You know who you are. You live for clean lines, square corners, exactness, and all the finer details of postpress work. Some people may call you a perfectionist. But why do you settle for only the highest quality product? Because you know that’s what sets you apart from competitors. Distinguishing your company can be difficult in our industry because, well, face it: marketing isn’t cheap! That’s why for years postpress companies have entered the BIA Product of Excellence Awards for their chance to be recognized as the “best of the best” in graphic finishing and loose-leaf products. Award winners illustrate that postpress work can be a true art form, displaying flawless craftsmanship, and catching the attention of the award judges—as well as the industry. Over the years Product of Excellence Award winners have displayed more high-impact pieces mixing new and traditional techniques giving products their own modern twist. (Check out the creative pieces of past winners.) For the 2015 competition, the stakes are even higher. So to any postpress professional looking to promote your company, why should you enter the 2015 Product of Excellence Awards? Earn Recognition for Your Work If there is one event that spotlights the best in the industry, it’s the Premier Print Awards Gala Featuring the InterTech™ Technology Awards. Beginning this year, Product of Excellence Award recipients are invited to attend the Gala, September 13, 2015, in conjunction with GRAPH EXPO 15. This is print’s star-studded evening, and now you can accept your award before an audience full of your peers and potential clients. Take Advantage of Free Publicity Award winners are included in national publications seen by the media and thousands of industry members. First, your company will be recognized in press releases announcing all winners to the media. Then the 14,000 readers of Post-Press Magazine will read about your company as well as top national printing executives in Printing Industries of America: The Magazine. Additionally your company’s name and link are posted on www.printing.org/poeawards. Expand Your Customer Base With widespread recognition for creating outstanding postpress work, customers are going to take notice! Customers recognize the Product of Excellence Award as a seal of approval that says, “You can rely on this company to deliver excellent work!” Companies that have earned this award can also proudly display their plaque so customers can see they are the Best of the Best. Think your company has what it takes to win a BIA Product of Excellence Award? Learn how to enter at...

The following blog post was contributed by Kristina Iorio, Copywriting Manager, Printing Industries of America. This is the first in an upcoming series of posts focused on small business marketing tips.  You have heard “Content is King,” but what does that really mean? With an endless amount of information available online, your customers are more informed than ever. According to the Content Marketing Institute, “Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience—and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.” It’s delivering valuable content to your customers, including white papers, blogs, video, podcasts, digital publishing, etc. But for small businesses however, providing a steady stream of quality content is time consuming, and your company may lack sufficient resources or personnel to dedicate to such a project. Here are five tips your small business can use to develop meaningful, effective content to promote your business and engage customers—all in the midst of day-to-day operations.   Create a Strategy Strategy is essential to effective content marketing. What are your goals? What content does your company already have? Who is your main audience? How can you fill their needs for information? Your content strategy will help you plan how you’re going to attract more business. A great source for creating a content strategy, I found, is this article from Content Marketing Institute. Developing Valuable Content Once you have a strategy in place and you’ve taken inventory of the content you already have, it’s time to create and collect new content. The easiest, most efficient way to do this is to repurpose information. Do you receive customer inquiries? Create a blog or video where you answer some of the most popular questions. If you’ve written a white paper, send it to your top clients as a free resource along with information on your products and services. Be resourceful and keep an eye open for content that will benefit your customers. Blogging A blog is a low-cost way to engage customers and establish your expertise. You can find free templates online from WordPress.com and other sites. Your blog can allow you to reach a wider audience, boost brand awareness, sell something, or connect you to your customers and community. Your blog content should be appealing to your audience and include keywords and information (see SEO below).Try to blog on a regular basis, whether that’s every week, bi-weekly, or every month, to keep your audience coming back for fresh content. This can take a big investment of your time, so have your content strategy in place before you tackle blogging. Get Social With limited resources you want to reach as...

The following blog post was contributed by Kristina Iorio, Copywriting Manager, Printing Industries of America. This is the first in an upcoming series of posts focused on small business marketing tips.  You have heard “Content is King,” but what does that really mean? With an endless amount of information available online, your customers are more informed than ever. According to the Content Marketing Institute, “Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience—and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.” It’s delivering valuable content to your customers, including white papers, blogs, video, podcasts, digital publishing, etc. But for small businesses however, providing a steady stream of quality content is time consuming, and your company may lack sufficient resources or personnel to dedicate to such a project. Here are five tips your small business can use to develop meaningful, effective content to promote your business and engage customers—all in the midst of day-to-day operations.   Create a Strategy Strategy is essential to effective content marketing. What are your goals? What content does your company already have? Who is your main audience? How can you fill their needs for information? Your content strategy will help you plan how you’re going to attract more business. A great source for creating a content strategy, I found, is this article from Content Marketing Institute. Developing Valuable Content Once you have a strategy in place and you’ve taken inventory of the content you already have, it’s time to create and collect new content. The easiest, most efficient way to do this is to repurpose information. Do you receive customer inquiries? Create a blog or video where you answer some of the most popular questions. If you’ve written a white paper, send it to your top clients as a free resource along with information on your products and services. Be resourceful and keep an eye open for content that will benefit your customers. Blogging A blog is a low-cost way to engage customers and establish your expertise. You can find free templates online from WordPress.com and other sites. Your blog can allow you to reach a wider audience, boost brand awareness, sell something, or connect you to your customers and community. Your blog content should be appealing to your audience and include keywords and information (see SEO below).Try to blog on a regular basis, whether that’s every week, bi-weekly, or every month, to keep your audience coming back for fresh content. This can take a big investment of your time, so have your content strategy in place before you tackle blogging. Get Social With limited resources you want to reach as...

