Excellence in action

Sep 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Jill Roth & Robin Schabacker

Becoming a Management Plus company is about more than just winning awards. It reflects a company's serious commitment to regularly monitoring the management and operational issues that most affect its bottom line,” says Joseph Truncale, president and CEO of the National Assn. for Printing Leadership (NAPL) based in Paramus, NJ. “In today's increasingly competitive and rapidly changing industry, management excellence is both more difficult and more important than ever.”

Over the years, more than 150 graphic communication companies have won Management Plus awards. The program allows companies to analyze specific areas of their operations and use that data as a tool to judge management performance against industry standards. Management Plus is sponsored by AMERICAN PRINTER, manroland and Compass Capital Partners.

In this article (part I of II) we will take a look at the recipient of the William K. Marrinan Hall of Fame award, Action Printing in Fond du Lac, WI. Action Printing also was one of the 2008 NAPL “RAVE” award winners for excellence in customer satisfaction.

In Part II, we will profile some of the Management Plus Gold and Silver award winners.

Portrait of a winner

Action Printing has been a winner for years. In fact, the firm has earned seven Gold and two Silver awards in NAPL's Management Plus Awards competition in the past nine years. Also, Action has received the second of two Gold Customer Focus RAVE Awards for its superior customer relationships.

This year, Action has achieved the highest award — the William K. Marrinan Hall of Fame Award. The company's growth during the past 35 years is a result of its continued dedication to one single business philosophy — excellence — in employee relations, print quality and service.

The William K. Marrinan Management Plus Hall of Fame award is bestowed on companies that have won several NAPL Management Plus awards over successive years.

Bill Marrinan, namesake of the award, passed away during the first week of 2008. As chairman of NAPL's awards committee, Marrinan was instrumental in creating the Management Plus program.

At NAPL's request, Marrinan's wife of 56 years, Dr. Burnae Marrinan, presented this year's Hall of Fame award to Action Printing.

“Maintaining a high-level, consultative relationship with our clients and providing consistent quality requires not only a highly trained staff and innovative management, but the ability to move forward with advancing technology,” says Gregg Davies, president, Action Printing. “As an example, Action Printing was the first printer in the United States to digitally link its customer service department to its high-speed saddlestitchers, replacing time-consuming hand adjustments with CSR-generated instructions.”

Action Printing also is proud of its fully integrated management information system, which provides job and sales tracking in 10-minute intervals. “This allows team members to make critical and reliable management decisions based on real-time information,” explains Davies.

35 years of excellence

Action Printing got its start in 1973, printing business cards, letterheads, envelopes and flyers. Action's first press was a single-unit sheetfed. And some of its first customers were advertisers in the firm's sister company — the Action Advertiser. That free, local newspaper gradually was phased out, but Action Printing, which began humbly in a downtown store in Fond du Lac, WI, grew to become a $21 million firm with 126 employees.

The printer acquired its first web press and bindery line in 1980, allowing the company to specialize in manuals, books, catalogs and directories. Action's sweet spot is 1- to 4-color work in runs between 2,000 and 50,000 impressions. “But that doesn't mean we don't do runs of 200,000 and more on our coldest web presses,” Davies clarifies. “Our work is mostly perfect bound or saddlestitched, and we offer full mailing and fulfillment services.”

Action thrives in the Midwest even though many of its key customers are located in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas. “We sell all over the country from our offices here in Wisconsin,” says Davies. “That works well because we are centrally located for shipping nationally, and we have a sharp focus on our top four markets — manufacturing, education, government and health care.”

On August 1, 2002, Gannett Co. purchased Action Printing. However, very few changes have been made to the Action management or operations. Gannett does bring a strong financial position that allows Action to grow and stay on the cutting edge.

Davies points out that Action Printing has enjoyed steady growth. “We've never had a bad year,” he boasts. “That's because we have an outstanding workforce, listen to our clients and keep a sharp focus on our key products and markets.”

Employee involvement

Bob Carew, former president of Action Printing, was Davies' boss and mentor for many years. “He was one of those guys you always wanted to work for,” says Davies, “a great businessman and a great human being. He always emphasized keeping the employees and the customers happy. And I think we've achieved that.”

In fact, employee retention is extremely high. Fair compensation and good benefits certainly play a role, but the president also emphasizes the importance of employee involvement: “We encourage employees at all levels to suggest better ways to do things. To facilitate that, we have formed teams throughout the company that work on various tasks. The teams are made up primarily of personnel on the front lines — they know best what it takes to get things accomplished.”

