May 17th was Printing Industry Midwest Day at Printing Industries of America! To celebrate, the staff sported shirts with designs printed by our midwest members. We are proud of the variety and quality of shirts we received and are thankful to have such talented printers as members of the Printing Industries of America. To see more photos visit our Facebook...

Yesterday we announced our newest conference–the Integrated Print Forum. It’s a new type of conference that focuses on integrating interactive, dynamic media to print.  In the vein of this conference, we’ll be employing dynamic media to communicate with our audience. To make this a success we want you to particpate and there are a number of ways for that to happen. Visit Formspringand leave us a question about the conference. It’s a simple way for you ask questions and for us to answer them. We’ll be answering those questions on our Integrated Print Forum blog. Speaking of which… Visit the Integrated Print Forum blog for updates that include audio, video and news on the conference as it develops. There are also discussions forum you can be a part of! You can like the Facebook page, where we’ll be having a Q&A and we’ll upload photos/videos that will pop up in your Facebook feed. Talk about convenience! Reserve your seat on our Eventbrite page. we’ll hold a seat for you for a brief amount of time and you’ll also be able to see who else is coming to the Integrated Print Forum! And, of course, you can tweet to us on Twitter – @printind. We look forward to interacting with...

Avanti’s Graphic Arts Management System v12.2 passed stringent testing by the Printing Industries of America to become the 50th product to be certified by the CIP4 organization. The Avanti Print MIS software was specifically certified for its ability to facilitate automation by electronically communicating with prepress equipment using Job Messaging Format (JMF) communications while transferring the appropriate JDF requirements for prepress workflow completion.   There are 17 additional companies who have shown JDF/JMF integration specialties in multiple ICS documents and JDF versions. A complete list of certified products is online at http://www.printing.org/jdfcertified. More information on the certification process can be obtained by contacting Automation at 800-910-4283 ex 787 or...

The Following is a special guest post from Stuart Margolis CPA, MT. The answer:  Well-managed companies can react to dips in sales appropriately and ultimately sustain profitability. Whether we have historically managed our companies well or not, all of us are looking for creative ways to stay in the black for 2011.  We watch our ratios since solutions might be found in our own strategic tactics.  Understanding the value and use of ratios enables managers to gain a better understanding of the behavior of costs.  They can be good indicators of possible manufacturing strategies that can lead to a competitive advantage and help maximize profits. An example can be seen in the relationship between sales and profits.  Here is a scenario to demonstrate the effect of a decrease in sales, its impact on variable costs, and its impact on contributions to cover fixed overhead costs.  Let’s take a look and see why watching ratios is a common practice among well-managed companies. A printing company’s sales went from $1,000,000 sales in year A to $800,000 in year B (a decrease of 20%).  Materials decreased proportionately so value-added decreased by the same percentage of 20% or $134,000.  The variable overhead cost also decreased by the same ratio, with fixed costs remaining the same as in the previous year.  Income decreased but did not disappear completely.   Year A   Year B % of Sales Sales $1,000,000   $800,000 100% Materials      330,000     264,000   33% Value Added 670,000   536,000 67% Less: Variable Expenses      200,000     160,000   20% Marginal Contribution 470,000   376,000   47% Less: Fixed Expenses      370,000     370,000 FIXED Income Before Taxes $   100,000   $    6,000               Here’s the danger.  Had the printer taken his eye off the ratios, results could have been  disastrous.  If the decrease in cost of materials and other variable expenses were not proportionate to the decrease in sales (only decreasing 15% instead of 20%), income before taxes could have resulted in a loss of $20,500.  The mere 5% difference could have pushed the company into the red. Fortunately, there’s nothing mysterious about watching ratios.  Tracking variable costs as a percentage of sales has helped some of the most successful printing companies extract more and more profits from their sales.  By keeping an eye on ratios, we can make sure variable costs are reacting appropriately.  We can then look at fixed overhead costs and either: 1. Reduce fixed costs to a lower level or 2. Get creative and find ways to convert fixed cost into a variable cost (even if only temporarily). Want to see what ratios and margins other...

We created a few Premier Print Awards videos to better showcase the effect that the competition can have on business. In the video below, we have past winners from Jostens and Hoechstetter discussing what winning a Benny Award means to them and how it has impacted their business.  Enjoy the video and if you have any questions about the Premier Print Awards ask them in the comments and we’ll be more than happy to answer...

As promised in the previous blog, today we take an in depth look at Total Factory Cost of Product. In this entry we use two example printers, a profit leader and an average printer with $1.7 million in annual sales.  In future entries we will cover mid-sized and larger printers. How much does it cost an average printer and a profit leading printer with $1.7 million in sales to produce their finished product? Total Factory Cost of Product is 8.28% less for the profit leading printer than the average printer, resulting in $140,760 in savings for our $1.7 million printer. Gross profits for the average $1.7 million printer were 19.85% compared to 28.13% for the profit leader. This significant savings provides the profit leaders with additional funds to cover SG&A, interest expenses, and other expenses and achieve a profit before income taxes of 5.93% compared to a loss of 4.23% for the average $1.7 million printer. Profit leaders with sales less than $3 million averaged profits of $87,779 while the average printer had a loss of $79,778. The significant efficiencies that the profit leaders achieved in producing their product added to their bottom line and helped them remain profitable in 2009 despite the recession and declining sales. How much more efficiently does the profit leader work, and where are most of the efficiencies realized? As mentioned above the example profit-leading printer’s Total Factory Cost of Product is 8.28% or $140,760 less than the average printer of similar size. The next question is how they achieve these efficiencies. In the first line item, “Paper,” profit leaders on average spend 1.87% or $31,790 less. Some reasons for this variance include the average printers: Purchasing polices need adjustment. Improper control of waste and spoilage. Proper handling of paper is extremely important in all phases of production—shipment, storage, pressroom, bindery, etc. The type and quality of paper required by the jobs that this group of average printers produces could have an adverse effect on paper costs, as could product mix. Selling price could be too low. The effective manager will investigate these areas to find out where the problem or problems are occurring. If the manager can take corrective action, the amount of money being spent on paper will decrease. If the problem is beyond his control and cannot be corrected, he will at least understand the reasons for this high paper cost. Under “Total Other Chargeable Materials,” the profit leader printer spends $13,000 less on outside printing and $10,000 less on outside binding, which reduced their total factory cost of product by 1.37%. This may be because they have more in-house capabilities or are getting better rates from outside providers. About 30%...