A Fine State of Affairs

California State Printer Jerry Hill spent Ben Franklin's 308th birthday—January 17, 2014—hosting his own print-worthy party: an open house at the Office of State Publishing (OSP) to promote the in-plant's newly expanded facilities and upgraded capabilities.

The expansion augmented OSP's digital print and mail area from 10,000 to 50,000 square feet, including 10,000 square feet added to its mass mailing center. Part of California's Department of General Services, OSP operates out of a 300,000-square-foot location in the state capital of Sacramento, just a mile and a half from the capitol building.

The largest state government in-plant, OSP has 285 employees and an annual operating budget of approximately $65 million. Its capabilities are commensurate with its size, including project planning and initiation; creative print and Web design services; prepress; digital and offset print production; full bindery; mass mailing and interagency mail; records retention and forms management; and video and multimedia services. One of the few in-plants with web offset presses, OSP has nine of them.

OSP provides these services to about 150 agencies, 10 percent of which generate 80 percent of revenue, according to Hill. These include California's Department of Motor Vehicles, Employment Development Department and Department of Social Services. OSP's services are available to state, federal, county and city agencies.

"Most of our clients have been working with us for many, many years," he notes.

The in-plant's latest digital print and mail upgrades, along with other improvements and new offerings, help OSP better serve its client agencies. Hill stresses the operation's commitment to integrity, accountability, communications, excellence, innovation and teamwork in all of its efforts.

Improving Government Efficiency

Recent actions also dovetail with big-picture state goals and mandates. "Our enhancements are directly in line with California Gov. Jerry Brown's directives to improve the efficiency of government operations and cut taxpayer costs," Hill reports.

As part of an ongoing transition to digital just-in-time production, another of Gov. Brown's objectives, OSP upgraded its printing capabilities by replacing slower, outdated (circa 2005) equipment with a Canon imagePRESS C7010VP digital color press and a pair of Canon Océ VarioPrint 6320 high-speed black-and-white systems that have inline booklet makers for square-back binding.

"These moves have lowered our costs on both color and black-and-white work by 40 percent overall, increased the operation's speed of delivery, and allow us to deliver a higher-quality product," Hill declares.

Producing print runs from 1,000 up to 1 million and everywhere in between, OSP still counts on its sheetfed and web offset presses but is transferring increasingly more work to its digital printing systems.

"What's occurring is that, over the last eight years, our digital footprint, which had been less than 5 percent, is now nearing 30 percent and continues to grow," Hill relates.

"A two million-run monthly child support multi-page project that used to be produced offset and then imprinted using ink-jetting for mailing is now printed in one pass using digital variable print," he says. "Also, some of our legislative printing and the governor's budget are printed digitally now."

Additional Acquisitions

To encourage further growth, Hill is planning for additional acquisitions. One is a large-format six-color digital color printer that will be ideal for poster printing.

"We're printing posters now, but offset is not the most cost-effective method for 100 posters," he adds.

The second prospective purchase is a 20˝ digital inkjet web press.

"Inkjet web is really the future and a cleaner, safer printing process," Hill contends. "Gov. Brown wants us to be green, and we are—for example, our paper usage is already 50 percent recycled."

Hill expects to purchase both of these units, plus another digital color press for additional on-demand capacity, by the end of 2014.

New mailing software and upgrades have allowed the in-plant to meet increased demand for variable data printing, inkjet addressing, personalization and mail tracking services.

"Variable data printing and mailing are key to maintaining print volumes," Hill asserts. For example, certain pieces need to be printed in a secure facility for HIPAA compliance.

"We're doing variable and secure print with integrity for the California Department of Health Care Services," he notes. "One job comprises three inserts and envelope, each printed with an integrity code used to verify that all components are there for each piece prior to mailing."

Mass mail jobs are sorted, using a walk-sequence presort that reduces the mailing cost by 15 to 20 cents per piece, directly into a box/bin for pickup by a postal carrier.

Bindery Upgrades

Back in the bindery, equipment enhancements have allowed OSP to lower costs and provide faster service.

"About a year-and-a-half ago, we replaced all of our 34-year-old bindery equipment with new MBO folders and a Palamides banding system," Hill reports, declaring that the $1 million investment was well worthwhile.

The new Palamides equipment can band pieces with a paper wrapper, a job that previously had to be done by hand, but can now be done in-line at a rate of 40,000 to 80,000 bands per hour.

"What that does for us is allow us to run the folders at full speed, rather than at half speed, which we had to do previously because we didn't want the folders running faster than our operators could handle," he explains.

"That has improved our output by 30 to 60 percent, depending on the specific job, allowed us to lower our cost per piece and serves as a creative way to be competitive."

The in-plant offers other value-added services, including CalRIM for electronic data management, as well as record storage of approximately 800,000 boxes. "We already have destruction [shredding] and recycling services, and are adding scanning," Hill notes.

For more efficient job delivery, OSP has also instituted an interagency mail and messenger service featuring two electric and two hybrid vehicles that comply with Gov. Brown's zero-emissions plan.

Web-portal-based job submission, ordering and fulfillment services have reduced paperwork greatly, allowing customers faster, more convenient service. The in-plant piloted this system with the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program and is now offering it to other agencies for products such as print-on-demand business cards.

Confident in Print's Future

While Hill considers OSP firmly in the information management business—offering multi-channel opportunities for stakeholders, and exploring services such as e-books and apps—he is still confident in print.

"Print and mail will continue," he states. "We've also been trying to get people to receive that child support piece electronically, but less than 40,000 of the 2.3 million monthly pieces have gone away."

In addition, all of OSP's upgrades have a great deal of upside for the in-plant's current and future employees.

"As we move forward in new technology, we provide job security for our staff and new employment opportunities," he points out. "And our people are our most important asset."