Article prepared by C. Clint Bolte, C. Clint Bolte & Associates, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. For additional information please call 717-263-5768, fax 717-263-8945, or e-mail to clint@clintbolte.com.

MFSA-NAPL Fulfillment Conference 2008:
Interest in Accreditation Gaining Momentum

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.

Three more firms – Hartford Direct out of Hartford Connecticut, Cleveland’s Great Lakes Integrated, and SGI from Indianapolis – joined last year’s initial four companies to receive MFSA’s formal accreditation. Corporate Buyers of information fulfillment services have for years expressed growing frustration at their difficulty of qualifying high end fulfillment vendors. Following a six year period of developing the exhaustive criteria comprised of 168 elements, MFSA now offers the only formal Accreditation for this industry in the world.

Tom Quinn and Jim Rushing, MFSA’s independent accreditation auditors, hosted a well attended session at this conference outlining the steps to be followed in earning accreditation. Russell commented that the early firms so acknowledged, which are truly the best of the best, are taking about nine months to prepare for and compile all the necessary documentation. Quinn listed the dozen or so webinars held throughout the year, which focus on the “How to” for meeting select criteria.

While there is no actual ISO acknowledgement for information fulfillment vendors, this MFSA Accreditation would be just as rigorous according to firms that have been through both. As American corporate headquarters ask their marketing support vendors to find European and far eastern fulfillment vendors to pick up the workflows proven effective in the United States for new product promotion roll outs, MFSA would naturally be expected to develop collaborations with their foreign counter parts to implement this highly acclaimed Accreditation program.

Jim Schultz, CEO of Great Lakes Integrated, former NAPL President, and the first printer to receive Accreditation, enthusiastically stated, “This was no easy task (becoming accredited) but is strategically vital to helping differentiate us from our competition.”

This is not a one time gun-n-done effort. Quinn and Rushing emphasize that an annual renewal process is required to retain Accreditation and the bar is expected continually to be raised as market demands so dictate. Quinn expects to be making presentations to the Direct Marketing Associations, AMA, and other trade groups comprised of fulfillment clients. The intent is clearly to inform and encourage corporate buyers to put the heat on their chosen vendors to become accredited.

As currently configured all Accreditation criteria are internally focused, as it should be. It is this author’s opinion that in a short period of time it would be natural to include external criteria such as quantifiable client feedback. This would truly close the loop! NAPL’s EKG Customer Survey could be so expanded and modified to become the tool to provide this feedback.

The breakout sessions were divided into the basic (getting started) and advanced tracks. Jim Rushing presented a portion of this initial basic kick off. While this has been offered before, Jim reorganized and revamped his presentation in a checklist fashion. The checklist ironically enough could either be followed by a corporate buyer visiting and qualifying prospective fulfillment vendors, a new employee joining an existing 3PF, or a new potential vendor of how to get in the business. And again the checklist followed the outline of the accreditation criteria.

Dean Hanisko, Great Lakes Integrated’s Chief Technology Officer, presented a series of case studies, which utilize their proprietary data base management software. While the capabilities and features are quite robust, two basic elements seem to be shared and a core component to the successful implementation. The workflow features include automated billing and invoicing. Secondly, the service includes a human gatekeeper as an essential element in the quality control. This Gli gatekeeper also serves as the key trainer and is often on site at the client’s headquarters.

Joe Truncale, NAPL’s President, gave a feature presentation on “Leadership in a Changing World.” This is always well received, as Joe is an adjunct professor at NYU and PhD candidate in Management Psychology. What was interesting was that this thought provoking topic is typically reserved for top management conferences. The fact that it was featured at the Fulfillment Conference adds further evidence to the quality and level of expertise of attendees being drawn to this national conclave. In considering the next generation of leaders, Truncale suggested tell tale questions that could allude to these key new contributors. For example, who talks about the business of tomorrow? Who makes their own decisions, and they are often good ones? Whose operation performs well in their absence? And who will “cross the line” and offer constructive ideas (diplomatically) to other department heads?

A renowned warehouse consultant, Curt Barry of Richmond, Virginia’s F. Curtis Barry & Company (fcbco.com) reviewed the latest warehouse technology trends. While his clients are predominantly in product fulfillment, their leading edge applications are often appropriate for information fulfillment if the economy of scale is appropriate. “All technology today must provide a financial payback of 12-18 months in reduced labor costs, order accuracy, inventory tracking & accuracy, and improved customer service,” according to Barry. Bar code applications are first on the list followed by pick-to-light and voice-picking applications. The bar code investment is totally separate from the warehouse management system (WMS) and is normally $50,000+ with $3,000 per hand held device.

One of the overwhelming reasons that printers are not as profitable offering the same information fulfillment services as the mailing and fulfillment specialists could well be their customer service organization. Redefining and evolving this key person’s role is essential for both printers as well as mailers expanding into fulfillment. A lively panel discussion made up of two printers and a direct mail house moving into digital print was one of the most thought provoking of the conference. The two printers hired outside expertise fulltime to lead their firms through this evolution.

Mark McIntosh joined Cedar Graphics in Hiawatha, Iowa as their Director of Fulfillment Services with the express purpose of reorganizing where necessary. Strategically Cedar Graphics was moving from a print service provider to a marketing services provider. From proven experience McIntosh began by eliminating the Customer Service Representative that has a transactional and administrative role in all printing firms and replacing this with Account Managers. A much higher responsibility was detailed and defined with a clear goal of the AM billing out 90% of their time to their clients. The payoff according to McIntosh “is approximately 25-45% of client revenue is attributed to Account Management time.”

There were as many as ten operation codes which the AM’s keyed in to report their billable time and function.

Vivian LaRosa, Manager of Hartford Direct’s Client Services, described her firm’s movement of sales responsibilities to the CSR for the existing client base. “This would allow the sales force to focus entirely on new business,” added LaRosa. The firm’s addition of digital printing services via a Xerox iGen3 and its accreditation acknowledgement were all crucial to the rebranding changes needed. Lots of on going training and feedback have been essential elements in this change process.

Mossberg & Company, a South Bend Indiana sheetfed printer, hired Alisha McNary as Vice President of Customer Experience for their emerging Aero Fulfillment Services. Many of the same objectives expressed by her other fellow panelists were reiterated by Alisha. Additionally Alisha regularly talked to their clients concerning the organizational shift asking for critique and feedback. Long standing clients were comfortable with the enlarging role of their CSR and the new sales responsibilities they would be assuming.

Information fulfillment services arguably began with Johan Gutenberg in 1400 when he invented movable type. His production records indicate that he printed 125 of the infamous Bibles. And yet only 96 were sold. Clearly the remaining 29 books were lost somewhere in his warehouse. Today’s fulfillment services have incorporated much more sophisticated capabilities. And yet the leaders continue to concentrate on performing the basics well, such as assuring inventory accuracy.

Article prepared by C. Clint Bolte, C. Clint Bolte & Associates, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. For additional information please call 717-263-5768, fax 717-263-8945, or e-mail to clint@clintbolte.com.