The Writer staff enjoyed a pleasant change of pace yesterday when we piled into a couple cars and drove 90 minutes out to Fall River, Wis., to tour Schumann Printers, Inc., which prints our magazine.
One overriding impression: If you think you face a challenge in staying up with new technology, be it iPods, high-definition TVs, BlackBerrys or personal computers, you should try holding your own in today's printing industry. It's a highly competitive field, according to our genial host, company president Dan Schumann, and to my layman's eye, every new purchase in print-land seems to be very expensive, very computerized and complicated, and built like a tank. The pressroom has as much steel as a battleship.
Dan runs a real sharp outfit—a mid-sized but state-of-the-art company that invests heavily in new technology and clearly makes a major effort to stay abreast of any technological improvements that can further automate procedures, speed production or improve quality. What this means, among other things, is that an entire monthly run of The Writer can be produced in, oh, about a half hour. Some mornings it takes me that long just to get moving.
--Ron Kovach, senior editor
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