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Sandra Phillips runs a unique print operation. She handles the majority of work outsourced by one of Bolton’s largest employers while, at the same time, being employed by them: a buyer and printer rolled into one, if you like.

In her job as print and publishing services manager at Bolton Council, Phillips oversees a devolved business based in the town hall with its own budget. All departments of the council can buy print from
her division via an intranet portal, but there is no obligation for them to place work internally, which means that Phillips is sometimes placed in the unusual position of pitching for work from colleagues. (Discussions are currently ongoing with the payroll department about the possibility of printing wage
slips internally rather than outsourcing the function, as is currently the practice.)

Phillips has worked for the council for nine years – initially joining as a word processor. However, as demand for word processing declined the department started to concentrate on monochrome print production, which saw Phillips take on responsibility for the new reprographics department and its burgeoning digital print shop.

Leading from the front
In April this year, Phillips’ role grew as she was tasked with looking after the council’s offset operation, situated two miles from the town hall. She now controls a team of 30, with three workers assigned to the digital printroom (although all members of staff are trained to help when needed).

The jobs that Phillips’ team oversees are extremely varied, ranging from posters to minutes of meetings and rent correspondence with council tenants. And it was as a result of this smorgasbord of printed material that the decision was taken, just under two years ago, to invest in a print submission system that would extend services to remote users and allow customers to place jobs electronically. Phillips specified that an important part of this new system should be the ability to produce variable data to respond to demand for high volume personalised mailings. This would ultimately extend the services on offer in-house and help reduce print spend. Due to the financial size of the contract, these requirements were put out to European tender and whittled down to four main candidates.

“We investigated and looked at all the copiers on the market and visited other authorities to look at the software they used. The key questions we had to ask were whether we were happy with the equipment and did it fit with our IT infrastructure,” says Phillips.

Technological advances
In the end, Infotec (formerly Danka), with whom the council’s print division had an existing supplier relationship, won the three-year contract, which has just over one year left to run. Phillips says that, in the past, the council had run contracts over five years but found that by the final year the machines were getting a bit tired as technology had changed so much.

Infotec’s package bundled together a wide gamut of the latest technology and included the web-based print submission system WebTicket, form design and variable data print solution PrintShop Mail and some new high-speed digital printers.

WebTicket allows council staff to send jobs directly to print, which minimises intervention in the print­room. Customers receive email confirmation of job submission and completion as well as being able to track progress. This system has been piloted and, after a successful trial, it is now ready to be rolled out across the council on a department by department basis.

PrintShop Mail has also proved popular. It is used to create documents like council tax statements, and documents can incorporate papers from different trays allowing letterheads and colour sheets to be inserted when required.

“We identified the need for more data work as it was really starting to take off,” explains Phillips, who adds that she is already handling personalised mailings for Bolton at Home, the body responsible for the management of around 18,500 council properties.

These mailings are churned out by the three Infotec IS2105 monochrome production printers that sit in the busy digital print room, and offer online finishing capabilities such as a stream punch for binding, z-fold and booklet making. Phillips says she considered going for one high-speed printer such as a Digimaster but she was fearful of relying too heavily on one machine.

“These machines are being hammered and this means that invariably one can break down. But even if this does happen, with three machines we still have the back up of the other two. Having three gives you a comfort zone and it’s proved to be a wise move.”

The Infotecs have a compact footprint, which means that they can be squeezed into a room that previously housed two presses. The three machines can produce up to 18,900 pages an hour with two tandem linked, which means that they can run a job simultaneously for double-speed production.

Another attraction of awarding the contract to Infotec was that, in addition to the monochrome presses, the firm was also willing to supply colour machines manufactured by a different company –
in this case, two Canon CL C3220s with Fiery RIPs.

But the council’s print offer doesn’t stop there. It has a HP Designjet 800ps for plan copying, recently installed a PFE Maximailer that has slashed job times from a week to a day and a half, and is currently trialling a new folder that offers higher levels of automation than the one currently used.

As a result of this investment, Phillips proudly proclaims that her department is now a one-stop print shop. “We do enveloping, binding, booklet making, laminating – you name it we do it.”

She plans to build up the offset side of the council’s print offering, which has lost business of late, and
develop work for external customers. Although the reprographics unit never stops, Phillips says that, in theory, if someone came in off the street and asked for a job to be printed, then, as long as the schedule allowed, they would take the work on.

This situation may see some working practices change. At present the print shop operates from 9 to 5, five days a week but, Phillips acknowledges: “If you’ve got a press and work is bottlenecking then you might have to extend the hours that you run it.”

Like all good businesses the team is in constant touch with its customers – council staff – and uses questionnaires to get feedback on its service. This information can prove invaluable, and led to the expansion of the department’s colour and finishing equipment. It also ensures that the print business continues to deliver value for money and quality.

Beyond that, Phillips’ main target is to hit budget. “We’ve got to stand on our own two feet. That’s why I diversified. If we had relied on word processing then we would have died a long time ago.”
Asked whether or not she’s managed to achieve the magical break-even mark, Phillips smiles before saying, “I have made a profit – that’s all I’m going to say.”

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CASE STUDY
Bolton at Home

Bolton at Home, the department responsible for looking after the council’s housing stock, sends out rent statements to tenants. Around four years ago, its print provider was no longer able to print the work for them, so Bolton at Home turned to Phillips’ department to help it out in the short term. So successful has the arrangement been that, four years down the line, the council’s printroom is still looking after the printing of 18,500 rent statements on a quarterly basis, in addition to carrying out other mailings for the housing department.

One recent mailing was in relation to a major decorating programme across the council’s housing portfolio. This entailed creating a bespoke pack for different areas within the town, notifying tenants what improvements were going on in their particular area and exactly when they were to be carried out.

The council’s offset company printed the leaflets and then personalised letters were produced at the digital division before being batched together by staff from the print and publishing services office. Phillips points out that the development of PrintShop Mail software was undertaken with exactly this kind of job in mind.

The pack was turned around in three weeks, with the print work squeezed in between jobs required by other depart­ments. The turnaround time was aided by the department’s recent investment in a new enveloper – a purchase that was dictated by the increased number of mailouts that the print division was handling. “It would normally take us a week to do the enveloping, but they managed to turn it around in a day and a half, with 6,500 completed in one afternoon,” says Phillips.

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BOLTON COUNCIL FACTFILE
Bolton Council employs around 12,000 people and has been awarded a top rating by the Audit Commission for four consecutive years, praised for achieving “good value for money” and delivering “high quality services at low comparative cost”.

The council also has strong environmental credentials and insists that all information is printed on recycled materials.