This third blog in our responding to change series addresses how to implement change and avoid a trip to the “failed implementation closet.” It answers the planning question of how an operation can deliver on their strategy/plan to position themselves to rapidly respond to change with suggested tips, tools, and an example operational project plan.
Part two of a three-part series about positioning your in-plant to change and reduce the risk of outsourcing by answering three questions- where the operation should be going, what resources are needed to support the vision, and how you plan to get where you want to go. This blog discusses the staffing, software, hardware, and financing resources you need to support your strategic plan.
Intuitively we know that change is a constant. However, technology changes have been gradual and did not threaten the in-plant business model. In comparison, changes brought about from the pandemic have been fast, and may threaten in-plant businesses. These changes are comparable to the metaphor of someone moving the “cheese.” If you see that these changes are impacting your business, it’s the perfect time to start planning for next year to help minimize threats and maximize your future opportunities.
If you are struggling to find new prepress staff, an alternative is to add prepress automation software. Often overlooked when hiring inexperienced staff is the increase in rework. This blog shows that prepress software automation costs less than hiring inexperienced prepress staff.
As production volume increases and staffing remains a challenge, we have a choice to hire inexperienced staff and train them or increase the amount of automation. We compared these options and found that more rework resulted from hiring inexperienced staff, which cost more and reduced the availability of paper. When comparing hiring/training to automation, remember that the costs and risks of hiring inexperienced staff are higher now because of the staffing crisis and paper shortage.
At a recent in-plant conference I was reminded of the benefits of remaining focused on long term strategic goals. Spending too much time on production issues like finding paper and rehiring staff can shift your focus away from strategic issues like remaining aligned with your parent organization. An excellent presentation about workflow automation showed how one in-plant has benefited from remaining focused on working toward their strategic goals for over a decade.
In this post, Howie Fenton previews his IPMA conference presentation designed to help in-plants in your recovery from the last two and a half years. He offers suggestions for dealing with four top issues: declining volumes, hiring new staff, and minimizing complaints about pricing, and the impact of the paper shortage.
Some in-plant print centers, including a university in-plant, survived through the pandemic by consolidating staff, cross-training everyone, and performing more like a nimble, small commercial company where all staff could perform all the shop's tasks. We discuss the motivation, previous in-plant consolidation trends, and five stumbling blocks to consider if you need to plan for the consolidation of staff or services.
RSA's Elisha Kasinskas talks with industry consultant, Howie Fenton about three areas where in-plant print centers can be doing things differently post-pandemic, including staffing, using video for sales, and workflow. Five-minute video.
This article talks about using an older strategy to increase customer satisfaction, awareness, productivity, and sales. The ability to demonstrate shop value has been threatened as more customers work from home, and more communication, marketing, and sales activities have switched to video communications. Adapting the demonstration of operational excellence can help in-plants increase satisfaction, awareness, and sales.
To celebrate the IPMA's in-plant awareness month, this article talks about combining some new strategies to increase customer satisfaction, awareness, and sales. The ability to demonstrate shop value has been threatened as more customers work from home and more communication, marketing, and sales activities have switched to video communications. Using video for communications and demonstrating services can help in-plants increase satisfaction, awareness and sales.
Despite pandemic challenges remaining, typically there is a sense of new hope associated with the beginning of a new year. There are two planning scenarios. Planning for recovery/rebound while addressing staffing needs, and researching the root cause(s) of lingering low volume and overcoming volume declines. Both involve planning for growth, and we discuss planning and tips for each scenario.
Research shows that not only will we continue to experience supply chain and staffing issues in the coming year, we could also experience customer pushback about price increases and slower turnaround times. In the worst-case scenario, this could result in questions about the value of print or, worse, the value of the in-plant. This article will discuss the threats and offer three strategies to overcome them.
This post summarizes the current state of the in-plant Industry, describes three long-lasting adverse effects that will persist, and offer strategies to help you reduce the impact of these challenges.
What if there was a way to take advantage of unexpected downtime by making progress solving three of the most challenging issues you face? These six strategies can make solving the issues more manageable so they can be tackled during unexpected downtime.
Automation and collaboration are often viewed as opposites because collaboration increases human touches, but automation is designed to eliminate touches. Read this post to see how automation with collaboration is possible with the latest release of RSA's WebCRD.
In this article, we discuss print applications that are likely to decline and grow post-pandemic and a strategy to help you win back clients of your in-plant that may have outsourced their work during the pandemic. Using this knowledge will help you negotiate the twists and turns in product demand.
Do you realize that killing e-mail can reduce labor costs for CSRs, estimators, and billing staff and that there are additional savings possible by reducing the costs associated with manual estimating and billing? The savings of killing e-mail may be 3x-5x higher than estimated in recent research. To best understand the savings you can achieve, read this blog post.
Do you realize how much time and labor costs are associated with processing e-mailed orders? Do you understand the total cost of operation and the savings you could achieve by automating order entry? Find out in this post where we discuss the time, costs and production challenges of accepting e-mail orders and how a Web to Print solution can save you money and accelerate your recovery.
By recognizing that some of the changes from the pandemic will disappear and others will remain you will be better positioned to recover and take advantage of the permanent changes. Innovative in-plants will find ways to take advantage of these changes and convert them from threats to opportunities.