Trim Down to Survive

While some feel that adding equipment is the best way to strengthen their in-plants, Wayne Guiney, executive manager of Office Services at Ontario Power Generation, in Toronto, offers the following viewpoint:

“When we streamline our in-plants, much thought should go into how much space we are occupying of the companies core resource space. The trimmer our ship, the less water we displace, and the captains of industry that manage our sales are less likely to toss us overboard to the outsourcing sharks.

“Basically, the analogy here is that we all can’t go out and purchase more equipment to satisfy the back end of our business. At Ontario Power Generation Inc., we too closed our offset section and moved solely into the digital market. We maintained all of our small bindery equipment, folder, cutter, drills and shrink wrap but continued to outsource our perfect binding, saddle stitching and coil binding with the help of a Web-based end-to-end procurement tool named printLYNXX.

“With this tool, we bypass supply chain and deal directly with print, bindery, forms and other Graphics Services vendors whom we qualify for various components of our work through the tool.

“This is accomplished through a closed bid process and is completely audited from invitation to invoice and guarantees a minimum of 15 percent savings annually.

“In all, this is another spin on how to satisfy the needs of the in-plant without risking competing for space with the core business space, a very touchy subject.”