Success at Every Size

Baseball is big in Birmingham, Alabama, so when the city decided to build a new minor-league ballpark on the land housing the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Printing and Mailing Services operation, the in-plant had to move. In 2012, the shop left its spacious 30,000-square-foot facility and relocated into a 19,000-square-foot plant a few blocks away.

Standing with UAB’s Xerox Color 1000 Press are (from left) Terry Mitchell, Bruce Horne, Paula Blackwell Mitchell, Greg Curtis and Joette Keller.

Despite the 37-percent smaller footprint, UAB’s in-plant has proven over the past four years that bigger isn’t necessarily better, and that necessity is the mother of re-invention. The shop reconfigured departments to create a more streamlined workflow; reduced warehouse inventories and implemented just-in-time paper ordering to cut waste; and grouped its copy center, bulk mail center and contract USPS post office for maximum efficiency.

“We could even argue that we had too much space before,” jokes Director of Business & Auxiliary Services Paula Blackwell Mitchell. “Yes, we’ve had to learn to work with what we have, but we’ve found that what we have really works.” Mitchell, who has worked at the in-plant for 13 years, took over as director about a year after the move.

“Not only has everyone adjusted well to working together in smaller quarters, but we’ve found that there are benefits to being so close to one another,” she adds. “It has facilitated cross training and covering for one another when we’re short-staffed or are busier than usual.

“For example, if we have a lot going on in the copy center or print shop and our postal workers have time, they will help out with handwork,” Mitchell continues. “They might also lend a hand with billing.” Cross training is informal, she says, but commonplace and embraced. Employees gain new skills while helping the in-plant further.

All staff members’ contributions are needed and valued. In fact, despite the loss of physical space, the in-plant has not had a commensurate reduction of personnel and remains fully staffed.

Frank Wolfe runs the shop’s two-color Ryobi 3302 HA press.

“We have 33.5 employees now compared to 35 prior to the move,” she says. Sales have also remained in the same ballpark at $2.8 million.

“We have been sure and steady,” Mitchell says. She acknowledges that the in-plant may lose jobs here and there due to budget cuts within a department or the use of alternatives to print, but the shop works diligently to gain new business via technology investments that can bring more work in-house and meet customers’ evolving needs and requests.

A Research Institution

Mark Mays sets up the six-color, 40˝ Heidelberg press.

Alabama’s largest research institution, UAB is a comprehensive university and academic medical center boasting enrollment of more than 18,500 students. The university is Birmingham’s largest employer, with a city campus that spans 100 blocks.

The in-plant has recently expanded its customer base by taking in work from the Kirklin Clinic of UAB Hospital and other UAB clinics.

“We’re now printing their forms…which has increased our business by about 8 to 10 percent,” Mitchell calculates.

The shop is also now serving a couple of new buildings on campus, such as the UAB School of Medicine and the University of Montevallo, one of UAB’s higher-education consortium partners. The in-plant’s single biggest customer is the admissions department, for which it prints and mails letters, postcards, financial awards and other communications daily to current and prospective students.

As Mitchell sees it, wide-format printing is the in-plant’s biggest opportunity for significant growth right now.

“Currently, we’re only able to produce some banners and posters, and do a little mounting,” she says, using the shop’s Roland Soljet Pro III XC-540. “We have to outsource anything else. If we are able to bring in what we’re sending out, that would be awesome.”

Kevin Parks prepares to cut sheets on the Polar cutter.

Toward that goal, UAB Printing and Mailing Services plans to augment its wide-format capabilities in the next few months. Mitchell has been looking at a variety of equipment, including an additional Roland, as well as Canon technologies, that will permit printing on a wider variety of substrates and broaden overall applications.

According to Mitchell, customers are very enthusiastic about these expansion plans, particularly UAB’s athletics department.

“We’ve been meeting with our new athletic director who is looking to work with us to produce a large quantity of wall graphics of players, events and other images that could be changed out frequently, such as monthly or quarterly,” she relates.

Offset Upgrade Plans

A little farther down the road, Mitchell will be seeking to replace the in-plant’s six-color Heidelberg offset press. She reports that, while offset volumes have dropped off slightly, the press is still very busy and requires a full-time operator. It is nearing the end of its lifespan, however.

“Some days, we pray for it,” she laughs.

Daniel Turner stands with the in-plant’s Xerox iGen4 digital press.

The in-plant continues to run a variety of jobs on the six-color Heidelberg and a couple of two-color presses, including publications, posters and long runs (50,000+) of postcards. Noting increased demand for coating, which is not offered on the existing press, Mitchell will be looking to add that capability as part of a new offset acquisition.

She is also looking to purchase a new color envelope press. In UAB’s mail department, the newest equipment addition has been a large Pitney Bowes D1900 folder-inserter that can accommodate up to six pages at a time.

Back in the digital color area, the shop depends on its Xerox iGen4 and a Xerox Color 1000 Press.

“The iGen doesn’t have in-line finishing, so if a job has a standard turnaround of three to five days, we’d likely run it on the iGen and finish it off-line,” Mitchell says. “The Color Press 1000 is great for booklets that need to turn around overnight and also has clear-coat printing capability for very high-quality jobs.”

Customer Loyalty Award

Serving clients well is the in-plant’s highest priority. UAB Printing and Mailing Services recently won the Highest Customer Loyalty Award from Survey Advantage, a customer research and online surveying firm that the in-plant had enlisted to help it survey its customers and improve customer service. Since engaging with Survey Advantage in 2010, the in-plant has implemented an ongoing monitoring and alert process to enable it to respond immediately to dissatisfied customers, quickly review comments for improvement, and continually improve performance. By the second quarter of 2015, 98 percent of customers responded that they would be “very likely” to recommend Printing and Mailing Services—up from 78 percent five years ago.

“We feel as if we’re a necessity, that we are committed to meet all the university’s needs, and that we continue to prove that we are needed,” Mitchell declares. “We will meet or beat costs from outside vendors, offer free delivery on campus and are always looking to the future, ready and willing to do bigger and better things.”