Impressions.

DESPITE THE cancellation of the ACUP conference, ACUP lived on this year in a Webinar that attracted more than 100 in-plant managers from around the world. IPG partnered with the Association of College and University Printers to bring about the event, held on what would have been the last day of the ACUP conference. Three of the speakers who were scheduled to talk at ACUP gave their presentations online. Then, to replicate some of the free-flowing shop talk that is ACUP's hallmark, three past ACUP hosts held a lively roundtable discussion about the latest developments in their shops.

If you have an employee who is habitually late or absent from work, resist the urge to globally address the problem. In other words, don’t gather the whole department and say, “It is important for everyone to get here on time.” According to Rick Wise, director of Printing Services at the University of Missouri-Columbia, this tactic will work against you. “It hurts the morale of the majority of employees who are, in fact, getting to work on time,” he says. “Their thinking is why should they have to listen to discussion on this issue? And they are right.” It also erodes the supervisor’s credibility,

BY MOST accounts, the In-plant Printing and Mailing Association (IPMA) conference in Tunica, Miss., last month was one of the best ever. Attendance was up, enthusiasm was high and the presentations were engaging, informative and well attended. True, it was a virtual oven outside, with daily temps in the mid-90s, but the action was all indoors, from the big vendor fair on the first day, to the excitement of the awards banquet on the last. “The participants seemed more serious about finding out new information this year,” observed Glenda Miley, manager of Auburn University’s CopyCat operation. “I noticed that most of the

In-plant managers had a strong presence at the On Demand show, which wrapped up yesterday in Boston. IPG staff spotted them all over the show floor as well as at several educational sessions geared toward in-plants. On Tuesday, more than two dozen of them gathered for the In-Plant Graphics luncheon/roundtable discussion, sponsored by GBC. They talked about some of their equipment acquisition plans as well as new services they have added. Several that have started offering fulfillment services described how this has helped strengthen their in-plants. On Wednesday, in-plant managers shared their strategies and success stories at some of the educational sessions. Steven Dimond,

Rick Wise, director of Printing Services at the University of Missouri-Columbia, shares his thoughts on the importance of having someone on staff who is well versed in both computer and print technologies. “You have to have computing expertise on your staff,” says Wise. “Trying to share such personnel with a campus IT Department is the road to ruin. The subtleties and nuances of printing are numerous. Industry specific software; huge file sizes; RIPing complex color jobs; and unique networking applications (to name a few) require your computing person to have a thorough knowledge of printing, in addition to considerable computing skills.” “The world of computers is

With so many in-plants providing online job submission via their Web sites, they may be finding that online price quotes work against them; customers generally don’t understand how job costs change depending on volume and method of printing. Here is how Printing Services at the University of Missouri-Columbia approaches this issue: “If you offer Web submission of jobs and provide both offset and digital (toner) printing, giving prices on your Web site could be a problem,” notes Rick Wise, director of Printing Services. “We choose to leave prices off our Web site. We do show firm pricing for specific quantities of business cards, letterhead and

More Blogs