Putting Experience To Work
After collecting experience from all over the Philadelphia printing industry, Ron Orehowsky has used his skills to transform LRP's Publishing Support Services operation.
By Bob Neubauer
The only reason he's in the printing business today, Ronald Orehowsky explains, is because his four older brothers decided to put him there when he was a kid.
"In my family decisions were made by group," recalls Orehowsky, vice president of LRP Publications, in Horsham, Pa. An electrician was his brothers' first career choice for him, but when those classes at Philadelphia's Dobbins Vocational Technical High School were filled, they had to reconsider. A family friend ran a printing business, they reflected. He seemed to be doing well.
"It was a consensus of agreement that printing was a good trade," Orehowsky says. And so started the formal training of the man who today runs the 34-employee Publishing Support Services division for legal publisher LRP. Producing scores of tight-deadline newsletters, case reports, books and pamphlets each day in a combined print and mail center, PSS is one of the standout in-plants in the publishing field, largely due to Orehowsky's leadership over the past decade.
Entrepreneurial Spirit
Though printing may have been his brothers' second choice, Orehowsky had already been dabbling in the trade. At 12 he had bought a small press and gone into business selling ID cards and personalized Christmas cards.
"One year I made 600 bucks doing that," he says.
His high school co-op job kept him employed for a few years after graduation, running a 40˝ Miehle flatbed letterpress. But his entrepreneurial spirit eventually inspired him to start his own company, Imperial Press, before he turned 21, and soon after he got married.
In 1963, his company merged with one of its big customers, the Instructo Corp., a maker of educational learning aids. There, Orehowsky produced transparencies for use on overhead projectors.
Since he was now running an in-plant, Orehowsky started talking with other local in-plants, trying to get them to band together for mutual success. He spearheaded a drive to start a local chapter of the International Publishing Management Association, and on March 1, 1968, the Philadelphia chapter was officially chartered.
In 1970, publishing giant McGraw-Hill acquired his company, appointing him divisional manager and director of manufacturing of the in-house graphic arts operation. It was here Orehowsky learned an important lesson about in-plants.
"It's difficult to have a customer that has no choice but to deal with you," he says. His customers were used to working with outside vendors, but now they were being told to send work to the in-plant. He realized that just being part of the "family" didn't mean the in-plant was accepted.
"You must conduct yourself even more so as a vendor," he realized.
Orehowsky remained with McGraw-Hill until 1981 when he became managing director of Burgess & Why Corp., a folding carton manufacturer. Three years later he moved to General Bindery as vice president/general manager.
In 1993, Orehowsky met Ken Kahn, president, publisher and owner of LRP Publications (then called Axon Group). They discussed creating a digital, network-driven printing and mailing operation, and soon Orehowsky had signed on.
"I was hired to create a new division that was more tailored to the needs of the company," he says.
First Orehowsky sold off the Norristown, Pa., printing company that LRP owned, swapping its sheetfed equipment for a four-color Didde web press, and upgrading its Xerox printers. He merged print and mail, and added mail inserting and poly wrapping equipment, saving thousands of dollars.
In the past 10 years he has found success by combining quality with service, and maintaining a stellar on-time record—a necessity in the competitive world of legal publishing. Each morning the staff meets to identify any possibilities of jobs being late so they are not caught by surprise.
LRP's publications are generated at its Florida offices and transmitted digitally to the printing and distribution centerin Horsham.
"We have 24 hours from editorial close to the post office," he explains. The shop's on-time record is above 98 percent, he says.
Focusing on process management has also helped. Process management requires that the operation is seen as individual processes in which the process moves from one stage of production to another in a reasonable sequence of repetitive tasks.
"Once identified, the individual operations are analyzed and averaged to create standards for each of the major tasks within the manufacturing process," he explains. "By improving even one process, you therefore improve every job which runs through the plant."
The in-plant won the hearts of customers a few years ago when Orehowsky implemented a standard cost system, so customers get no variations on what they pay for a job.
"That has been a great boon to the company," he says.
Outside of work, when he's not spending time with his wife Marie, his five children and his 10 grandchildren, Orehowsky is involved in his church and stays busy administering a national champion drum and bugle corps, the Reilly Raiders.
