The Power Of Competition

We become complacent without competition. So start thinking like a competitor. Your employees will begin to feel it, and performance will improve.

Several years ago, I asked two well-known printing consultants how much money a company could save on printing by opening an in-plant print shop.

"In-plants lose money," one said.

"The only advantages to an in-plant are convenience and better information security," the other said. "But they won't save money."

Having run an in-plant for many years, I thought, "No way."

Think of how in-plants save money. We have no salesmen, no expensive storefront. We don't need plush carpets, neon signs, expensive brochures, customer mailings. We can run an in-plant from a warehouse. If we work efficiently and have enough work to stay busy, how could an in-plant not save money?

We can also out-perform the facilities management companies that some in-plants dread. Those companies are middle-men. An in-plant eliminates the middle-man.

As I mulled the consultants' answers, I realized they were only reflecting the stigma attached to in-plant shops. My first printing job, 27 years ago, was in a bank. I remember my boss saying: "To get a job in a commercial shop, you have to be really good." So I quit and found a job in a commercial shop.

Years later at another in-plant, we had just purchased a Harris collator. As the installer leveled the machine and tightened bolts, he told the owner, "Now you can collate like the professionals."

The owner, her face reddening, said: "We are professionals."

Not All In-plants Deserve Praise

Although I believe in-plants save money, I admit that in some cases, the in-plant stigma is well-earned. I've worked in enough commercial shops to recognize that some of them, even with their marketing expenses, can print for less money than some in- plants.

The reason a good commercial shop runs a tighter operation than many in-plants is that the commercial shop competes directly with other printers. A commercial shop has to meet tight deadlines, keep up quality and sometimes cut prices. Some of these shops struggle. The pace can be frenetic. I remember staying up until 5 a.m. at a commercial shop printing a rush job. I went home for a nap and was expected back in a few hours.

Survival is a powerful motivator. When you have to work hard and fast to survive, you find a way. In-plants don't face this competitive struggle because their only customer is the parent company. The in-plant doesn't go hunting for work.

When the Berlin Wall came down, we saw communism for what it really was. East Germans lived in poverty. Factories were inefficient. New cars made in communist plants rattled and smoked—and they were so expensive people had to save for 20 years to buy one. That is the result of an entire economy run without competition.

I don't mean to say in-plant print shops have no competition. We compete with commercial shops and facilities management companies every day. If an in-plant loses money, the parent company will shut it down. It's only a matter of time. Yet being one step removed from competition can make us complacent.

Here's an example: at a state university in-plant where I once worked, I filled out three forms for every job I printed. I thought, "They would never survive as a commercial shop with all this paper work."

We become complacent without competition because the human mind excels when it reaches toward goals. That is when we are happiest. Competition is striving toward a goal. It brings out the best in us.

The best commercial shops strive to grow. They hire salesmen, publish newsletters and open expensive store fronts to lure people in. This is costly, but it is more than offset by their drive to prosper.

Develop A Sense Of Competition

Though we are not in the open marketplace, there are ways to engender a competitive spirit in an in-plant. Here are several.

First, even though you work in an in-plant, realize that you still compete with the open market. If the shop down the street can out-perform your shop, it will win the business. Some in-plants have learned this the hard way.

After you, the manager, begin to think like a competitor, your employees will begin to feel it. The attitude of the leader filters down to the employees. Act as if you were running a commercial shop. Everyone else will catch on.

Second, chart your shop's printing production. Each week, enter production figures onto a production wall chart. Make sure all employees see it. Then let them find ways to beat their production record. Offer an incentive for higher production, such as a party at the end of the month.

We humans enjoy sports. If your employees can't compete directly with the shop down the street, they can compete against themselves using the production chart as feedback. If you can't run a marathon, you can work toward beating your individual running time.

Third, develop a system to measure the output of each employee. Have a typesetter, for instance, write down how long it took to complete a job. Price that job outside and figure the worth of that employee's contribution. Do this for each employee, and show them the figures every month. Offer individual incentives for production improvement.

Competition can turn work into a game. At one in-plant where I worked, a high school boy came part-time to shrink-wrap instruction manuals. He hated the work. It bored him. Yet I had fun shrink-wrapping manuals, even for days on end. I had discovered how to make a game of it.

I constantly found ways to work better. I learned to position stacks of manuals, warranty cards and wiring diagrams so I could pick them up using both hands simultaneously. I learned to insert the pages into the shrink wrapper so that I wasted the least amount of plastic and produced the least smoke. I was competing with myself. If we can find ways to instill a competitive spirit in our shops, employees will make work into a game.

The hard way to manage a shop is to try to motivate employees. Instead, give them the tools to motivate themselves. The competitive spirit lives inside everyone. All it takes is a good leader to help awaken it.

by Arnold Howard

Arnold Howard runs the in-plant at Paragon Industries, in Mesquite, Texas. He is also a printing consultant.