Too Broke to Go Bust

JOHN CAMERON’S grimace slowly turned into a resigned smile. He had only worked at Central Piedmont Community College’s (CPCC) Campus Printing Center for five months, but he was already aware of how things were done at the in-plant. If there was any reasonable way to exceed customers’ expectations of the timeline or quality of their jobs, Campus Printing would do it. He looked again at the project that had crossed his desk that morning. It was 14 different files—a mishmash of PDFs, Word documents and PowerPoint presentations. The customer wanted that unruly mess melded into one book, of which she wanted 19—and oh, by the way, could she get them this afternoon?

John lingered on his already full schedule a moment longer, and then decided he would make his customer’s request happen, although at this precise moment he didn’t know just how. It hadn’t always been that way.

The Bad Old Days

In early 2005 the situation at Campus Printing was grim. The longtime supervisor had fallen ill and was out on long-term disability. In her absence, service suffered, customer deadlines were often missed, and quality was decreasing. The shop lost money two years in a row.

Convinced that its in-plant operation was a sinking ship, CPCC told its Campus Printing employees that the in-plant would be closing within six months. The college’s plan was to find a facilities management company that would assume the financial liabilities of Campus Printing and pay the college a sum for turning over its equity in the operation.

However, not even CPCC’s financial experts realized how bad the situation at the in-plant had become: the assessment of every facilities management firm was that they would need to be paid to take over Campus Printing, rather than paying CPCC. Discouraged by this response, the college quit searching for an outside firm to run its printing operation and pondered its next move.

The Seeds of a Comeback

Meanwhile, some of Campus Printing’s people worked to right the ship. Although no longer able to participate in day-to-day operations, the absent supervisor of Campus Printing was determined to help. Seeing the problems and knowing that she wouldn’t be coming back, the supervisor promoted Nancy Green, then the youngest and newest staff member, to a senior staff member status, hoping she could set things straight.

Nancy began the task of turning around Campus Printing by identifying two immediate issues:

1.
Campus Printing had to become more customer-centric

2.
The flow of red ink had to be stopped.

To decrease job turnaround time, she made each staff member responsible for all operations. This ensured that if there were any jobs in the shop, someone would be working on them.

To further improve Campus Printing’s on-time performance, Nancy worked overtime as required to meet customer deadlines. But the workload was too great, and she began burning out. With money as tight as it was, she nonetheless made the decision to bring back a retiree on a part-time basis. Emma Lewis had been exceptionally hard working when she was a Campus Printing regular. Nancy was pleased to find Emma’s work ethic intact, and resolved to save the money spent on Emma’s salary elsewhere.

But the most important change she instituted was to travel to all six of CPCC’s campuses on a monthly basis. At first, no one really knew who she was, because Campus Printing hadn’t made an effort to connect with others at the college while the supervisor was out. But after several months, people began to recognize her as someone who could help them with their problems. Customers’ confidence in the in-plant slowly grew.

An Out-of-money Experience

At the same time, the fiscal belt was tightened at Campus Printing. Money was spent only when it absolutely had to be.

Nancy compared prices of the unit’s vendors and challenged the vendors to sharpen their pencils, telling them that if they didn’t, there wouldn’t be a Campus Printing to sell to anymore. They not only lowered prices, but also worked as partners with the in-plant, demonstrating how savings could be made in unexpected places.

Nancy’s financial overview revealed another situation: the in-plant’s prices hadn’t changed in years, and some were badly out of whack. The most flagrant examples were comb-bound books for five cents each, plus the comb’s cost, and hand labor for $15 per hour, no matter how many people were working on the project. She revamped pricing to more realistically reflect costs and bring in more income.

When Campus Printing’s staff looked back at that year, they were amazed at how much they did with so little. But the effort paid off: at the end of fiscal year 2006, they were showing just over an 8 percent profit. They breathed a sigh of relief when the college announced it would not outsource the unit. Still, the toughest task was yet to come.

Growing the Business

Money-losing enterprises often don’t have funds for re-investment, and Campus Printing was no exception. But stemming the tide of red ink let Campus Printing focus on its other issues—and there were plenty of them.

At the beginning of fiscal year 2007, Campus Printing was a well-run black-and-white copy shop, a business model that might have worked in 1997 but wouldn’t cut it in 2007. It was still operating two old ABDicks and an Itek platemaker. Its Xerox DocuTech 135 was 11 years old and breaking down weekly. The only color machine the shop had was a 20-ppm office copier. There were two cutters, but both were so old that the manufacturer no longer made parts for them. The only software on the computers was Microsoft Office and Adobe Reader—indeed, there was even a policy of “no typesetting or design.”

This state of affairs was evident in the in-plant’s bottom line. Yes, the shop made money, but its revenues had fallen two years in a row. Clearly, the business required fundamental change.

Armed with the respect its new-found profitability and customer-friendly policies had gained, and involving other departments in the process, the shop approached the college with plans for upgraded services. Other departments helped by showing how Campus Printing’s proposed acquisitions would help them. In the end, the college approved the in-plant’s plans.

Then came the excitement of implementing the planned upgrades:

•
A Konica Minolta 6500 was purchased for color work.

•
An HP 815 was installed for wide-format printing and scanning.

•
A Xerox 4112 was acquired to supplant the DocuTech.

•
Printer’s Plan shop management software was purchased to streamline the internal workflow.

•
New PCs and a Mac were acquired, all equipped with Adobe Creative Suite, QuarkXPress and other software.

Even with all that in place, though, Nancy realized that acquiring new software and equipment without the skills to properly use them would be like pasting a bunch of feathers together and hoping that the result will be a duck. She and other staff members took the initiative and took advantage of the computer design courses offered by their institution, learning how to apply their new capabilities. As a result, the in-plant dropped its “no typesetting or design” policy and began accepting (and charging for) those services.

This story has a happy ending. Campus Printing’s revenues for fiscal year 2008 set an all-time record high—a direct result of prudent fiscal management, in-demand products and good customer service. The college moved Campus Printing into a new street-front facility and awarded Nancy its “Classified Staff of the Year Award.”

John Cameron’s story ended well too: he enlisted the help of his co-worker Shannon Barbee, who handled John’s business card work. With her help, John had the books produced so quickly that he was able to take his lunch break on time.