ACUP A Midwest Success

More than 100 in-plant managers met in Columbia, Missouri, for the recent Association of College and University Printers conference.

By Bob Neubauer

These days, in-plant customers want more than just printing. Reorganizing your operation to meet their needs was one of the major themes at the recent Association of College and University Printers conference.

Hosted by the University of Missouri-Columbia, ACUP 2005 brought 109 in-plant managers to central Missouri to listen to ideas on how to revamp their operations for the future. At the same time, attendees got a chance to mingle with managers from around the country and as far away as Australia and the U.K., while sampling some wonderful spring weather—and some equally terrific Midwestern hospitality.

Rick Wise, director of Printing Services at the University of Missouri, organized the entertaining and educational affair, which featured a 24-vendor exhibit hall, numerous sessions and enjoyable evening activities, including dinner at a clifftop winery with stunning sunset views of the Missouri River valley.

Attendees also enjoyed a tour of Printing Services' facility, and got a close look at the shop's impressive collection of equipment, including a six-color 40˝ Heidelberg, a Creo Trendsetter 800 II platesetter and several DocuTech and DocuColor devices. Demonstrations of the in-plant's successful QuickCopy Online job submission system—Printing Services' version of EFI's Digital Storefront—were also given by Digital Production Manager Heath Cajandig.

Changing With Your Customers

One of the biggest draws of the conference was an active two-hour session, moderated by yours truly, that tackled head-on the topic of reorganizing to meet your customers' changing needs. It kicked off with a panel of four managers offering their thoughts, and wrapped up with an audience discussion that brought out numerous perspectives and ideas.

First, Ray Chambers, vice president and chief information officer at Juniata College and a former in-plant manager at several schools, gave everyone a jolt with his thoughts on how today's students—the "millennials"—are communicating in much different ways than older generations. The kids of today, he said, are "digital natives" while the rest of us are "digital immigrants."

"The millennials are not going to be reached with pieces of paper," Chambers announced. "This is going to drive the way your school communicates."

While this certainly gave the packed audience a new perspective, it contrasted with the message of one of the other speakers, Mike Loyd, director of Louisiana State University Graphic Services. At his large in-plant, high-quality offset-printed pieces will remain viable recruitment tools, he said, even as other digital materials, such as CDs, are incorporated. His shop has plenty of work to keep its six-color press busy, he said. And increasing offset volumes will likely require the shop to add a six-color 40˝ press by 2007.

Loyd's in-plant also runs two NexPress 2100 digital color presses, though he said designers at LSU still prefer offset on some key pieces due to size, substrate and toner cracking issues.

Still, Chambers was resolute in his message that tomorrow's in-plant will need to have a better understanding of non-print technologies. He suggested that in-plants hire students and listen to their thoughts on how to best communicate with students. Also, what digital technologies are faculty struggling with? If they haven't mastered PowerPoint or digital video, step in and offer these services.

Chambers also urged managers to become more aware of campus issues and to volunteer on committees. One concern he has noticed is that enrollment will soon begin to drop in some parts of the country, notably the Northeast and Midwest, forcing colleges to compete more for students. In-plants positioned to help with recruitment will be in good shape. But fewer students also means schools are looking at new forms of revenue, and are thus more open to the idea of insourcing. Above all, Chambers added, tie everything the in-plant does into the institutional strategy.

Another panelist, Kelly Woodward, of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, said her school's Facilities & Services Printing Department is in the process of reorganizing. She shared the department's strategy with the group.

First, a team was assembled with representatives from all units (quick copy, offset, photography, etc.). All services were documented, and then the team discussed which services should be continued and which should be outsourced. Then similar functions were grouped together and a logical workflow was created.

From here the in-plant will prioritize its opportunities, then build a flow chart to show logical sequencing and relationships among the priorities. Thus each opportunity can be planned as an individual project. In the end, the Facilities & Service Printing Department intends to achieve dramatic improvement in business performance and create substantial value for customers.

"We just can't do it the way we've always done it," said Woodward, production support manager. "That just doesn't fly any more."

The panel's final speaker, Ken Macro, a professor at California Polytechnic State University, offered his thoughts on future technologies that could change the nature of printing. Among them were e-ink and e-paper, which allow the images on a page to change. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags, an inventory tool that identifies items using radio waves, are another up-and-coming tool that his students are watching closely.

Macro noted that today's most successful commercial printers offer numerous services beyond printing, such as data integrity analysis, list fulfillment, copyrighting and editing. In-plants should also expand their portfolios.

