Visiting California’s Office of State Publishing (OSP) can be an overwhelming experience. Unlike the more modest facilities of a typical in-plant, OSP’s 128,000-sq.-ft. main plant rivals most commercial printers in size and scope.
The country’s second largest in-plant, behind only the U.S. Government Publishing Office in Washington, D.C., OSP is one of the few in-plants with a web offset press: an eight-color Harris M-1000B. The press consumes an average of 20,000 lbs. of paper each day to churn out millions of voter information guides, driver’s license handbooks, tax forms, and other essential documents.
OSP’s six-color, 40″ Heidelberg Speedmaster sheetfed press stays busy printing unemployment claim forms, DMV driving manuals, calendars, booklets, brochures, posters, and newsletters. Drent and Muller Martini web forms presses print driver’s license renewal forms, tax forms, newsletters, invoices, and certificates, and two Halmjet presses turn out roughly 33 million envelopes per year.
The 252-employee in-plant has a substantial digital printing operation as well. In its main plant, three Canon varioPRINT 6330 monochrome digital presses print high volumes of legislative materials, usually late at night, after the legislative sessions end. OSP may get 200-300 bills a night and must print 500 sets of each by the next morning. Some legislative books can be 800 pages long.
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