Back In Black

PrinTech has grown to become a model in-plant—but it wasn't always in such great shape. A new director and dedicated staff turned it around.

PrinTech, Texas Tech University's in-plant in Lubbock, Texas, celebrates its 75th anniversary this year. What makes this celebration important is that five years ago the in-plant, deep in debt, looked like a candidate for the scrap heap.

The turnaround has been a teamwork effort led by Shauna Peterson, director of Fiscal Affairs Services at Texas Tech. Peterson, who was previously the university's director of Engineering Services, took over the troubled shop shortly after her vice-president approached her with an offer that almost anyone could refuse.

"He asked whether I would take over PrinTech because they were deeply in debt and had lost most of their customer base," she recalls. "My first comment was, 'No way.' "

But she and her boss continued to discuss what the in-plant needed and what was expected of her, and a month later, Peterson accepted the challenge. Although her responsibilities included all six service departments in what became Fiscal Affairs Services, the in-plant was the area that needed the most attention.

Down In The Hole

Peterson immediately started getting to know the people and systems she would be working with.

"I didn't feel that I had all the answers," she says. "I really needed to know the issues that were facing us before I could make recommendations on how to repair the damage."

Surprisingly, closing the 33,000-square-foot in-plant never seemed to be an option.

"I faced that rumor 10 times a day when I came on board, but I felt like they wouldn't have gone to the trouble to bring me in if they were going to close it down," says Peterson. She did bring up this possibility herself, though, when she started meeting with employees on a monthly basis and showing them the devastated state of the in-plant's finances.

"I said, 'If we don't address these issues, we'll give the university a reason to close us down. But if we choose to do what needs to be done, we'll turn this thing around,' " she explains.

Peterson quickly noticed that while the in-plant had systems and procedures in place, no one was actually paying attention to them.

"It was very difficult for a job to come in the front door, make it all the way through the production area and be delivered on time," she says. "At that time, the majority of the jobs were late and many of the jobs were not the best in terms of quality."

As was the management trend at the time, PrinTech had been operating under a team approach that left each department head minding his or her own area but no one in charge of the big picture. Since her budget already included money for a production manager, Peterson hired Brad Phinny to manage production flow and rebuild quality of work.

Peterson had visions of turning the in-plant into a technology leader on campus, but when she started, she was forced to bring her own personal computer. In the past five years, she made her vision a reality by replacing aging equipment, purchasing computers, setting up a local area network and hooking up to the university's backbone. The shop also purchased a new estimating and print management system to help manage workflow and job costing.

While the in-plant worked out its kinks, Peterson refrained from advertising for new clients.

"PrinTech already had a lot of bad word-of-mouth, and not following through [after advertising] would have further alienated customers," she says. Instead, she did a lot of talking—and even more listening—to customers to find out what they wanted. This gave her time to bring the in-plant's systems up to speed. The shop installed an Eskofot DPX platesetter and recently replaced a 25-year-old cutter with a Perfecta 45˝ cutter.

"We've also done a lot of upgrading in our graphic design department with a new imagesetter, a new scanner and new computers," says Peterson. All of this upgrading has especially helped the in-plant handle digital formats, which now make up 85 percent of its workload.

PrinTech has become such an in-plant model that Peterson was proud to show it off recently by hosting the annual Big 12 Printing Managers Conference, which brought 20 in-plant managers and staff from 11 schools to Lubbock.

The university's trust in Peterson has paid off in full. "At the end of this fiscal year, we will have officially paid off the debt that I was 'gifted' with," she says. "I feel we'll be able to do some growing over the next few years."

Don Harty, who came on as assistant director of printing services nine months ago, agrees.

"When given a challenge, the in-plant staff understands what needs to be done and rises to the occasion," he says. "I'm sure some of it was sheer survival, but now it's more out of pride. We're seeing more and more work coming back, when previously customers wouldn't even consider us. That's a testament to Shauna's skills for fixing problems and helping the staff believe that they have the skills and abilities to overcome the previous history."

PrinTech handles everything from the basic business cards, letterhead, envelopes and catalogs to the more elaborate recruitment brochures, posters, annual reports and athletic media guides.

"We're doing more specialty pieces since our quality level and customer satisfaction are high," says Peterson. "We've earned the privilege of moving from the bread-and-butter work to the flagship pieces, one example of which is the university's major student recruitment literature."

Fiscal Affairs Services has 50 full-time employees and encompasses six related service departments on campus: PrinTech, CopyTech, University Copy Service, MailTech, PostTech and the Bulk Mail Center.

PostTech, a USPS contract station, serves as the campus' post office. MailTech handles the university's incoming and outgoing mail and provides twice-a-day mail-stop-to-mail-stop delivery and commercial carrier services. University Copy Service does copier placements for university departments and also maintains the walk-up copy machines in the main library and residence halls. CopyTech has two full-service convenience copy shops, takes care of course packs, and provides more walk-up machines for students. The Bulk Mail Center handles non-profit and bulk mailings for the campus and manages the university's on-campus mailing list.

Once the in-plant was on its way to success, Peterson was able to concentrate on the other service departments under her command. She moved the post office out of the old dorm that housed it and into a newly remodeled space. MailTech, which has almost doubled in size under her watch, relocated to a new facility that was custom designed for ergonomic mail flow. Now she's in the process of designing a new home for CopyTech as part of a larger university remodeling project.

Plans For The Future

With the in-plant's debt retired, Peterson is ready to move on to new projects, chief among them a university publication center. "The university doesn't currently have one-stop shopping in terms of graphic design, printing, bulk mail and editorial," she says.

With the first three of those functions already under her wing, Peterson plans to tackle the fourth by remodeling part of her building and bringing writers on staff to take care of editorial work.

"We're envisioning a team approach," she says. "If a customer wants to come in and plan a year's worth of pieces, we will consult with them on the marketing angles and plug them into our services. Hopefully that will give the customer an easier, faster and better way to get their job done."

Working on larger and more long-term projects should also benefit PrinTech because it will be able to guarantee work and plan its production load more intelligently.

Peterson is also developing a Web site through which customers will be able to order and proof business cards, letterhead, envelopes and simple invitations. Informational newsletters about the in-plant will be electronically distributed, as well.

And like any other in-plant manager, Peterson has a wish list for future purchases. The top items on the list are a wide-format digital color printer, a new color proofing system and a production-level CD burner so that customers can include CDs with their recruitment and course materials.

"We both want PrinTech to become the printer of choice for the university," says Harty. "We don't want to give the employees or departments any reason to go off campus." With 66 local printers for competition, customers have plenty of options if PrinTech can't meet their demands. Harty does not think that will be a problem.

"Shauna is skilled at gathering all the data she needs to make good, intelligent decisions and then helping employees understand where we're going and why," he says.

"I did a lot of educating in terms of the financial issues that go into running a print shop," says Peterson. "I now have a very educated staff and we continue to meet monthly to look at the books—it's just that now the numbers are beautiful."

by W. ERIC MARTIN