Strong Support in Cincinnati

Winter was just settling in at the University of Cincinnati's campus back in January of 2012 when the sneak attack came. Agents from the facilities management (FM) arm of a popular print equipment vendor set up a meeting with the university's financial committee. With no one from the in-plant present, they began dishing out promises of cost savings if the university allowed the FM to handle its printing.

"If we turned it all over to them," recalls John Wesseling, director of Communications Services, "they [could] do all that for only $5.9 million." The vendor based this figure on how much they estimated the southwestern Ohio school was spending on reprographics. The only problem was, they didn't know the university's actual print expenditures.

Wesseling did.

"It ended up being $1.9 million is what we really spend," he reveals—less than a third of the vendor's generous offer. He passed this tidbit along to his boss, Richard Puff, who sent it right to the financial committee.

The vendor's proposal died a quick death.

Having such ready access to senior administrators has certainly made life easier for Wesseling and the 18 employees in Communications Services. Backed by the support and trust of administration, the operation has thrived. It's a trust the in-plant has earned, though, by maintaining an unrelenting focus on one important thing:

"Our goal is to give the university the best possible product for the least possible price," Wesseling declares. The in-plant has a close bond with its university customers, he says, and goes to great lengths to get their projects done on time, so they can meet their own goals.

"We're all U.C.," Wesseling says, quoting an oft-used slogan at the University of Cincinnati. He cites a time when the manager of Printing Services, Karen Kappen, recruited her mother and son to help collate an important job for the president.

"If we have to work nights, if we have to work weekends, if we have to bring our mother and our son in to help get the job done, we're going to get it done," he affirms.

More Than Just Printing

As its name implies, Communications Services includes more than just printing. Photography, video and design are all part of Wesseling's department, as are wide-format and garment printing and a departmental copier program encompassing a fleet of nearly 300 devices. Reproduction is split into two divisions:

• Printing Services, the offset operation, has a staff of seven, running four- and two-color Heidelbergs, along with a pair of two-color Ryobi presses and assorted bindery and mail equipment.
• Duplicating Services, overseen by Manager Michael Burke, comprises three copy centers around the 42,700-student campus, staffed by seven employees. They run Konica Minolta and Sharp digital printers and various binding and finishing equipment. One of the copy centers includes photography, video and art/design services and features a wide-format output center with a 60˝ HP Designjet L26500 latex printer, an HP Designjet 5500PS and a Mimaki CG-160FXII cutting plotter.

Supplementing Wesseling's staff are a dozen student workers, part of a federal work-study program. (The in-plant pays only a quarter of their wages out of its budget, Wesseling says, with the government picking up the rest.)

Having great administrative support proved crucial last year when the university faced the situation of having to vacate the building that housed Printing Services (an old Sears store).

"It was literally falling apart," he says—and he means it; bricks were dropping off the facade.

This could have been an opportunity for the university to close down the department. Instead, Wesseling, a 39-year U.C. employee, used his open line of communication with administration to provide examples of other colleges, like the University of North Texas, that were successfully using strong offset operations to print recruitment materials, resulting in increased admissions. Wesseling made these contacts while attending the Association of College and University Printers (ACUP) conference.

"I was able to make the argument that print is something that we need to invest in," he says.

Into New Quarters

It worked. In December, Printing Services moved into a new facility in a warehouse about 12 minutes from campus.

"I credit ACUP with our success in getting them to invest [$750,000] in moving us to this new facility," Wesseling says.

Now, instead of being broken up into different rooms like in the old plant, the entire operation is in one area, which has greatly enhanced communication between employees and enabled a much smoother workflow.

"It's just laid out so much more effectively," he remarks. "Now [work] just flows from one station to the next station."

And instead of having just one shared dock, the new facility has seven of them.

Wesseling chose not to move any of the digital equipment from the three copy centers into the new facility, due in part to the extra square footage this would have required. But also because he wants the copy centers to remain close to customers, where they can better meet tight deadlines.

To help with this, Duplicating Services recently added a new Konica Minolta bizhub PRESS C7000 to supplement its bizhub PRO C6500. The 70-page-per-minute color printer prints 1,200x1,200 dpi using Simitri HD toner, and accepts paper sizes up to 13x19.2˝.

"Everything's going color," Wesseling observes, explaining why the in-plant needed a second color device. The C7000 is kept busy printing brochures, booklets, posters, post cards, Christmas cards and more.

To make it easier for customers to send jobs, the in-plant just bought EDU Business Solutions' Print Shop Pro Web-to-print system and is preparing to launch it.

"It should increase our productivity," he says, noting that customers will key in much of the job data that his staff currently has to input. "It's going to really make things a lot smoother."

Garment Printing

In his quest to find new ways for Communications Services to serve the university, Wesseling added an Anajet M Power MP5 digital apparel printer, after seeing a demonstration at ACUP 2013.

"I was just amazed by the quality and the ease" of use, he says. Adding new services like this has become crucial for in-plants, he says.

"We have to diversify if we're going to live," he proclaims.

He expects a lot of demand for T-shirt printing, both from campus customers and from a local community theater program he is involved with. Insourcing work from outside the university, he adds, has become important to his in-plant.

"It's that little extra that keeps you in the black," he notes. He estimates that 10 to 15 percent of the in-plant's revenue comes from insourcing.

Wesseling says he has discussed the concept of centralized print management with university administration—where all printing would be required to be sent to Communications Services—and it is being seriously considered. It will add volume to the in-plant, allowing it to generate the additional revenue required to pay back the $750,000 in expenses for the new facility.

Earning Respect

Wesseling feels the university recognizes the benefits the in-plant provides. Not only are its prices lower than outside printers, it plays an active role in protecting the university's brand. For example, he says, his staff recently flagged a stationery job from an outlying U.C. campus that was branded incorrectly.

"If we had printed it, they would have had to reprint it all, and it would have cost them thousands of dollars," Wesseling says.

Putting the university's needs first is what the in-plant does best, he stresses.

"My vision for the future is to consistently look for what we need to support the university with," he says. "What are the services that we can add that meet the goals and the needs of the university? As long as we keep our eyes open to that, I think we'll be here a long time."