Open House To
Celebrate Merger of UC Printing and Mailing
Services
By Travis
Hodgkins, Public Affairs
Posted March 22, 2000
The recent merger of UC Printing Services with UC Mailing Services is providing customers with products at lower costs at a faster turnaround time, and the merger has allowed Printing Services to compete with the private sector, says Bill McCart, director of mailing services.
"We're going after that business that was going off campus...and we're not doing it through policy -- we're doing it with a better product," says McCart.
Printing and mailing used to be two individual processes done at different locations. But in July of 1999, Mail Services's bulk mailing operation was moved into the printing plant, creating a "Print-to-Post" service with one-stop shopping for customers. The merger has cut out the cost of transporting a product from Printing Services to Mail Services, and reduced the time it takes to print and then mail.
Printing Services has also received a Gold Award for performance excellence in the National Association of Printing Leadership's 1999 Management Plus Awards Program. The awards are based on a company's overall performance as compared to professional and industry standards.
George Craig, director of Printing Services says, "The thing that makes this program so beneficial is you see your scores and where you come up short. The progress we've made is pretty much based on this process of measuring yourself and knowing where you had to work to make improvements."
For example, Craig says that a few years ago his department lacked a marketing and sales plan, which is 20 percent of the points. They produced a marketing/sales plan, and not only won the Gold Award, but also increased sales this fiscal year by 29 percent.
On April 7, Printing Services will host an open house where Chancellor Berdahl will present the Gold Award. Craig says the real motive for the open house is "to get our customers in here and show off our staff and our equipment and our service." Craig says customers are showing a lot of enthusiasm about the new services provided by the merger, and the open house is a way of promoting that.
This is the first Gold Award won by Printing Services, and is preceded by two Silver Awards.
March 22 - April 5,
2000 (Volume 28, Number 26)
Copyright 2000, The Regents of the University of
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