Mail Delivers

One secret to making it onto the Top 50: Merge with your mail department. Three-quarters of Top 50 shops have done it.

By Vincent De Franco

The numbers tell the story: 39 of the in-plants on this year's IPG Top 50 (78 percent) have consolidated with their organizations' mailing departments. As a result, both print and mail have been able to flourish at these in-plants, boosting sales and helping them achieve prestigious Top-50 status.

For example, the mail and print departments at the University of Michigan were merged into the same building in May 2003, a move that Steven Lindimore, manager of printing/mailing services, describes as "a painful process, but one that actually made logistics a lot better. Now printed material is just rolled down the aisle and prepared for mailing, instead of across campus."

The efficiencies gained by the merge helped the in-plant on its path to a number 24 ranking on the Top 50.

The creation of a one-stop shop eliminated the need for customers to issue multiple purchase orders for the separate mailing and printing components of a particular job. Combining print and mail also offered the in-plant variable data printing capabilities. After the in-plant learned the basics with ink-jet addressing and bar coding, more sophisticated customized mailings followed naturally.

Today, sales from variable data printing have boosted the in-plant's business, reflecting sales that simply would not have existed if the operation did not bring mail into the fold.

Mail Brings Opportunities

J.R. Gaddis, director of University of Oregon Printing and Mailing Services (48th on the Top 50), oversees a $6.4 million operation that prides itself on being entirely self-sustaining. The traditional mail center was merged with print 12 years ago as part of a cost-cutting initiative by the university.

"We [the print department] were told we had to bring it in and we can't cut the service, so essentially this department was handed a $250,000 expense," he explains.

But the in-plant soon turned that expense into a profit-maker. It identified employee cross-training savings and negotiated discounts from third party carriers to lessen the financial impact of the merge. Today, the ease with which a printed piece goes from conception to delivery is all about efficiencies and better serving the customer.

"This has definitely helped us grow because it has given us so many more opportunities to help our print and copy buyers," explains Gaddis. "The bottom line is that you better be competitive with private industry or otherwise you just won't be there."

Better Mail/Print Communication

At number seven on the Top 50, University of Washington Publication Services is one of the largest in-plants in the country, with 141 full-time staff in the print, mailing and copying operations, which include a dozen copy centers and more than 250 departmental copiers throughout campus. (See related story, page 58.)

The different components came together 14 years ago into one building, and the combined operation has steadily become more lean and efficient with the use of better technology and processes.

According to Frank Davis, associate director of Publication Services, the greatest benefit of the merge has been the ability for designers, mail experts and print/production people to communicate early in the process.

Easier to Communicate

"Before, a piece was first laid out and then everyone would try to figure out how to modify it for better mailing," he says. Back-and-forth faxes and numerous meetings were common. "Now designers can just go see people in mailing a few seats away to get clarifications and advice on designs and determine if the piece will be mailable.

"And before," continues Davis, "things would get printed and have to be transported to another building to get prepared for mailing. Now it just goes into an elevator down to the mail facility and it is a huge time saver."

The University of Washington has its own ZIP code, and the in-plant processes more than 75,000 pieces of inter-campus, incoming and outgoing USPS mail each day.

Saved $2.4 Million in Postage

"We have 40 employees in our mailing operation and meter over $3 million in postage annually," Davis says. "We perform ink-jet addressing of bulk mailings and have a multi-line optical character reader/bar code sorter (OCR) such as the USPS uses for outgoing letter mail. Both machines correct addresses, add bar codes and sort by ZIP code, and for doing that work, we receive postage discounts from the USPS. Over the last several years, we have saved over $2.4 million in postage and passed on the majority of that savings to our clients.

"We also have an automated system for charging back postage for outgoing letters and packages," continues Davis. "We scan bar codes on the envelopes to identify and verify budget numbers, weigh and meter the mail, and charge back the client."

In addition to handling a sizeable quantity of international mail, the University of Washington mailing operation also maintains its own UPS station, which allows the shop to track shipments and verify delivery, both on campus and off.

A Million Mailings a Month

Brigham Young University's print, mail and copy centers merged in 1998 to form the Print and Mail Production Center (PMPC). Because the university has one of largest independent study programs in the country, combining print and mail was essential to enable student packets to be produced and mailed daily.

"As we get orders we print them with variable data, including enrollment info, receipts, list manuals, etc., and we shrink wrap them and send them out within 24 hours," explains Thom Roylance, assistant director for BYU's PMPC, in Provo, Utah.

Today, the operation ranks eighth on the Top 50 and boasts 65 full-time employees and 200 part-time employees. The mail center handles up to 1 million pieces of incoming and outgoing mail per month. Equipped with intelligent inserting, ink-jetting capabilities and a computer area that processes all internal mailing lists, the sophisticated mail center works hand-in-hand with the printing operation, allowing jobs to be produced in less time and more efficiently—a key reason this in-plant consistently appears on the Top 50.

Further savings have been gained for the in-plant by using third party vendors for outgoing desktop mail, by negotiating with third party carriers like USPS and FedEx, and by cross-training staff and students to handle mail, copy and bindery jobs. According to Roylance, the merging of the departments has resulted in a a 5 percent increase (more than $500,000) in overall business and the reduction of staff due to cross training efficiencies.

Building Postal Automation Into Print

Tim Steenhoek, head of document management at financial services giant ING, in Des Moines, Iowa, oversees a similar combined operation. It comprises data center printing, (customer statements, policies, checks), a fulfillment center, (insurance product kits, prospectus applications) and a traditional in-plant, which produces everything from short-run color work to mass mailings, all on digital equipment.

All functions were integrated into one plant in 1997, an integration that, according to Steenhoek, "gave us the ability to rethink how we were doing everything and see some great benefits."

One of those benefits was an increase in business, which helped move the in-plant into the number 15 spot on the IPG Top 50.

"Merging print and mail together alone caused our growth," he says. "However, combining the operations positioned us to provide valuable solutions to our company's changing needs over the years.

"To us the ultimate goal was to have all postal automation built into print before we even print it," continues Steenhoek. Because many of the file preparation steps required for printing are the same ones needed for mailing, a great deal of duplication was eliminated.

"Printers don't necessarily create print to make it fit into inserters, or other mailing equipment," says Steenhoek. "Now we make sure everything is taken into account when setting up fonts and variable fields before sending it to print."

Whether the move to consolidate was driven by the parent organization or the in-plant itself, the results of merging mail with print are unquestionable. The move has spurred productivity and efficiencies, placing these in-plants in good company among the nation's Top 50.