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1. That Extra Mile. We always think twice about tooting our own horns but a recent project really demonstrated Seattle Bindery’s "can-do" philosophy. A late change in copy required us to pick up a 20,000-piece bindery job on Labor Day. Not only did we have to turn the job around in two days, but we also had to manage next day air shipments to 162 different U.S. locations, each with varying quantities of books. We received the customer’s database as an Excel file and after a two-hour conversation with UPS (the job involved thousands of dollars in UPS charges), we figured out how to print UPS labels without reentering any address information. We did this by converting the database into an MS Access file and later into a "csv" (comma separated values)file, which we uploaded to our UPS online account. UPS software then did a data verification and flagged about 30 potential city/zip code mismatches. We manually reviewed each of these using the www.usps.gov online zip code resource and made necessary adjustments. And, the job shipped on time! Whew! A big THANK YOU to our Seattle Bindery team for their technical expertise and terrific performance. 2. Bad Business. The Washington State Department of Labor and Industries has proposed a 40% increase in industrial insurance premiums. This increase in worker’s compensation premiums, combined with a recent 14% hike in unemployment insurance, will have a massive impact on state businesses, which of course includes all of us. The math works like this: the base rate for category 4101 workers (printing services) goes from $.4077 per worked hour to $.5746, with a resulting, increased cost per employee of $223. If you employ 20 workers, your labor costs increase $4,460. If your margin on a job is 20%, you need to sell a $22,300 job just to cover this. Maybe we should follow the lead of UPS and the airlines with their "fuel surcharges" and add a "worker’s comp and unemployment surcharge" to each invoice. For more information please visit the web site of the Association of Washington Businesses (AWB). Specifically, they have a press release covering the above issues at: http://www.awb.org/news/releases/2002/090602workerscomp.htm. 3. More of the same and then what? In the 9/12 Wall Street Journal, RR Donnelley’s CEO William Davis was quoted as saying that the commercial printing business in the U.S. will probably remain "pretty flat" in 2003 after bottoming out during 2002. "I’m suggesting to our people [a] pretty flat first half [in 2003], and I don’t have any sense or visibility beyond that." If Donnelley, with all its resources and, presumably, smart people, cannot see beyond Q2, 2003, I’m not sure anyone else can. 4. Tip of the Week: Paper can sit in storage and still be useable for at least two years in normal, reasonable warehouse conditions, even if the warehouse is not humidity controlled. Optimum paper storage is 68 to 76 degrees F (20 to 24.4 degrees C) with a relative humidity of 35% to 55%. Leaving paper in the original ream wrapper is also helpful as it contains an inner lining that protects the paper from moisture loss or gain.(Courtesy of Print Buyer’s Online from "Helpful Facts." Xerox Corp 1999)
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