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 “Workflow— Training to Learn”
March 19, 2024

Workflow— Training to Learn

If you want new technology and workflow to be successful, you must invest in the training necessary to enable change, growth and a continuous learning cycle. The authors founded Print University to make that process a little easier.
Featured image for “More Considerations for Your Ink Economics Journey – Part 2”
March 12, 2024

More Considerations for Your Ink Economics Journey – Part 2

The value proposition of “magic inks” as applied to your current ink usage profile may vary. When is it better to use multiple fluids as needed?
Featured image for “Considerations for Your Ink Economics Journey – Part 1”
March 5, 2024

Considerations for Your Ink Economics Journey – Part 1

Learn the role of this essential element in your inkjet cost equations.
Featured image for “Automation: The Strategic Plan”
January 10, 2024

Automation: The Strategic Plan

Automation is not a single out-of-the-box widget or panacea to remedy the many challenges in your print organization.
Featured image for “Automate This, Then That”
December 12, 2023

Automate This, Then That

Automation is a universally understood benefit for any print shop. Yet, automation paralysis sets in quickly when trying to sort out what and where to automate across many products and the associated thousands of individual processes. The key to success is to approach it from a different perspective.
Featured image for “Workflow Mining: Finding Overt & Covert Processes”
November 30, 2023

Workflow Mining: Finding Overt & Covert Processes

Some workflow processes are obvious. Others are like a shadow government hiding below the surface adding risk and inefficiency.
Featured image for “Walk the Line 2 – Workflow is a Verb”
November 16, 2023

Walk the Line 2 – Workflow is a Verb

There is a lot behind the question “Do you know your print shop.” Every owner and production manager knows how the place functions, don’t they?
Featured image for “Because Workflow is Mine, I Walk the Line!”
October 24, 2023

Because Workflow is Mine, I Walk the Line!

We all have superpowers. Print shops that adopt automation often discover that they have joined the superhero pantheon as they reduce time spent or repetitive activities, discover inefficiencies, and lubricate the friction that can grow in busy shops. Walk the line – the pre-production, production, and post-production lines – with us!
Featured image for “Zero Trust Environments for Inkjet Printing”
September 27, 2023

Zero Trust Environments for Inkjet Printing

Whether you print data-driven content, labels, packaging or static commercial work, you still have an obligation to protect your customers and your company. Meet the brief by building a Zero Trust Environment.
Featured image for “Practical Advice for Prepress Automation in L&P”
August 22, 2023

Practical Advice for Prepress Automation in L&P

Every label and packaging press has unique characteristics that influence your prepress toolkit. Read this before you build your shopping list for LabelExpo.
Featured image for “It’s Time for Web-to-Pack Enabled by Inkjet!”
August 3, 2023

It’s Time for Web-to-Pack Enabled by Inkjet!

Web-to-pack requires an expanded definition of the key processes that ensure the ability to run at capacity, especially when integrating inkjet into the process.
Featured image for “It’s Fun to Play with the T-C-O-P!”
July 26, 2023

It’s Fun to Play with the T-C-O-P!

Printers! There’s a thing you should know! I said, Printers! To keep track of your dough! You can make more, and I’m sure you will do
 what you need to increase revenue! (sung to YMCA!)
Featured image for “Tool Time Versus Club Med”
June 27, 2023

Tool Time Versus Club Med

Part of your business strategy is how you manage your labor. You look at the tasks and roles and what level of expertise you need in the person assigned. For maintenance operations, when you deploy team members and when you take advantage of maintenance programs offered by the vendors requires a careful look at your options.
Featured image for “We All Live in a Maintenance World”
June 13, 2023

We All Live in a Maintenance World

Every print shop, regardless of the technologies used, should have a maintenance strategy. For many, self-maintenance is an attractive approach. Successful self-maintenance should consider more than just the cost of a full-service contract, however. Here are some considerations so you can make the best decisions!
Featured image for “Data, Data, Everywhere! But…”
May 23, 2023

Data, Data, Everywhere! But…

Every business has data. CCM specialists, print specialists, and multi-channel producers have data coming out of their ears. There is customer data, job data, inventory data, machine data, color data, financial data. Oh my! All the data impacts your ability to produce the work. Get control of the data to improve processes, become more efficient, and drive more profit!
Featured image for “Adding sustainability to your inkjet story”
May 9, 2023

Adding sustainability to your inkjet story

There are good reasons to add a sustainability tier to your inkjet story. Your customers may be asking about the actions you take to be a company that embraces sustainable practices. You may be asked to define your practices as part of a Request for Quote response. No matter your reason for investigating how to add sustainability for your story, here are some ways to proceed.
Featured image for “Integrating the Language of Sustainability”
April 19, 2023

Integrating the Language of Sustainability

If your customers are asking about your sustainability strategy, how do you respond? How do you figure out what they are asking? There is an answer! Using the jargon reference built by the UN Global Compact for their Sustainability Development Goals you can sync to the global talk track, lift your visibility, and help your customers do the same!
Featured image for “Building your sustainability baseline”
April 13, 2023

Building your sustainability baseline

We use the word sustainability to mean many different things. For some it’s a business proposition. For others it is part of a wide-ranging discussion that involves every element of product production. For others it’s only a talk track. But sustainability can be a part of every printer’s talk track if they understand the language that maps practices to a set of UN-sponsored principles to guide strategies and operations.
Featured image for “Making Money: Profit Takes More than Revenue”
March 22, 2023

Making Money: Profit Takes More than Revenue

Controlling costs is essential to any business, but there is more to ending the year profitably. Find the data that can help you make the best decisions about what products to offer in the markets you serve, and then review a key set of performance indicators regularly.
Featured image for “3 Inkjet Workflow Pain Points – 1 Answer Part 2”
February 16, 2023

3 Inkjet Workflow Pain Points – 1 Answer Part 2

In Part 2 the focus turns to Paper and Capital Investments. In the world of inkjet, these are essential elements to understand and control. Let’s reduce the friction to allow the inkjet devices to be as productive as possible. Leverage your data to make good decisions.

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