Remaking an Analog Shop

IT’S A good thing Catherine Chambers isn’t afraid of a challenge, because that’s exactly what she got when she accepted the position of manager of Printing & Mailing Services for the State College Area School District in State College, Pa.

“I replaced an excellent manager [Gary Burris] who’d been in the position for 38 years,” she explains. “It was my job to take an analog print shop, complete with three offset presses, and bring it into the digital age.”

And with more than 20 years of experience in managing print, copier and mailing functions in higher education and the private sector, Chambers was just the person for the job at this district in central Pennsylvania, in the shadow of Penn State University.

“Because most paper that is inked is distributed by mail...it is more economical and efficient to combine printing and mailing services,” says Chambers. “We have a loading dock and plenty of space, so we had the opportunity to combine the two services and thus achieve real cost savings and greater efficiencies in both printing and mailing for our 1,200 customers [i.e., teachers and administrators], who are spread out in 20 locations.” These include 10 elementary schools, two middle schools and one high school in this district of 7,200 students.

First Up: Copier Management

Chamber’s first goal was to implement a district-wide copier management program. A request for proposal for copiers and a cost-per-copy program was written, proposals were received and evaluated, and a vendor (Canon) was chosen. The program was up and running at the beginning of the school year.

“All 52 copiers were replaced, and for a very good price,” she says. “It’s more cost efficient because the cost-per-copy price includes equipment, maintenance and toner. Our only additional cost is for paper and staples.”

The kinds and sizes of copiers that went into each building were based on historical volumes. Naturally, there were some buildings with large copiers that weren’t seeing the volume of copies the machines were capable of producing, which was not cost effective, so they were equipped with more appropriately sized machines.

“For the most part, the machines look and feel the same from building to building, which benefits traveling teachers and staff,” says Chambers.

Printing Services averages approximately 1.2 million impressions or copies per month.

“For the most part, customers do send their work here, as opposed to doing it themselves,” notes Chambers. “I think they’re pleased with the quality of their copies.”

This would be because the print shop is equipped with four high-volume Canon image­RUNNER 7095s, from Ikon. Two of them have inline saddle stitching and face trimming.

“Printing can be a very manual, process-oriented job,” Chambers says. “Now we have copiers that can create copies and covers, fold and staple. It speeds up the process as compared to an offset press, as well as saves labor.”

Not that the offset presses have gone away. The shop still uses its two presses—an ABDick 9910XCD with a T-head and an ABDick 9975 perfector—though mostly for letterhead and envelopes.

“Now that we have mailing equipment, we’re printing a lot more envelopes,” Chambers explains.

Old Jobs In New Ways

By moving work from offset to digital, Printing & Mailing Services has gained efficiencies and saved the district money.

For example, take the Course Selection Guide, which is updated, printed and distributed annually to students in grades 8th through 11th. In the past, 3,600 copies were printed on an offset press, and the job took about a month to complete.

“This year, I worked with the originators of the Course Selection Guide,” says Chambers. “And we designed the project so it would run on a copier and come out completely finished. It simply required changing margins, font sizes and the binding method. We got a better piece—completely finished—in four to five days, while keeping up with our other daily work. In addition, we only printed 1,650 copies. Because the job is stored on the copier, anyone needing more copies can send a work order, and we can print any amount needed.”

Chambers admits that, initially, she had to sell the idea. But she got the support she needed. As a result, paper and printing costs, as well as storage space, have been saved.

“Because toner is already dry when it comes out of the copier, we’ve been able to speed up our turnaround time,” she points out. “That’s our biggest improvement. Jobs have gone from taking 10 work days to taking just three to five days.”

Another example of an old job done in a new way is the annual commencement program.

“Now we print the cover in color on the offset press and we use the inserter feature on the copiers,” Chambers says. “Each book comes out completely finished.”

This job used to take three weeks, she says; now it takes just four days. Because of this, the school can wait a little longer to submit the final job to the in-plant.

Improving Mail Services

The next step in combining and upgrading the in-plant was to look for opportunities to gain savings and efficiencies in mail services. When she started, Chambers noticed the district mail room doing a large mailing of report cards at first class rates, using a local UPS store to do the metering at a 22 percent markup.

To bring savings to the district by handling such mailings in-house, she acquired a Hasler WJ 220 mailing machine, a Hasler HT12 tabber with conveyer and a Hasler M3002 inserter with short feeder. She also arranged for the purchase of a first-class permit for bulk mailings.

“It allows us to take discounts on our first class mail, like report cards,” says Chambers. “If we’re mailing more than 150 pieces, I can recommend that we use the permit, which decreases the district’s cost. That’s increasingly important. Even though we’re a medium-sized district, 7,200 pieces, one to each family, is a lot of postage. We’re increasing bulk mailings with a small table-top inserter folder, and we’re addressing them with digital equipment. This is a service that was not provided before.”

An immediate savings was found in the district’s tax bill mailings, of which several are done per year. In the past, this has been handled by an outside vendor. This year, the job was brought in-house.

With the new Hasler mailing equipment, the in-plant is saving the cost of paying an outside vendor to pick up and meter mail. It is also getting mail to the Post Office a day earlier. Chambers hopes this will allow her department to identify mail that can be bulk mailed, thus saving even more money.

“If you’re the printer and you have knowledge of the mailing rules,” Chambers continues, “you understand that the Post Office’s new mantra is ‘size and shape matters.’ They’re not charging for weight as much as for size and shape.”

As such, she hopes to start educating teachers and administrators about the cost savings available by using a #10 envelope as opposed to a 9x12˝ envelope.

Digitizing Paper Records

The third manner in which Chambers hopes to improve Printing Services is via document management. The district has years of traditional paper records in storage, and her goal is to facilitate the transfer of these student records from paper to the digital system used now. All the copiers have networked scanners.

“The system is already in place,” she says. “We’re going to scan the records that are taking up space and put them in our electronic student system. We’ll get the storage space back and meet federal requirements for document storage. What we’ve specifically planned is that the print shop will handle the old records. In the future, clerical staff in individual buildings may be the ones who keep up with new records.”

Chambers is pleased with the progress the in-plant is making. It has added new services, like document shredding, and it has even incorporated the poster-making and laminating department, previously a separate unit. The in-plant laminates 30,000 feet of material a year using two 27˝ GBC Ultima Plus roll laminators. Chambers hopes to add a wide-format printer by the end of the year.

“The print shop used to be operated by one manager and four-and-a-half full-time people,” she notes. “Currently, we’re three departments operated by one manager, four full-time people and two part-time retirees.”

Chambers believes that using experienced retirees is a win-win solution for the district because it leverages the knowledge, skills and experience of the retirees, while minimizing personnel benefit costs to the district. Retirees also benefit from the opportunity to contribute, as well as the extra income and a flexible work schedule.

The future is already on Chambers’ radar. In the next couple of years, she expects to see savings in personnel (from not filling one full-time print shop position), postage (from better planning of mailings from conception to production to fulfillment, using bulk mail more often, and using the first-class permit whenever possible), and the copier management program, which she believes will show district-wide savings at the end of its first three-year contract.

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This article originally appeared in the March 2008 issue of School Planning & Management Magazine. (www.webspm.com)