On The Waterfront

No fire is beat until every flame is doused. That's how Printing Services Supervisor and firefighter Fritz Sims approaches his job.

"Whatever comes into the shop, we'll do it. And if we can't do it, we'll find a way to do it," says Sims, who, after hours, serves with the Westville, N.J., fire department.

A mouthful, maybe—but the seven-employee Delaware River Port Authority in-plant has the goods to back it up. It already prints 95 percent of the agency's work.

"We want that five percent," Sims says.

The remaining work is a blaze of color flyers and brochures promoting the Port Authority's Philadelphia/Camden waterfront development projects.

"I know we can save a ton of money," he says.

But the lion's share of work done by the South Jersey in-plant didn't just land in its lap—Sims had to go out and fight for it.

"We actually went to all of the different departments and researched what was being outsourced," he says.

The shop learned its customers wanted color.

"So we approached management to upgrade our capabilities. We got a [Xerox] DocuColor 2045 and a[n A.B.Dick] DPM 8000 platesetter," he says. Both items would complement the A.B.Dick offset equipment the shop already had.

Sometimes putting out a fire completely means taking an ax to a few walls, though. So that's exactly what Sims is doing. Printing Services is in the process of expanding its operation. Knocking down walls and moving the big presses, the in-plant has taken over the entire ground floor of the Port Authority's riverfront office building.

"It'll be done within the next six months," says Sims.

The expansion is under way because the in-plant is in the process of adding a five-color press to its offset arsenal. No final decisions have been made, but Ryobi and Hamada top the list. The acquisition of the new press, says Sims, is intended to snatch that last five percent—before it gets out of hand.

—by Mike Llewellyn