BtoB Media Business - January 2008 - (Page 20)

Production PRODUCTION Co-manufacturing takes shape Test proves production partnerships can be cost-effective to publishers and printers BY MARK J. MILLER PRESSING ISSUES P Each week, Reed created different test pools. Tuesdays and Thursdays are big print days for its monthlies, so production executives would constantly be looking at how many titles it could close on those days in order to be part of that week’s mailing group. Gordon said Reed locked out publications that failed to close on schedule. “We would just automatically knock some out that didn’t adhere to the schedule,” she said. “We’re keeping close track of what we’re actually saving with the books we pool and what we could have saved if those other titles had closed on time.” Noting Reed’s savings in the first three months of the test, Gordon said, “In 2008, more magazines will be included, and we’re thinking of co-binding some of those titles and then co-mailing. So we’re taking it to the next ‘co-level.’ ” Paula Gordon, director of Gordon added manufacturing, Reed Business Information that it would have ly a year by printing and magazine manufac- been easier to start with weeklies, but the titles turing executives, and the concept can take a were too spread out in terms of geography. “As postage goes up and paper goes up, variety of forms. One saved Reed Business Information $15,000 in three months during a more and more money-saving partnerships will occur between publishers and printers,” test the company ran on 24 of its titles. Reed moved some of its monthlies to Fry she said. “Big, little—it doesn’t matter; we all Communications where it already had several want to save money.” Alan D. Snyder, prepress operations manof its titles printed. The idea was to build a large enough mass to make creating an inter- ager at Fry, said most experiments like this nal mailing pool of just Reed publications cost- come directly out of specific money-saving conversations with clients and trying to find effective. Reed standardized the paper and trim ways to maximize their spending with the size for all 24 titles. Then, to be as efficient as printer. “Publishers used to have a lot of say in possible, it loaded all the titles into a single what they printed on, and that power is tightprint line to run basically one right on top of ening up, I’m sure,” he said. “They can’t be liberal about their sizes, and texture and that sort another. “We wanted to take a look at what would of thing [anymore].” Among the services that Fry offers is selechappen if we printed our monthlies there at the same time and created co-print pools es- tive co-binding, in which titles run simultanesentially,” said Paula Gordon, Reed’s director ously on the press and the printer selectively of manufacturing. The company’s test ran binds different titles in different ways. This saves a publisher money in make-ready costs. from September to the end of December. roduction executives are in a constant search for ways to save money. In recent years, the sharing of different parts of the production and distribution chain with other publishers and other titles has helped ease the financial burden. First, there was co-palletization and co-mailing. Then there was co-binding, and now co-manufacturing has entered the publishing world’s lexicon. The term has been bandied about for near- “As postage goes up and paper goes up, more and more money-saving partnerships will occur between publishers and printers.” rent Kizzire, director of operations at Grand View Media Group, has been with the Birmingham, Ala.-based company since 1998. GVM, whose eight b-to-b titles include Archery Business and Water Technology, recently went through a change in printers. MB: What’s changed on the printer side? Kizzire: We were with Perry Judd’s and Quebecor, and then Judd’s was bought BIO out by Donnelley. BRENT KIZZIRE They called up and said, “It won’t be the Director of Operations, little printing compa- Grand View ny you’ve known all Media Group these years anymore.” My take on it was that we would get to co-mail now, which is something we couldn’t do at Judd’s, and we could take advantage of their prepress software that was a little better than what we had used previously. MB: When you switch from a smaller business to a large corporation, sometimes you can lose out on customer service. Kizzire: That hasn’t happened yet. We love our CSRs there. And we’re told that Donnelley is going to give every person in the plant 40 hours of education next year, which is impressive. To take someone off the bindery where they’re making money for the company in order to teach them something new is impressive. MB: What are your current concerns? Kizzire: Postage and then paper. I’ve always allowed my printers to purchase my paper for me. About nine months ago, we took one title that has a frequency of nine times annually and started buying paper ourselves. And it got us some savings. The last paper increase changed that back, but we’re definitely more open to doing it ourselves than we ever were before. In this kind of market, you’ve got to be willing to do that kind of —M.J.M. work. Printer change proves positive B 20 | Media Business | January 2008 | mediabusinessonline.com http://mediabusinessonline.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of BtoB Media Business - January 2008

BtoB Media Business - January 2008
Contents
Upfront
Industry Snapshot
Cover Story
Sales & Marketing
M & A
Events
Online
Production
Circulation
People
Benchmarks
Endnote

BtoB Media Business - January 2008

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