If you read our last post that gave a sneak peek at Think Patented, host of the of the 2015 Automation Solutions Network Meeting, February 25–26, in Miamisburg, Ohio, you’ll probably want to know that there’s an additional second tour as part of this ASN Meeting. Kodak Inkjet Printing Solutions, a sizeable component of Kodak’s worldwide operations, is headquartered in Dayton and will host this Special Evening Event. It’s an opportunity to network and discover how and why inkjet printing is transforming the industry. After a dinner reception, your tour guides will lead you through their impressive facility where you’ll take part in print demonstrations while discussing the technologies with your peers. You’ll not only witness Kodak’s inkjet presses and imprinting systems in action, but learn about the science and unique capabilities of inkjet systems. The Dayton facility is where Kodak designs and manufactures its equipment, ink, and print heads.   High-speed inkjet technologies are having a significant impact on the printing industry since they offer cost-effective solution for variable, short and medium run printing. They give printers new capabilities and market opportunities and can shift work from higher-cost production methods. The growing array of equipment (now 15 suppliers with more than 60 models) targets various markets—transactional, trans-promotional, books, direct mail, newspapers, catalogs, brochures, newsletters, and packaging. You can find detailed information on the different solutions at www.printing.org/inkjetproducts, including the Kodak PROSPER presses featured on the tour. It is an exciting time of transition in the communications industry, and production inkjet is going to be an important facilitator for many of the changes occurring. Staying aware of inkjet developments is crucial for printing companies planning for the future. The February 25 tour to Kodak Inkjet Printing Solutions is a great way to do that.   You can experience the Kodak Inkjet Printing Solutions tour as part of the 2015 Automation Solutions Network Meeting, February 25–2, in Miamisburg, Ohio, hosted by Think...

If you read our last post that gave a sneak peek at Think Patented, host of the of the 2015 Automation Solutions Network Meeting, February 25–26, in Miamisburg, Ohio, you’ll probably want to know that there’s an additional second tour as part of this ASN Meeting. Kodak Inkjet Printing Solutions, a sizeable component of Kodak’s worldwide operations, is headquartered in Dayton and will host this Special Evening Event. It’s an opportunity to network and discover how and why inkjet printing is transforming the industry. After a dinner reception, your tour guides will lead you through their impressive facility where you’ll take part in print demonstrations while discussing the technologies with your peers. You’ll not only witness Kodak’s inkjet presses and imprinting systems in action, but learn about the science and unique capabilities of inkjet systems. The Dayton facility is where Kodak designs and manufactures its equipment, ink, and print heads.   High-speed inkjet technologies are having a significant impact on the printing industry since they offer cost-effective solution for variable, short and medium run printing. They give printers new capabilities and market opportunities and can shift work from higher-cost production methods. The growing array of equipment (now 15 suppliers with more than 60 models) targets various markets—transactional, trans-promotional, books, direct mail, newspapers, catalogs, brochures, newsletters, and packaging. You can find detailed information on the different solutions at www.printing.org/inkjetproducts, including the Kodak PROSPER presses featured on the tour. It is an exciting time of transition in the communications industry, and production inkjet is going to be an important facilitator for many of the changes occurring. Staying aware of inkjet developments is crucial for printing companies planning for the future. The February 25 tour to Kodak Inkjet Printing Solutions is a great way to do that.   You can experience the Kodak Inkjet Printing Solutions tour as part of the 2015 Automation Solutions Network Meeting, February 25–2, in Miamisburg, Ohio, hosted by Think...

Time. No matter what, it seems like there’s never enough, right? One way to save time is to make your workplace more visual, infusing it with information that answers the critical and recurrent questions of people working there. With a glance people can get the information they need without having to waste time searching for it. Visual Management systems “enable anyone to immediately assess the current status of an operation or process at a glance, regardless of their knowledge of the process. Visual displays relate information and data to employees in an area through the use of charts, graphs, and process documentation.” (Continuous Improvement Glossary) In the article “Visual Management,” authors Phuong Nguyen, and Jim Mullen, Nosco, Inc., give the 15,000-ft view of how to immediately spot areas to improve and apply this system to an operation. Examples from the pressroom You notice that the preproduction team was overproducing for some presses and underproducing for others. Now staging orders for the presses has become disorganized, causing frustration across departments. What do you do? Call a cross-functional team meeting to decide how to improve the staging order of the presses. Have them create makeready carts with a preflight checklist to visually communicate when a cart is ready. Tape off and label areas around each press for completed staged carts to reside until your press operator needs them. Your results: Reduced downtime—everyone knows when staged orders are ready. A visual management method for the process of staging orders. A sustained process—front-line leads and managers use a Kamishibai audit board (uses a red/green card system along with standardized questions to ask various team members how the process is working. Red means the audit was not done. If the card is green, this means the audit was completed. Any corrective actions are written on the green side.) How to get started Implement the 5S system (Sort, Set-in-order, Shine, Standardize, and Sustain). Use visual tools to create a Lean environment, including signage, labeling, location markers, color coding, standard work visuals, and metric boards. With these visuals you will have a clean plant and can better manage your processes. We also recommend studying other successful Lean organizations with a proven track record of recognizing and leading change. Some managers, like Managing for Improvement Award recipients William Denzen, general manager of rollfed and Red Rock Technologies business units for Smyth Companies, and Timothy Keran, CEO and owner of Western Graphics, have found winning recipes for creating real and lasting improvement for their companies! Think of it like this The bottom line for visual management is staying tuned in to what’s happening in your operation. As a parallel example, say you’re at home watching the Super Bowl....