For many in-plant leaders, Printing United offers a unique opportunity to see the industry’s full spectrum of print, mail and workflow solutions.  Many attendees were wearing rubber-soled shoes as they explored the vast displays of equipment and technology from wide-format, mailing equipment, and inkjet presses, to textiles, promotional products, AI tools and workflow solutions.  One attendee told me their primary focus was to evaluate large-format options that could help bring rigid material printing back in-house.

Smaller in-plant operations are evaluating and installing production inkjet presses. In-plants in the manufacturing sector are migrating to inkjet to address a trifecta of challenges: labor resources, workflow automation, and printing costs.

Labor and training

Much has been reported about the ongoing labor challenges in many vertical markets and the printing industry in particular. In-plant operations across the U.S. are devising new strategies to address the convergence of:

Aging workers retiring, lack of skilled workers to run offset and finishing equipment, younger workers preferring to work with technology, and needing to onboard and train new employees without printing experience.

For the last ten months my colleague, Mark Fallon, and I have been working with an in-plant to assist their team in right-sizing their print operation. In the utility sector, Salt River Project, (SRP) is a community-based, not-for-profit water and energy company. SRP provides reliable, affordable water and power to more than two million people living in central Arizona.

Many changes were underway at SRP.