Mailing/Fulfillment - Hardware

by Bob Neubauer A lot has changed in the world of mail since our cover story on the University of Washington's mail operation. With anthrax-contaminated letters turning up in offices around the country, mailrooms are being relied on to intercept suspicious packages, even as mailroom employees worry about their own safety. Overall, the in-house mail centers I contacted said they have not altered mail-handling procedures as a result of the anthrax scare; rather they are trying to help employees recognize suspicious mail before it's opened. At the University of Washington, which processes about 75,000 pieces of mail a day, the emphasis is

Don't stop with merging mail and print. You can continue to bring savings and increase efficiency after the merger. So you've merged your in-house mail and print departments? You've been through turmoil and tumultuous times, and you persevered? Why stop there? With the constant changes in technology, improvements to your in-plant mail and print operations should be ongoing. Keeping on top of trends, postal regulations and new ideas can only increase your parent organization's bottom line. Take Brigham Young University, for example. The Provo, Utah, school merged its copying, printing and mail services more than two years ago and continues to

Combining your print and mail operations will bring efficiency and cost savings to your parent organization. Learn from those who have done it. When you tell customers you provide "one-stop shopping" for all their printing needs, are you including mailing? You should be. In-plants that oversee both print and mail bring big savings to their parent organizations, both in time and money. To find out more about the benefits, we talked with supervisors of these combined operations. Sharing their insights with IPG were: • John Barron, Director, Printing and Mailing Services, University of Saint Thomas, St. Paul, Minn. • Karen Bush , Coordinator of

Merging your in-plant with your organization's mailing operation will bring increased efficiency and savings—and more responsibility. One way to ensure the future of your in-plant is to make your shop a more integral part of your parent company—and perhaps the most obvious place to look for new responsibilities is the mail room. After all, that's where a great percentage of your print work ends up after you finish with it. Why not take command of the entire chain of events from printing to delivery? "You don't want to suggest that you'll take over someone else's job," says Domenic Vallone, manager of the production department

Merging with other departments in your parent organization is an excellent way to improve efficiency, increase business and save money.

Combining departments will not only boost your services, but it will save money in the long run. Marrying in-house mail and print departments requires all the foresight, planning and tact of a royal wedding—and the payoffs are just as spectacular. A more coordinated, efficient operation able to offer customers more services at a lower cost—that's the dream come true for managers of integrated in-plants. "The results [of our merger] were far greater than we ever imagined. There's a synergy from everything being together now in one wide-open space," reveals Tim Steenhoek, who manages mail and print at Equitable of Iowa in Des Moines. Operations

Discover the benefits of offering printing and mailing all under one roof. Read what these managers say about running a successful mailing operation. We've all heard the familiar (though unofficial) United States Postal Service (USPS) slogan: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds." This creed also seems to be the testament of many in-plant managers who offer mail services, in addition to printing, to their parent companies and organizations. In recent years, however, there's been a change in the way mail is handled and distributed. Today, having a

You must not only manage an efficient distribution center, but you must broadcast your capabilities and successes to the organization. Ever hear the phrase "It must have gotten lost in the mail"? Quite a blow to mailroom folks, isn't it? It implies they just toss the mail around willy-nilly—and if it gets to its destination, great! In truth, today's distribution centers—as mailrooms prefer to be called—take their work very seriously. They play a vital role in corporate success. In larger corporations, the person in charge of distribution is sometimes even a vice president of the company. But a distribution manager can be