"Printing is my life and I love it," explains Raymond Fischer, Jr., with a huge smile and not a hint of regret.

There was never any doubt that the manager of Printing and Document Services at Pennsylvania College of Technology in Williamsport, a pressman for 25 years, takes great pride in the work produced by the print/mail shop comprised of four full-time employees and one part-time. Penn College, an affiliate of Penn State, has over 6000 students.

"The college expects nothing short of quality," he emphasizes. "My first expectation from my employees is quality work in a timely manner.  If a worker concentrates on quality, production speed will take care of itself." Penn College, like so many businesses, is always looking for ways to cut costs. "Many of the jobs that were being sent to outside printers are now staying in-house." If you can provide the same quality internally, there's no reason to look for outside printing avenues.

The in-house operation is unique in that the college offers a Graphic Communications Degree.  The shop personnel utilize the same equipment as the students. Fischer says it's a win/win. "Education benefits because of the experience of the in-plant personnel and the college benefits because it doesn't need to duplicate equipment. It's the shop's responsibility to develop and share the best printing practices possible so that students can take those skills into the workforce.

The hybrid offset/digital shop equipped with a two-color Heidelberg Speedmaster 52; two-color AB Dick,   19 by 25 one-color Ryobi, as well as a Kodak Nexpress and Digimaster, produces everything from brochures, letterhead and postcards to tickets, posters and calendars. The Digimaster produces all of the faculty requests for tests, syllabuses, manuals and other documents needed for instruction. The shop also has the capability to provide die-cutting, embossing, perfect binding, tape binding, laminating and of course normal finishing services.

One of their most notable time savers has been the creation of an on-line submission form.  After testing a variety of third-party vendor systems, they ultimately settled on a homegrown system. "It was the most cost effective and gave us the most flexibility for our changing campus.  It also allows us to control what type of platform the form resides on.  This allows us to keep updated with changing OS systems instead of waiting on new drivers or vendor updates."

They are also beginning to explore the use of QR Codes. "We have found that not all QR codes are created equally," he shares. "While testing, we found different readers translate the data differently."  That's something in-plants need to know and consider.

Over the years Fischer has grown to realize the importance of having good, quality-minded employees. "I treat my employees like I would like to be treated --professionally, respectfully and with as much flexibility as possible."

He also emphasizes, "Have fun!" Yes, it's possible to focus on quality and still have fun on the job. "You are at work a large portion of your life, so you should look forward to going to your job!"