Progressive In-plant in a Progressive Company

From CD-ROM reproduction to labeling innovation, Beckman Coulter Central Printing Services has advanced to meet its company's changing needs.

By Bob Neubauer

Just because your in-plant has been in business 45 years doesn't mean you've got it made. You have to be willing to change when your company's needs shift.

That knowledge has driven Beckman Coulter Central Printing Services to look in new directions in recent years. Not only has the 25-employee in-plant picked up new business in CD-R duplication—outmaneuvering a local supplier in the process—but it has innovated a label printing process, making its label supplier take notice.

Operating out of a 12,000-square-foot facility in Fullerton, Calif.—not far from Disneyland, in Anaheim—Central Printing Services made the transition long ago from simple letterhead and business card jobs to FDA/GMP-compliant regulatory printing for Beckman Coulter's high-tech laboratory and biomedical instrument systems. It now prints 30 million impressions annually.

"We've organized ourselves around the needs of the corporation in terms of regulatory printing requirements," notes Bob Hulett, manager of Central Printing Services, where he has worked for 28 years. The operation is also certified by Underwriters Laboratory and ISO 13485, allowing it to print strictly regulated labels and product literature.

This expertise has helped bring in recent new work from Beckman Coulter's Miami operation, which had been having problems with its outside printer. That work, mostly product inserts, will add a half million dollars in business this year.

In addition, the in-plant is responsible for printing operation manuals, labels, inserts and other materials (collectively called "part numbered items") for the company's many instrument systems. Almost 8,200 individual part numbers are supported, Hulett says. Whenever the Technical Publications Group gets a request to change any of the support material for an instrument system, the in-plant is in charge of printing the new versions for the correct instrument, identified by the part number and revision controlled alpha numeric system.

New Digital Equipment

A year and a half ago, when the lease was up on the digital printing equipment used to print product manuals and other items, Hulett did an extensive outsourcing analysis to determine if this work should be produced outside.

"Based on our analysis...we decided to maintain that operation in-house," he reveals.

As a result, the shop added a Xerox DocuTech 6180 and a DocuColor 6060, creating an enclosed, climate-controlled area for the equipment. Also located in this room is the in-plant's new Rimage Protege II CD-R duplicator (with a built-in Everest three-color process disc printer) used to put product manuals on disc. All three devices are run by a single operator.

The in-plant got into the CD-ROM business back in March.

"We knew the same [customers] that were making the printed manual were now making CD-ROMs. Initially our customers were going out on their own and getting their CD-ROM manuals produced by the same supplier" that made the company's software CDs, Hulett explains. "There were a lot of problems getting the manuals done on time."

More to the point, as Hulett discovered after collecting data, the CD-ROM supplier was late 30 percent of the time, did not have the flexibility to handle rush orders and had "severe" quality problems at times, including labeling software wrong.

"We were requested by the director of Technical Services to take on the responsibility of managing the CD-ROM manuals...since that [manuals] was our competency," Hulett explains. Since then, the company's software development groups have asked the in-plant to produce software CDs, a more complex process, given the many different software versions. Difficulties aside, it has been working out well, Hulett says.

"I think we have a distinct advantage, having it [CD-ROM duplication] in this environment, as opposed to anywhere else in the company," he says. "It really fits into the workflow of a print shop."

The in-plant not only duplicates 60 CD-ROMs per hour with its two-tower Rimage Protege II, printing the label directly on them, it simultaneously prints the Jewel case inserts and accompanying saddle-stitched booklets on the DocuColor 6060, which has an inline booklet maker.

Innovative Label Process

The in-plant has broken new ground in other areas, as well. When a new law in Europe required product labels to include local languages, the in-plant designed a two-layer label process that would allow labels to conform to the European directive. Basically, after the first layer has been printed with up to six colors, it is then laminated to form a second layer, which can also hold print. The whole label is then die-cut. Users can peel off the top layer to see the information below it.

The in-plant developed the process on a five-color Mark Andy label press, but has since upgraded to a custom-engineered 12-color Mark Andy.

Label supplier Avery Fasson, along with ANI Printing Inks, assisted the in-plant in developing the two-layer label, and both were impressed with the results, Hulett says.

Because of this new process, he adds, the company did not have to retool its manufacturing process.

"It's given us an edge," Hulett says.