The client is king

Why is Action Printing is among the industry's profit leaders? “Because almost everything we do starts with the client's perspective,” says Davies. “We try to get into our clients' worlds — learn about their expectations, and their likes and dislikes. Part of the way we do that is through key customer interviews every year. We ask clients where they see their company going in the future, what expectations they have of us and what keeps them awake at night.”

Action Printing's dedication to customer service helped it garner a RAVE customer satisfaction award. The company surveys its clients after the job is run and after it is shipped. To complement that, Action also participates in NAPL's eKG customer feedback services. These surveys compare Action to its perceived competitors and rates companies on a wide variety of criteria.

“It's a way to get feedback from customers that we might not ordinarily receive,” says Davies. “That feedback is shared with the employees in a special meeting. Using a third party to conduct the survey gives us a better response, and we've found out things from the survey that needed to be changed.”

If there is an area where Action doesn't do well, they focus on fixing the process. It's worked so well for them, Davies credits those efforts with the company's 2008 RAVE award.

With all of these accolades, where will Action Printing be headed in the future? “First of all, we have to keep focused on our best and most profitable products and markets,” Davies concludes. “Second, we are adding more value-added services such as digital printing, variable data and more sophisticated fulfillment opportunities. Our clients want a one-stop shop, and we are here to provide whatever they want and need.”

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Jill Roth is executive editor for AMERICAN PRINTER. Contact her at jill.roth@penton.com. Robin Schabacker is client coordinator for NAPL. Contact her via www.napl.org.

Check your pulse vs. these top shops

Since 1979, NAPL's Management Plus program has recognized management excellence throughout our industry. Participants complete a comprehensive self-evaluation questionnaire, virtually a management health exam. They gain valuable insights on their companies' survival and growth potential.

When a company enters the competition portion of the program, it can win at one of four award levels: Merit, Silver, Gold, and — for one company — the Hall of Fame. Program sponsors include manroland, AMERICAN PRINTER magazine and Compass Capital Partners.

The Hall of Fame Award recipients and the top Gold Award winner in each category select a school to receive scholarship money, administered through PGSF.

William K. Marrinan Management Plus Hall of Fame winner

Action Printing (Fond du Lac, WI)

Gold winners

Dome Printing (Sacramento, CA)

Portland General Electric Co. (Portland, OR)

Silver winners

Wordsprint, Inc.(Wytheville, VA)

Daily Printing Inc. (Plymouth, MN)

Omaha Print (Omaha, NE)

PrintingForLess.com, Inc. (Livingston, MT)

Think Patented (Dayton, OH)

Western Graphics, Inc. (St. Paul, MN)

All-State Legal (Cranford, NJ)

Classic Graphics, Inc. (Charlotte, NC)

ColorDynamics (Allen, TX)

Hammer Packaging (Rochester, NY)

RR Donnelley-State (Columbia, SC)

Merit winners

CL Graphics, Inc. (Crystal Lake, IL)

McClung Companies (Waynesboro, VA)

Cohber Press, Inc. (Rochester, NY)

Harding Poorman Group (Indianapolis)

The EPI Companies LLC (Marietta, GA)

The deadline for entering the 29th annual Management Plus Awards is November 7, 2008. See www.napl.org.

Printers win RAVEs for customer satisfaction

The second annual NAPL Customer Satisfaction Awards, sponsored by Komori America Corp. (Rolling Meadows, IL), are presented to those companies that provide long-term customer satisfaction and a level of continuous achievement that distinguishes winners from their competitors. “Customers doing work with potential printing partners know that the RAVE award-winning company can be trusted to treat them with care and consideration in addition to doing great work,” comments Joseph P. Truncale, NAPL president and CEO.

Printing companies can qualify for the award by enrolling in the NAPL eKG service, which helps them understand what customers most value. An NAPL specialist customizes each survey and handles all confidential customer communications to provide an easy, seamless process that garners high response rates.

Results are benchmarked vs. industry standards and an overall evaluation report is issued. High scores have a proven and direct correlation to profit margins. “Value is perceived as the difference between you and your competition as measured directly by your customers,” says Truncale. “The value is where your profits lie.”

2008 Platinum Awards

Morrison Communications (Morristown, TN)

Neyenesch Printers (San Diego)

Wordsprint (Wytheville, VA)

2008 Gold Awards

Action Printing (Fond du Lac, WI)

Branch-Smith Publishing (Fort Worth, TX)

EU Services (Rockville, MD)

The EPI Companies (Marietta, GA)

University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI)

2008 Silver Awards

Art Litho Printing Solutions (Baltimore)

Bolger Vision Beyond Print (Minneapolis)

McArdle Printing (Upper Marlboro, MD)

Pictorial Offset Group (Carlstadt, NJ)

Sandy Alexander (Clifton, NJ)

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