Value-added Services: Your Key to Survival

IF ALL your in-plant does is print, it’s vulnerable. Outsourcing firms are scouring the market, looking for “print shops” to prey on.

On the other hand, in-plants that provide numerous value-added non-print services are in a much stronger position when their organizations start throwing around the “O” word.

In a recent IPG survey, in-plants listed a number of value-added services they have recently started providing. To name just a few:

• Document scanning

• Copying engineering drawings

• CD/DVD production

• Name tag engraving

• Trophies, medals

• Garment printing

• Braille embossing

• Envelope manufacturing

• Laminating

• Fulfillment

• Copier contract management

• Web site maintenance

• E-marketing

• Brand identity management

• Document integrity tracking

• Records/database management

• Maintaining company photo library

• Trade show support

Deterring the Outsourcing Firms

Some of the small in-plants profiled in this issue credit the addition of value-added services with keeping their in-plants alive and vibrant. The two-employee in-plant at Chippewa Valley Technical College (story on page 18) has taken on mail, CD duplication, copier repair, envelope and paper sales, deliveries and more. The sheer number of non-print services the shop now provides has served as a deterrent to facilities management companies.

“Our shop has been built up so big that other companies didn’t even want to bid on it,” remarks Dan Adams, duplicating assistant. And the few that have tried, he adds, have failed miserably.

Terry Oakes, director of Imaging & Printing Services at the University of New Brunswick, in Fredericton, NB, Canada, lists a host of value-added services his 13-employee in-plant offers:

• Photo ID cards for students, faculty, staff, sporting events, conferences, student police and a local government office.

• Printing of T-shirts and mouse pads.

• Supplying copy paper for 120 campus convenience copiers.

• CD burning, and printing of CD labels, covers and inserts.

• Free bookmarks for departments (with an ad for the in-plant on the back).

The in-plant has gotten involved in the scanning of exams and student opinion surveys.

“We have an OMR [optical mark recognition] scanner that we use to scan multiple choice exams for professors,” remarks Oakes. “We also use the scanner at end of term to scan student opinion surveys of professors. We are going to extend this service to members of the faculty who need to use surveys to collect data.”

Providing a Web-to-print workflow has been a popular new service for in-plants; about 35 percent have added this in the last three years. The University of New Brunswick is implementing a Web-based workflow called EZ Print.

“Users will complete a Web-based work order form, attach their file and then their job can be printed at any one of our three print centers on campus,” explains Oakes. “EZ print will have form fillable templates for business cards, letterhead and envelopes. We will extend this to greeting cards during holiday season.”

Print Procurement

Mike Schrader, manager of Mercury Marine Printing & Mailing Solutions, has joined the 49.6 percent of in-plants now handling print procurement as a value-added service.

“We can get a much better price for printing with outside suppliers than other internal [departments] do,” he explains. “Since we know print, we can buy it cheaper. We can also suggest different options to save money. Plus...we can get volume discounts. This has created some really good relationships with several printers, and has actually transferred some work from them to us. When they have a customer that wants something they cannot do, they come to us and we do it for them.”

In-plants can score big points with their parent organizations by helping to eliminate waste. At Grand Rapids Community College, in Grand Rapids, Mich., the college catalog and schedule of classes were printed for many years by an out-of-state web printer. The school usually ended up tossing out several thousand copies at the end of the year.

“We decided that printing them in-house, on demand, would be the way to go, as we could control when they were printed, keep our inventories at an absolute minimum and print more only as they were needed,” recounts Douglas G. Miller, director of Print Solutions. “We enhanced our black-and-white printing capabilities by upgrading to a new Canon 110 and adding stacker capabilities to our Konica Minolta 1050 and then went out and bought a Standard BQ270 perfect binder.

“Because of the process, our unit cost did to up some, but we have reduced waste to 0 percent, gained control over product availability and have a very happy customer.”

And happy customers are key to long-term survival. To make them happy, talk to them and find out what services they want. That’s what Bill Neff did.

“We found out that there was a growing need for scanning in the county,” says Neff, printing manager with the Arlington, Va., Department of Environmental Services. “Therefore, about one year ago we started a scanning center in the Printing Section Copy Center. We scan large- and small-format documents in TIFF format for electronic archiving and CD storage. This allows several different county agencies to view plats and plans. With this service we also can reproduce drawings on paper for contract use and physical on-site inspections. This has been a tremendous cost savings to the county.”

Services like engraving of name plates and fulfillment—including hand-stuffing and labeling—have helped make Walgreens Printing & Mail Services an indispensable resource for the Deerfield, Ill.-based company. And doing some tasks for “free” has also helped endear the in-plant to customers.

“The biggest thing we have done is to not charge back for inserting and ink-jetting,” reports Manager Linda Balsamo. “When our customers pair that up with printing costs, we are usually the low-cost leader.

“We do these things as a matter of survival—literally,” she continues. “Our customers are so used to these services that we were able to survive an outsourcing initiative last year. The more complex the operation, the less you fit into the cookie cutter and the harder it is to justify your removal.” IPG