Open Mike Session

Following the panel presentations, the floor was opened to discussion. Scott Keeney of the University of Virginia wanted to know how schools like LSU were able to do so much insourcing without getting complaints from the printers in their communities that a state-funded operation was stealing their work. ACUP host Rick Wise noted that, yes, in-plants are competing for work, but competition is part of life in the printing business.

A couple of in-plants talked about how their status as auxiliary services allowed them to build up equipment reserve funds from their revenues and thus make some major equipment purchases. Chambers noted, though, that in-plants should have break-even mentalities and not rely on huge reserve funds, because there is no assurance the reserve funds will be available when needed. As college and university administrators deal with budget pressures, he said, they often reallocate such non-academic reserve funds to academic uses. He suggested leasing equipment rather than buying it.

As the discussion moved to the viability of offset in the digital age, viewpoints varied. Steve Goodman, of the University of Illinois-Springfield, suggested that digital printing should compliment offset, each having its specific use. Don Harty, of the University of North Carolina-Wilmington noted, however, that his shop could not keep up with the increasing need for short-run color work using only its offset presses, so it installed an HP-Indigo digital color press.

Printing Recruitment Materials

A poll of those in the room revealed that close to half are printing some school marketing and recruitment materials. Andrew Scott, of Glasgow Caledonian University, in Scotland, said the designers on his staff are an integral part of school marketing committees, which gives them a good understanding of the audience their work is targeting. University policy lets Scott's print shop decide whether that marketing work gets printed in-house or is outsourced.

J.R. Gaddis, of the University of Oregon, added that, four years ago, his school was outsourcing its recruiting materials. But after his in-plant upgraded its digital prepress equipment and added a used six-color press, the shop was able to bring those jobs in-house.

Attendees also talked about new services they were offering: Rick Wise said Web-based job submission and wide-format ink-jet printing have been big successes at his shop. Lisa Hoover, of Bucknell University, noted that her in-plant now sends personalized html e-mails for customers. That service has allowed the in-plant to build a relationship with the alumni department, leading to additional business.

Hoover also said that her in-plant created a business opportunity by using a little creativity. The Bucknell admissions office was mailing out 60,000 blank return postcards on which students were asked to write their names and addresses. The responses were sometimes illegible.

Her shop offered to personalize the postcards with names and addresses, and also bar code the students' ID numbers. The admissions office installed bar code readers so they could scan the bar code and immediately pull up the students' records in the database. That process saved them time and streamlined their workflow.

From In-plant to Business Center

Rethinking the traditional in-plant was a recurring theme at ACUP 2005. Tom Tozier, Printing Services manager at the University of California-Santa Cruz, gave an excellent session detailing his operation's efforts to turn itself into an on-campus business center.

After watching UPS buy Mailboxes Etc., followed by FedEx's purchase of Kinko's, Tozier said his school decided to research the idea of moving to a similar business center model—a one stop shop offering copying, shipping, mailing, supplies and more.

After reviewing the products and services offered by the whole University Business Services department, his team conducted more than 15 surreptitious visits to the competition—FedEx Kinko's, OfficeMax, etc. The team examined the levels of service and convenience along with the breadth of products, coming up with lists of likes and dislikes.

Then the team surveyed students, faculty and staff, asking which services and products they wanted and where they typically got them. The top two services sought were postal/shipping and FedEx/UPS. Also in the mix were food, self-service copying/faxing, office supplies, tickets to campus events, personalized gifts, Internet access, digital photography and notary services.

Of interest: the main reason respondents said they went to off-campus vendors for printing and copying was because of available parking. The number two reason was price, even though, Tozier insisted, prices are actually higher off campus. But Kinko's marketing messages convince them otherwise, he said.

After visiting UC-San Francisco's successful business centers for more ideas, Tozier and his team made plans to establish a "proof of concept" store, to open in the fall. A high-volume copier will be moved from the copy center to the in-plant's production facility to open up space for merchandise sales. Production jobs will be sent digitally to the central production facility.

Based on expected sales, Tozier expects this store to pay for itself in 3.5 years. After that, he added, the team will recommend establishing storefronts in two or three other campus locations.

Clean Up Your Act

One of the keys to productivity is being organized. To show how his in-plant gained an edge by cleaning and reorganizing its facility, Warren Hauser, manager of Reprographics and Copy Centers at Cuyahoga Community College, offered a session on 5S for the in-plant.

