From the Editor: Challenge Yourself

Sure, in-plants know it's a good idea to benchmark their performance against other printers. But contacting and surveying those other printers is a lot of work. What if there was an online tool that would let managers plug in information and quickly see how they compare?

This was the concept described to me in Milwaukee last June during the IPMA conference. Aaron Hale, of Canon Solutions America, had a demo he wanted to show IPG Publisher Mike Hempstead and me—a tool called the Performance Challenge that was essentially an online benchmarking program for in-plants.

As we leaned forward in our seats in the hotel lounge, Aaron scrolled through questions that asked in-plants to assess their range of services, insourcing amounts, changes in print volume, Web-to-print capabilities, bottlenecks, in-line finishing, customer loyalty, and a range of other characteristics.

At the end, the tool scored them against industry metrics based on InfoTrends research. That score would show them where they needed to improve to stay competitive. We were impressed. Four months later, the Performance Challenge was officially introduced at Graph Expo, and is now available for in-plants to use. (Visit Performance-Challenge.com).

Others have created online assessment tools for in-plants in the past. Some of you may recall the xpedx "Indicators for Success" tool, which calculated an in-plant's financial contribution after the manager answered a series of online questions. It was the brainchild of Jerry Sampson, once part of the team from Prime Digital Printing that traveled the country, conducting free in-plant workshops.

I'll resist drawing comparisons, but both tools provide in-plants with data to improve their operations and ensure their future—and both cost nothing. Yet, as Jerry told me on the phone recently, getting in-plants to take the time to input the necessary data into the xpedx tool was a struggle. True, managers are always busy, but here was a tool—dropped in their laps—that could save their business. Why not use it?

Sadly, xpedx no longer supports the "Indicators for Success" tool, but the Performance Challenge is fresh out of the gate, ready to help those willing to be helped. I went through the entire challenge, and while it wasn't quick, the questions weren't difficult either. Sliding scales let you give a general idea of, for example, the degree to which you utilize color management. For time-challenged managers (know any?) there's a shorter version, which offers a more general assessment of your business. Managers can stop midway though and continue later from where they left off.

Canon created the tool with the sole goal of protecting in-plants from facilities management threats. In its disclaimer, it pledges not to share in-plants' data, other than with InfoTrends. This is clearly a tool that can help strengthen your in-plant by showing where you must improve to stay in business.