Articles By Pat McGrew

Pat is a well-known evangelist for inkjet productivity. At McGrew Group, she uses her decades technical and marketing experience to lead the industry toward optimized business processes and production workflows. She has helped companies to define their five-year plans, audited workflow processes, and developed sales team interventions and education programs. Pat is the Co-Author of 8 industry books, editor of A Guide to the Electronic Document Body of Knowledge, and a regular contributor to Inkjet Insight and WhatTheyThink.com.

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Featured image for “Web-to-print is vital to inkjet: buy or build?”
January 19, 2023

Web-to-print is vital to inkjet: buy or build?

No two print operations are identical. Equipment mixes, selling cultures, customers and products all vary from site to site. With so much variation in business processes, when should inkjet producers buy their essential web-to-print or digital storefront solution off-the-shelf and when is the best path a customized solution? It starts with an assessment!
Featured image for “Paper is Not an Inkjet Problem”
January 3, 2023

Paper is Not an Inkjet Problem

Paper is not an inkjet problem. It is an industry problem. Smart printers will constantly be forecasting their paper needs and looking for multiple supply channels to ensure they can meet their clients demands.
Featured image for “Three transition trends for 2023”
December 21, 2022

Three transition trends for 2023

Did your business change over the last couple of years? What have you done to cope? Did you hire new people, add automation to workflows, buy a company, sell a pieces of business, or find new ways to navigate supply chain issues? If any of these items look familiar, you are on the same ride as most of your peers. Let’s find the learnings to get ready for 2023.
Featured image for “Wide Format Applications that Cross the Chasm”
November 30, 2022

Wide Format Applications that Cross the Chasm

No matter what size or style production inkjet machine you have, if you want to expand your revenue streams into wide format, what you have may get you there.
Featured image for “Wide Format Crossover Options in Inkjet”
November 9, 2022

Wide Format Crossover Options in Inkjet

Traditionally, we think of wide-format as the home of popular roll and sheet-fed devices that have inkjet print heads mounted on rails, scanning back and forth across the substrate to build up the image.
Featured image for “Production Inkjet Shopping Guide 2 – The Big Rigs”
October 20, 2022

Production Inkjet Shopping Guide 2 – The Big Rigs

The latest high-productivity presses producing over 2,500 images per minute. Check out the next inkjet shopping guide.
Featured image for “What Do We Mean by Inkjet Productivity?”
October 12, 2022

What Do We Mean by Inkjet Productivity?

We talk about inkjet productivity as though one size fits all, but in practice it is a function of what you need. And we all need different things. Consider the differences between industrial and production productivity and review our checklist for assessing what you need.
Featured image for “What Support Should You Expect When You DIY Inkjet?”
September 28, 2022

What Support Should You Expect When You DIY Inkjet?

In the last episode, we recommended that before you begin a DIY inkjet project, a best practice is to define your needs and establish your expertise levels concerning the elements
Featured image for “Five Questions to Ask When Buying Inkjet Heads”
September 21, 2022

Five Questions to Ask When Buying Inkjet Heads

Looking at you DIY’ers! When you are building an inkjet system, why reinvent the wheel? Do a self-assessment to understand where your expertise is highest and where you need more help. Then begin to work through these questions to begin your project from the best base.


Featured image for “Reconfiguring the Inkjet Roadmap with the Right Software”
September 7, 2022

Reconfiguring the Inkjet Roadmap with the Right Software

How we work is changing dramatically. It’s the reality of doing business in 2022. Enabling all-shore processes means embracing multiple locations, various time zones, and countless individual work environments while servicing them all seamlessly.
Featured image for “What’s in YOUR Disaster Recovery Agreements?”
August 17, 2022

What’s in YOUR Disaster Recovery Agreements?

Understand the agreements you have, review them with your legal counsel and vendors so that everyone is on the same page. Disasters don’t appear by appointment!
Featured image for “Any Idea What’s in YOUR Business Continuity Wallet?”
August 3, 2022

Any Idea What’s in YOUR Business Continuity Wallet?

Who is accountable for your Business Continuity Plan today? When was the last time it was carefully reviewed and tested? What is your confidence level?
Featured image for “So – You Think You Have A Business Continuity Plan?”
July 27, 2022

So – You Think You Have A Business Continuity Plan?

We live in a time when security breaches are a problem, but so are physical events that can disrupt internet access, power, and water due to cut lines, main breaks, and accidents.
Featured image for “OOPS! Production Stopped and You Even Have a DR Plan!”
July 13, 2022

OOPS! Production Stopped and You Even Have a DR Plan!

For many companies, the Disaster Recovery Plan was put together in the past to check the box on RFPs, but if you aren’t practicing with it and updating it in a regular cadence, you may be missing key elements
Featured image for “Hardening Data Driven Print – Part 2”
June 8, 2022

Hardening Data Driven Print – Part 2

While you may not consider your business a likely target, talk to your peers the next time you get together. You’ll find that many printing companies have already been targeted with malware and ransomware. We get practical and build some actionable guidelines for data protection.
Featured image for “Hardening Data Driven Print – Part 1”
June 1, 2022

Hardening Data Driven Print – Part 1

Hardening is a process that IT and cybersecurity people use to guard against threats like malware and ransomware, but also to ensure that customer data remains unexposed as it is gathered, processed, used in business applications, and included in customer-facing communications.
Featured image for “Folding Carton and Inkjet”
May 4, 2022

Folding Carton and Inkjet

Printing solutions are available in many configurations and price ranges, from those that print a single box at a time to those supporting high volume production printing. They all share a common goal to produce a package that is functional and ensures the consumer of the brand and product it contains.
Featured image for “How to Build Sustainability into Your Strategy – Part 2”
April 27, 2022

How to Build Sustainability into Your Strategy – Part 2

Inkjet printing and marking technology in late-stage manufacturing has been around for decades, enabled by the integration of print modules within the manufacturing environment.
Featured image for “How to Build Sustainability into Your Strategy – Part 1”
April 20, 2022

How to Build Sustainability into Your Strategy – Part 1

In the print industry, sustainability is often equated with the creation, use, and recycling of substrates, but there are many other elements to consider.
Featured image for “When Something Goes Wrong – Business Continuity 102”
April 6, 2022

When Something Goes Wrong – Business Continuity 102

How common is business disruption in print? How fast can you recover? Is there a specific metric for knowing when you are recovered? You have questions and Pat McGrew has answers.

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