Big Ten Roars Into Lion Country

The 33rd annual Big Ten Printing Managers' Conference took place at Penn State recently, luring university in-plant managers from across the country.

University in-plants are perhaps the most social of the in-plant industry segments, judging by the number of times their managers get together at conferences. In addition to the major Association of College and University Printers (ACUP) conference held each spring, two more sizeable gatherings take place in the fall:

• The Southeastern University Printing and Duplicating Managers Conference (SUPDMC), which was hosted this year by Catherine Armitage at North Carolina State University.

• The Big Ten Printing Managers' Conference, held at Penn State and organized by Michael Pierick, director of Document Services there.

Having attended SUPDMC last year, IPG headed out to the Big Ten conference this fall, which included managers from universities far beyond the actual Big Ten. In addition to attendees from Midwest and East Coast schools, managers came from Oregon, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Alabama. There were even two attendees from Cairo, Egypt.

Pierick arranged the educational sessions into three concurrent tracks, one covering in-plant issues, one covering copyright issues and one covering mailing issues.

I was invited to speak at the 33rd annual event, and I had the opportunity to share some of the ideas I've collected over the years on how to market an in-plant.

The conference kicked off with a keynote address by Dr. Richard Wertz, who is in charge of business affairs at the university of South Carolina. He traced the growth of outsourcing with examples from newspaper articles. University bookstores are being outsourced to companies like Barnes & Noble, he said, because the chain is offering to renovate aging bookstores and donate money to universities.

If your school is considering outsourcing any service, he cautioned, the school must ask, very clearly, if the outsourcing firm plans to handle all services that the current operation handles. Sometimes the firm's offer appears to save the university money, but in reality it costs more because of the tasks the firm did not agree to cover. Before deciding to outsource, schools must critically analyze every service that their in-house operation provides.

Also, you can't just talk to one outsourcing company. You need to compare firms to make the best choice.

Wertz pointed out some other considerations, as well:

• How will you monitor the outsourcing firm? You must consistently evaluate it to make sure it's doing what it promised.

• Will the outsourcing firm be available during rush periods?

• Load the request for proposal (RFP) with every service the internal operation provides, plus the expectation that the firm will employ the current staff. Then use the RFP, along with the firm's proposal, as your contract.

Hiring And Training Issues

Randy Rice, mail services manager at York College, in York, Pa., discussed organizational issues in the workplace, including hiring and training tips, especially for student employees. When hiring, he said, ask questions, tell candidates what is to be expected, let them ask questions and conduct a proper background check, including a credit check and a campus security check. Rice recommended holding training sessions and assigning a mentor to the new hire to make him or her feel more comfortable.

To motivate employees, Rice suggested selecting a student employee of the month, distributing movie passes for excellent work, encouraging suggestions, including employees in decisions that will effect their areas, and giving them letters of recommendation to prepare them for the world beyond college.

Amy Relix, a partner with Innovative Performance Solutions, held a session that explored what it means to be a customer-driven organization. She said that good customer relationships can be used to gain new contacts, retain current clients, improve products and services, and position yourself for future success. In addition to providing reliable, on-time products, she said, you should provide customers with knowledgeable and courteous employees who offer individual attention.

In the copyright arena, Laura "Lolly" Gasaway, director of the law library at the University of North Carolina, talked about fair use in the digital environment.

Web pages are copyrighted, she said, so they can't be reprinted without permission. She warned printers that if professors download information from the Internet, you should still ask for a copy of the information with a message from the creator saying it's O.K. to reprint it. Listserv submissions are also copyrighted, she said.

C. Clint Bolte, a printing industry consultant, talked about production time standards for printing operations. He noted that using such standards to motivate employees just turns employees against the standards, since good employees are rarely measured against standards. Instead, he said, standards should be used for improving the accuracy of estimating and costing or to improve communications between estimating and production.

by Bob Neubauer.