From In-plant to Indispensable Creative Partner

Being an in-plant manager is all about being creative — especially when customers come to you with elaborate ideas.

“We had a staff member call me into a meeting and she said, ‘I saw this on TikTok, and I thought if anybody in the Academy can re-create this, it would be you,’” recalls Shawn Parkison, Digital Center manager at the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) in Leawood, Kansas. “So, she brought me in, and we watched a TikTok video, and it was an interactive wall — and we actually re-created it. … We used our new large-format printer and created a 16-ft.-long by 6-ft.-high wall that was taken to a conference, and we had around 300 students map their journeys.”

This example of in-plant innovation, impressive as it is, might never have happened if a company initiative introduced a few years ago had taken a different trajectory. In March 2023, AAFP decided to launch a “digital first” campaign. With it came the need for the organization’s Digital Center to prove its worth.

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“New initiatives at the organization in 2023 focused on print versus digital and what was being produced and why,” says Parkison. “In addition, the lease on our print equipment was ending. This was an opportunity to review the department to make sure we were aligned with the core values of the organization, and the resources used to support the department were fiscally responsible.”

How the Digital Center overcame the challenges this campaign presented would earn it the 2024 In-plant of the Year Award from the In-plant Printing and Mailing Association.

Communication Challenges

To fully review the in-plant’s work, Parkison worked with AAFP’s finance team on a cost-saving analysis. At first, she says, communicating about what information was needed by each party to complete the analysis was like having a conversation with someone speaking a different language, she says.

“Their terminology was different than my terminology,” she explains. “And once we started discussing, ‘OK, what are you actually looking for?’ we were able to work together. We were able to produce reports that made sense, that were effective — and actually moved the process forward, making it much easier to analyze the data.”

Not only did the process prove the in-plant’s value, Parkison and the finance team have now established a way to communicate about the data that is clear on both sides, which will make any future departmental analyses easier.

Cut in Half

Shortly after the campaign’s launch, the Digital Center team was cut from four full-time employees to two, a reduction that would have hobbled the department had it not invested in cross-training.

Greg Schwarz

“In 2017, we had implemented a cross-training program, and each person freely shared their knowledge and expertise, creating a unique collaborative team,” says Parkison. “If we hadn’t invested in that work in 2017 and in the consecutive years, the department would have collapsed when we lost half of our staff in May of 2023.”

Despite the staffing changes, Parkison and the remaining employee, Greg Schwarz, project coordinator, still had to manage the same volume of work.

“The goal in 2023 was to eliminate some of the print jobs we were doing,” Parkison says. “However, very, very little of it was actually eliminated. Some of it was outsourced to another vendor, but most of it never went away, so we’re still producing nearly the same amount with half the staff.”

As of last year, Parkison says the shop printed 1 million pieces, while also managing 600,000 pieces of mail internally and 3 million pieces externally via outsourced work and subscriptions for the organization’s monthly journal.

Seeking Outside Help

Parkison notes that some of the work must be outsourced to help the in-plant meet deadlines. When the staff was cut in half, she visited outside printers that had the potential to take on some projects for them when needed.

“In one case, the shop that we visited had one walkup copier,” Parkison says. “It was eye-opening because their website said that they could do everything that we do, but when we got there, it was like, oh, that’s what our HR department uses. What they were doing was sending all of their work to another state, and it was being produced at a facility and then shipped back. Logistically, that wouldn’t work for us. But during that process — and with the research we did — it helped us actually find qualified vendors we could trust with overflow projects.”

Another change the Digital Center went through was in its reporting structure. It moved from facilities to the marketing team in 2023. For Parkison, the shift meant she was attending 287% more meetings.

“But our department already had a really solid reputation for quality work and good customer service, so those meetings expanded that reputation and helped us to develop better communication,” she notes. “We were being brought in at the beginning of projects.”

This has been a huge benefit for the in-plant and the organization as a whole, Parkison says.

“We’ve routinely saved thousands of dollars on different projects just because people have come and [told] us, ‘Well, this is what we want to do.’ But then we’ve been able to [respond], ‘Well, what if we did it this way?’” she says.

Equipment and Services

The Digital Center’s fleet features two Canon imagePRESS devices — a V800 and a V1000 — an HP Latex 315 wide-format printer/cutter, and several pieces of bindery equipment including cutters, inserters, folders, and perfect binders. The in-plant has used this equipment to take on a range of jobs, from standard work like invoices, business cards, and manuals, to more creative projects. Parkison says the wide-format printer has been particularly crucial in opening up the shop to new opportunities.

Shawn Parkison (left) and Greg Schwarz show off the target they printed for the paper airplane drop the American Academy of Family Physicians hosts annually. | Credit: AAFP

One example is a giant target the in-plant printed for the company’s annual paper airplane drop, which is hosted in the 66-floor building’s atrium. For the event, employees stand on balconies around the lobby and aim for the target on the ground floor.

Tying into the contest, the in-plant worked with the HR department and the design team to develop a welcome box for new employees.

“It actually has a folded paper airplane in the welcome box,” she says. “When somebody’s newly hired, they receive this box and it has a folded-up airplane and some AAFP-branded merchandise in the box before they even start the job. They come in and they’re like, ‘Why is there an airplane?’ It’s a branded thing that the Academy is known for — for staff anyway.”

While the in-plant can tackle ambitious projects like an interactive wall, the team takes the most pride in supporting the organization.

“What we enjoy most is giving staff a good experience when they work with us,” Parkison says. “The smallest job that may not mean anything to somebody at a higher level — or maybe it’s not in comparison with a 16-ft. wall — but for this person, we’ve taken a load off of their plate and we’ve helped them with a project they’ve been stressed out about.”

For instance, Parkison says she recently helped out a team from the AAFP’s Washington, D.C., branch with an upcoming project.

“They were planning on outsourcing it to somebody because they didn’t know we could take on that project and do it ourselves,” she says. “… It’s a lapel pin and a thank-you card stuffed into a bubble mailer and shipped out. For [that staff member], it was very, very stressful. She was like, ‘I just can’t believe it’s this easy, that I just send you the card and the pins and you take care of all of it.’ It was nice to be able to reassure her.”

At the end of the day, Parkison credits the Digital Center’s continued success to the team’s perseverance and drive. She offers this advice to in-plants who want to maintain their positions as valuable organizational resources: Set yourself up for success well into the future.

“What I mean by that is that we could have just exchanged out our printers and still had the same capabilities,” Parkison says. “By adding wide-format, we were able to expand into a new area, and it gave us an opportunity to grow. If we hadn’t expanded into that, they would have looked at us in three years and been like, ‘maybe we keep you, maybe we don’t.’ This gives us an opportunity to do something different and continue to add value.”