In brief, 5S is a Japanese methodology for organizing, cleaning, developing and sustaining a productive work environment. It not only yields a cleaner, safer plant, but improves inventory controls and gets your products to customers more quickly. The five pillars of 5S are:

1. Sort

2. Set in place

3. Shine

4. Standardize

5. Sustain

Hauser and his 17 employees examined everything in their shop and got rid of 45 dumpsters of unneeded items, 12 pallets of old equipment/supplies and 50 pieces of old furniture. Then all needed materials were returned in a neat, orderly and logical manner. The shop was painted and repaired, and visual cue indicators were put in place to tell people at a glance when stock was low and when tools were out of place. Work areas were also marked off with tape.

As a result, Hauser said, the workplace is now more pleasant, obstacles and frustrations have been removed, usable floor space has increased, communication is easier and people's jobs are more satisfying.

Making Money At Digital Printing

In an often amusing keynote address on the conference's final day, Bill Farquharson, president of Print Tec Network, revealed some of the secrets to being successful at selling digital printing. He observed that when the concept of digital printing was first sold to the masses, no one considered the fact that customers didn't have their digital files ready yet. Even today many customers don't know what's on the disks they bring to their printers.

To succeed in digital printing, he said, focus on the digital file. Be capable of handling any type of file that comes your way.

"You want to build a reputation of being digitally superior from a software perspective," he said.

Hire the best technical communicator you can afford; talk the language of digital. Then market your technological superiority.

At the same time, you want to focus on the technologically competent customer. This may require you to build, train and harvest these customers yourself. Hold monthly educational symposiums and software lunch events, develop online and CD-based learning opportunities. Educate rather than market to your clientele.

Then, make sure you stay ahead of your customer; ask them where they are going; keep giving them ideas of new ways they can do business with you.

Keeping Faculty Legit

Even at the highest levels of many universities, faculty and staff are often ignorant of copyright laws. By asking the in-plant to print materials without first obtaining copyright permission, they are opening the in-plant up to possible prosecution, as well.

To keep them informed, and spare the university a legal battle, Rosemary Chase, copyright officer at George Mason University, suggested that managers hold copyright workshops.

Some of the key points to stress to faculty, she said in her ACUP session, are:

• Presume everything is owned by someone.

• The "Fair Use" statute of the 1976 Copyright Act lets you use copyrighted works in small amounts and for short periods of time.

• "Out of print" does not mean "out of copyright."

• The Web is not public domain.

• If you break the law, you are liable, not the university, when your university has a copyright compliance policy.

Educational purpose is not always Fair Use, Chase said. In fact, there are four factors that each must be met before an item qualifies for a Fair Use defense:

1. Purpose: Educational vs. commercial

2. Nature: Fact or fiction, published or unpublished

3. Amount used in proportion to the whole (as well as substantiality)

4. Effect on the market or the value of the work

MU Pitches In

For several sessions, host Rick Wise tapped University of Missouri resources:

• Dr. Michael Diamond, professor of public affairs and director of the center for the study of organizational change, gave the opening keynote address. He offered ideas on how to deal with staffing challenges presented by changing technology. To effectively change your in-plant, he said, you need a culture that allows people to make mistakes, learn from them and not worry about retribution. People need to be able to question the way things are done, not simply accept them. Also, the whole staff must share a common vision of where you are heading.

• Lise Nyrop, manager of human resources support services at MU, led an entertaining session on how to work with your HR person. She cautioned people to bring issues to HR early, before they develop into larger problems. Don't "reward" difficult employees by taking work away from them, she added. Rather, raise the bar on what you expect from them and make it clear that if they don't measure up, there will be specific consequences. Discipline and praise have to be immediate, she said.

• Ron Feilner, manager of campus mail, described the services his operation provides, which include both incoming and outgoing mail. Joining him in this session was Sandy Komasinski, director of Purdue Printing Services, which includes outgoing mail as one of its services. Among the discussions in this very interactive session were whether a variable data piece can be mailed at bulk rates (it can't).

• Though off topic, an interesting presentation on Lewis and Clark was given by Jim Harlan, of the university's department of geography. He detailed his project to map the Missouri landscape at the time of Lewis and Clark's historic journey. Using their notes and survey maps he is creating computer models mapping everything from tree species to the route of the Missouri River 200 years ago, which is much different than the path it follows today.

As ACUP drew to a close, attendees' thoughts turned to next year, when the conference is scheduled to take place in Boston, hosted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ACUP 2006 host Steve Dimond has planned the event for April 30 to May 4, 2006.