Western & Southern Financial Takes Top Management Award
Western & Southern Financial Group’s 18-employee in-plant was awarded the 2007 Management Award from the In-Plant Printing and Mailing Association (IPMA) for providing outstanding support to its parent company. Not only did employees successfully move and integrate equipment from a member company’s in-plant into their Cincinnati facility, they handled a major increase in jobs with a 98 percent on-time record, while saving hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“In 2006, our print shop experienced a 56 percent increase in jobs completed and a 20 percent increase in total impressions over 2005,” notes Daniel B. Cowan, print shop manager. “This, together with the savings we’re able to help our member companies achieve, helped fuel our recognition by IPMA as the ‘best of the best.’ We have a terrific team.”
The in-plant reported $260,000 in actual savings and $1.1 million in total savings compared to market costs. It finished $163,000 under budget last year, despite the additional workload and the purchase of a $100,000 Standard Horizon collator, which paid for itself in just two months. When bringing in the equipment from the other in-plant, including two Xerox 8000 printers, employees reconfigured their 20,000-square-foot facility so equipment was grouped according to process flows.
New procedures were implemented requiring bindery jobs to be double checked during setup. Regular meetings with key internal partners were instituted. A computer was placed in the press area to help track jobs. And the offset press area began reusing setup sheets to cut waste.
The in-plant received the 2007 Management Award during the recent IPMA conference in Oklahoma City.
