Gallup depends on its digital printing plant to conduct its public opinion polls

By Chris Bauer

A Collaborative Environment

One of the more unique characteristics of the in-plant is the access the shop’s employees have to company executives. Supervisor Lisa Morock notes that Gallup executives know the in-plant employees by name, are interested in the work being produced, and will often stop by to check out jobs while in progress.

“There isn’t really a hierarchy,” Morock explains. “They encourage creativity, and want us to be on the cutting edge at all times. They want us to come up with interesting solutions.”

Gallup’s graphic designers are often asked to sit in on meetings to help come up with creative ideas to pitch to clients.

“It’s a really collaborative type of environment, and they really appreciate our talents,” says Morock, who has been with the company for more than 20 years. “That’s why I stay here.”

GALLUP PRIDES itself on its reputation for delivering "relevant, timely and visionary research on what people around the world think." To deliver much of that information, the 75-year-old organization depends on its 32-employee in-plant facility in Omaha, Neb.

The in-plant is located on the scenic Gallup Riverfront Campus, a stone's throw from the airport. It enjoys one of the best views that any in-plant could hope for. The print shop's windows look out on the Missouri River and the nearby pedestrian bridge connecting Omaha with Council Bluffs, Iowa.

"Our CEO has commented that you don't see too many print shops that have a beautiful river view," notes Lisa Morock, Document Services supervisor. "We are really lucky to be right on the river walk path."

Morock oversees all printing and mailing, print graphics and Web design for Gallup, known worldwide for its public opinion polls. The in-plant produces printed surveys for these polls, as well as invitations for Web-savvy clients to take Gallup surveys online using a unique pass code. To promote the surveys for clients, the shop prints posters, cards and other marketing pieces.

The in-plant also produces training materials for Gallup University, a provider of degree and non-degree programs in management education and leadership development. These materials include curriculum and activity-related documents, materials for seminars, booklets and folders. About half of the in-plant's total workload is printed in color.

To produce this color material, Gallup depends on a five-color, 83-page-per-minute (ppm) Kodak NexPress 2500 SE with Dimensional Printing capabilities, which give specified text and images a raised or 3D effect. For smaller runs, the shop uses a 90-ppm Ricoh Pro C900 Color Production System, which works well as a backup for the NexPress.

Black-and-white jobs are printed on the in-plant's Kodak Digimaster 9110 and Digimaster 9150 printers. To manage variable data, the in-plant uses Printable Fusion Pro 6.2 VDP software.

The in-plant's bindery is home to a Standard Horizon VAC-100a collator with an HOF-30 high-speed offline feeder, an SPF-20A stitcher/folder, an FC-20 face trimmer, and a BQ-270 perfect binder. Other binding equipment includes a Lhermite WOB3500 wire binder from Spiral Binding Co., and a Hasler Neopost M8000 folder/inserter.

The in-plant transformed itself into an all-digital facility back in 2001, soon after it relocated from Lincoln to Omaha.

"We just didn't have a great need [for offset] any more," explains Morock. On the other hand, the need to print variable data was increasing. Surveys in particular incorporate a large amount of variable data.

Creating the Surveys

To produce surveys, Gallup relies on project managers. They receive a master list from clients who, for example, might want 100,000 employees surveyed. That information is put into Gallup's computer system and is massaged into various categories. A print sample manager will then take the information and make it appropriate to print in certain areas of the survey, including the mailing address so it shows through a window envelope.

Gallup employees will not only program jobs to print basic information like names, titles, addresses and departments, but will also set up the survey to print in 24 different languages.

"There are a lot of different forms, which are very complex, and it could take a couple of days to program a certain survey for a particular client," Morock says. "If it is for a health care company, it may have to be individualized for multiple hospitals."

Morock contends that the survey generation process involves a lot of moving parts even before a job gets to the printing stage.

"We are in constant communication with the client project teams that work directly with the client," Morock notes. "It's a big benefit being able to do this work in-house and work with the other Gallup employees."

The in-plant employees interact with Gallup editors and proofers to ensure that what they are seeing on the screen is coming off the digital presses.

"We make sure the variable data is hitting the right spot, that the characters hold appropriately, and that it is in the correct font," Morock points out. "If we had to go to an outside printing company we would have so many hurdles to jump over. I can't imagine having to deal with sending out these complex files to an outside vendor."

Surveys may consist of a short run that takes just a few minutes to print, or they could keep the in-plant's digital presses running day and night over several shifts.

Keeping an Eye on Costs

"We do some surveys in color, because some clients want their logo in color," notes Morock. "We try to be creative to cut back on costs."

This includes sending out shells to a commercial printer for the color work to be produced on an offset press. Then the variable data is printed in-house on black-and-white printers.

Though the in-plant could print both the color background and the variable data on the NexPress, Morock says it's much cheaper to have shells printed outside, and then use the much faster black-and-white printers.

"The impression price for black-and-white here is about a third of what it is for full color," she notes.

The in-plant also handles production of advanced reading copies of the various business best sellers published by Gallup Press. Color covers are printed on the NexPress, and the insides on the black-and-white printers. Advanced copies are usually a run of about 1,000 books, which are perfect bound in-house.

"We recently had a well-being book that required 10,000 advanced reading copies," Morock notes. "That wasn't a smart job for us to keep in-house, so we outsourced them."

One of the in-plant employees is charged with handling the company's outsourcing needs, Morock adds. The in-plant relies on three or four strong partner printers and mailing houses for jobs that don't fit the shop's strengths.

Carefully Selected Staff

Gallup has a unique selection process for all of its Document Services employees, Morock says, and prospective recruits are put through a strict interview process to determine if they have the talent to do the job they are applying for. The company has studied each role in Document Services to determine what attributes an employee must have in order to be hired.

"The folks that we have on our staff are very dedicated and committed employees who are very good at what they do," Morock contends. "The people that we hire are top achievers that don't like to stand around. They want to be kept busy. It is a very positive environment, and we like to do more work with less people."

The longtime employees have kept up with current technology, she adds, and the in-plant is trusted to make smart equipment purchases for the company. The next purchase will be a new shrink wrapper to protect books the shop produces.

"We reward great work by assigning more responsibilities," Morock says. "There are a lot of internal things within our company that may not be comfortable for everyone, but the people we hire have those certain talents so that they can thrive in this environment."

Industry experience isn't the most important factor for a Gallup employee to succeed, she stresses.

"It is very fast pace here, but also very welcoming," Morock says. "Visitors to our campus always point out how unique we are."

And for those who were wondering, yes Gallup's in-plant does survey its customers.

"We are rated by our Gallup internal customers on the ICE [Internal Customer Engagement] survey every six months," Morock reports.

Survey results, she adds, are typically very positive for the in-plant. IPG