C. Clint Bolte & Associates

The fourth annual international fulfillment conference jointly hosted by the Mailing and Fulfillment Service Association and the National Association for Printing Leadership was held April 15-18, 2008 in Napa, California. Representatives of mailers and printers – both offering a variety of information fulfillment services, fulfillment firms, and specialty suppliers numbered more than 150. They gathered to tour three leading fulfillment practitioners in Northern California, acknowledge the latest firms receiving Accreditation on their fulfillment operations, and hear state of the art presentations on the evolving new opportunities and challenges in the information fulfillment industry.

While there have been numerous conclaves targeting the various needs of the product fulfillment industries for decades, only MFSA and its predecessor MASA, identified information fulfillment as a distinctive niche for which corporate marketers and vendors would clamor for education and management best practices. The Mailing and Advertising Service Association (MASA) held their first dedicated Fulfillment Conference in 1992. As more and more commercial printers were being asked by their clients to expand into these services, MFSA offered their expertise to NAPL to form a joint fulfillment conference beginning in 2005. Printers now account for nearly half the attendees.

The formal presentations and panel discussions, which follow the typical format of most national symposia, comprise two days. Tradition at this conference has found two preliminary days to be well attended. New companies wanting to enter the field and new key hires of firms already offering the services arrive two days before the official kickoff to participate in a series of “How to” sessions which often include hands on exercises. The day before finds attendees aboard buses eagerly touring a number of leading fulfillment plants. Future sites for this vital and popular conference are in fact often chosen because of their proximity to and the invitation(s) to tour fulfillment vendors large and small.

Handwork has always been an indelible part of many information fulfillment services. However, kitting projects have become increasingly complex in recent years. For most newbees, they don’t start that way. But when questions are not asked in advance, the roller coaster can be heading down hill much too quickly.

Unfortunately in too many cases the print salesman receives specifications for a half a dozen elements to be printed. This is an overwhelmingly attractive opportunity. And by the way the final price is to include assembling these elements and a few other supplied parts into a kit, often designed by an advertising agency that may or may not have ever done such before.

Bill Kwiatkowski, Vice President of Manufacturing for Classic Graphics in Charlotte, North Carolina and President of its fulfillment division, Opus Direct, broke the “How to do handwork” attendees into teams of five, handed out the one page specifications for assembling the 30,000 Sacagawea silver dollar kits, and these instructions, “Design a workflow, give me the total number of hours and people count needed to complete these kits. You’ve got 30 minutes.” In reality there were several hours to complete the actual bid. However, the answers to many questions asked by the assembly team were now in the specs to be considered by the attendees.

Opus Direct has had several such challenging kit assemblies and is sought out by prospects and clients alike. And they have gained considerable experience and confidence in this estimating process. They start by gathering 3-4 people that will “own this project”; a foreman, a lead hand assembly person to name two. They list each task needed to be performed sequencing those that might or should be done together. Where possible they might stop watch time certain steps. They add in the quality inspection steps, carton packaging, and overall material handling functions. Bill plays “devil’s advocate” with this team to try and identify the weak link(s) in their plan.

While most such kits will never appear again, Opus Direct and its lead kitting team members keep detailed time records on each kitting project. They perform an “autopsy” on completed kit projects to document steps that could have been improved and elements whose time factors were underestimated. This helps them in their thoroughness and reality checks for each subsequent new kit to be estimated.

This year’s day of touring included a most diverse and dynamic three plants; TFC – a marketing solutions firm, Dome Printing – the largest privately owned printer in Northern California, and E-filliate – a unique catalogue merchandiser.

Beginning with a single client in 1988, TFC (tfcinc.com) has transitioned from a boutique 3PF managing complex kitting and distribution to a leading integrated marketing support provider. They have been early adopters of web-to-print, digital-on-demand, and sophisticated intelligent mailing systems. They recently acquired a data base marketing firm allowing them to expand into data analytics and ROI metric delivery services. Their 50 employees service about 30 clients in their 56,000 square foot facility and are expected to have sales approaching $9 million this year.

One of their niches is the processing and distribution of gift cards in a proprietarily designed secure arena in the plant. Nearly 3.7 million gift cards were processed in 2007. Every employee working in the secured area is required to wear a red smock. These tops go down to mid-thigh so that no employee has access to any of their own pant pockets.

Started in 1968 Dome Printing (domeprinting.com) is now run by three Poole brothers. They occupy over 100,000 square feet in adjoining buildings in Sacramento providing web, sheetfed, complete bindery, fulfillment, and letter shop services. Their 150 employees are expected to generate $36 million in sales this year in serving clients throughout the western United States. They have installed GRACoL 7 color management practices to assure quality consistency and compatibility across all their printing platforms.

They added a million dollar in-line finishing capability to their recently rebuilt M110 five unit half web. This is the only in-line capability in Northern California. Another recent popular addition has been a new 12,000 books an hour Muller Martini Corona Compact (CC12) perfect binder. Because of their unusually diverse and complete bindery, Dome had often provided off loading services to other printers. The single exception has been the CC12. Since it is the only one of its kind within several hundreds of miles, Andy Poole said, “We won’t perfect bind for clients unless we also print the job.”

Extremely proud of their environmentally sensitive posture and advancements, Andy Poole remarked that their next ECO project will be the evaluation of how they can co-generate energy from the heat thrown off their two web dryers.

Starting in 1987, E-filliate (efilliate.com) has evolved into a specialty catalog fulfillment enterprise. In 2007 they were acknowledged as one of the fastest growing catalog firms in the nation. The graphics for the 1,200 pages comprising their seven catalogs are all produced in house. Cyberguys and Xtreme Geek are two of their popular catalogs, which contain many of these novelty items. At least a third of the items contained in each catalog are new for each edition.

One observation, which was not unique to these three gracious tour hosts, is that there are clearly a number of advantages to hosting regular tours through your facilities. First, the place really gets cleaned up and sparkling. Second, many areas get properly labeled to facilitate future tours for a single prospect, for example. And not to be denied, your employees almost without exception take great pride in showing off their company.