The best session at last month's Association of College and University Printers conference was the story of how a failed in-plant fought its way to the top. It was a tale told by Jimmy Friend, director of Printing and Distribution Solutions at the University of North Texas, and Deborah Leliaert, vice president for University Relations, Communications and Marketing.
Deborah began by telling the crowd how, back in 1994, she had fired the in-plant for its poor quality printing and bad service. Yes, the same in-plant that won the In-Print 2010 Best of Show award was once sacked for subpar work.
On the final day of the 46th ACUP conference—ACUP's first official meeting as a nonprofit—Jimmy took his fellow higher-ed managers for a journey along his shop's road to recovery. He revealed that when he took the reigns as director in 1995, the in-plant was in desperate shape. Employees had bad attitudes toward each other and toward customers. A customer survey that year generated only 22 responses (out of 200)—and 15 rated the shop's service and quality "unacceptable."
When Jimmy tried to fix the production process by identifying the problems, employees just blamed each other. He needed to take drastic measures. So he conducted an operational audit, asking an in-plant manager at another university to verify the results, and developed a plan to measure and improve each aspect of the audit. First he set his sights on employee attitudes, explaining to each staff member that it was crucial they change their attitude. There was some resistance; in the first 16 months, 10 employees left because they were unwilling to change.
Jimmy began a personal contact campaign: he visited customers repeatedly, sometimes 10 a day, to make it clear he was not happy with the way the in-plant had been operating and he was serious about changing things. He spent many late nights at work during this period.
To improve quality, he analyzed problems in the process, refusing to dwell on errors and blame. As the process improved, so did quality. Employees' attitudes followed suit. A 1997 survey generated 51 replies. Only four rated quality and service unacceptable. He still had a long way to go, but he knew he was on the right track.
In the years that followed, Jimmy and his team did a lot more to turn their shop around, including creating a reserve fund to upgrade equipment and implementing a five-year equipment plan. The addition of digital color in the form of an HP Indigo 3050 in 2002 was a major milestone.
Slowly the in-plant changed, as did its perception at UNT. Today it's a well-respected, well-utilized operation on campus. What's more, it's become a model for other in-plants worldwide, and has earned 60 In-Print awards to date.
After recently becoming the first to earn In-Plant Sustainable, Green Certification, UNT Printing appeared on the front page of the North Texas Daily, and was honored by the university for its sustainable efforts—an incredible turnaround from its situation 15 years ago.
Jimmy's story was a true inspiration to the managers who heard him at ACUP. And as a bonus, right after his talk, attendees got to visit UNT's in-plant and see for themselves what a model operation it has become.
Related story: A Friend in the Business
- Companies:
- Hewlett-Packard
- People:
- Deborah Leliaert
- Jimmy Friend