Graphic Services growing to serve three markets
By Margie Gallo Dana
Their business cards have no titles. The company tagline is “A Solutions Company.” Their corporate capabilities brochure includes the subhead, “A Passion for Printing.”

Together, these three pieces of information illustrate the management philosophy of Graphic Services in Rockland, Mass. It’s a printing firm that doesn’t focus on titles or just selling ink on paper.

Graphic Services is a solutions provider that caters to customer needs. It has a management team with a well-defined vision of organizational growth in a very competitive market. The deliverables include ink on paper, but what they offer is a broader, end-to-end solution.

Corporate history
Graphic Services was started 15 years ago by a successful sales representative ready to start his own business. Bill Fitzgerald’s philosophy was to listen to customers and let them determine what products and services a printer should offer them. He started Graphic Services in 1989 to do just that.

The firm was originally located on Winter Street in nearby Hanover where he aligned himself with three or four commercial printing manufacturers, knowing that at some point in the future he would get more directly involved in print manufacturing. The operation was a commercial shop back then, with a strong customer base in educational publishing.

Graphic Services offered sheetfed printing services until 2001, when it purchased 100 percent of the assets of Intercity Press, which included three cold-set webs. That opened up new possibilities for Fitzgerald. Following the Intercity acquisition, Graphic Services was able to offer their educational publishing clients a whole new range of products, including book production. Business grew steadily following the Intercity acquisition.

Then late last year, Graphic Services hired most of the sales and production staff from Charles River Lithography. The company absorbed some of Charles River’s sales and purchased its 12-color Akiyama sheetfed press when the company closed its doors.

Graphic Services’ most recent major investment was the purchase of a 36-inch six-unit Baker Perkins heatset web press, which allowed them to further expand their product offering to clients and make them an attractive printer to prospective clients.

Today, the company offers comprehensive print and fulfillment services on both sheet and web presses. With its vast array of sheetfed printing, web printing and fulfillment capability, Fitzgerald expects to hit $30 million in sales in 2004.

Two facilities, growth by acquisition
The company occupies two facilities at present. Their primary location in Rockland covers 77,000 square feet. It houses most of the employees, all of the prepress and press equipment, as well as estimating, customer service, job planning, and management.

The second facility is a few miles away in Hanover, encompassing 105,000 square feet. It’s dedicated to the firm’s fulfillment services. Because of the recent growth in the pressroom, some of the bindery operation may eventually be relocated to this Hanover facility.

Today, Graphic Services has 128 employees, including four in senior management, 10 more in sales, three full-time estimators, and seven in customer service, plus additional customer service help in the planning department.

A dedicated management team
A core team of four managers runs Graphic Services. Fitzgerald, the firm’s president, is aided by Peter Zampine, vice president of sales and Fitzgerald’s “right-hand man;” Brad Koch, vice president of sales for educational publishing; and Jim Bailey, vice president of financial services markets. Zampine, who was not available during interviews for this article, has been with Graphic Services since 1989 and has a 17-year background in printing. Koch has been with the company six years. Bailey, who joined the company less than two years ago, adds 30 years of industry experience to the firm.

Together, the four-man team sets the strategy for growth. They’re actively involved in running the business day-to-day, and they all service accounts. They’re a management team that believes in “rolling up its sleeves” to get the job done.

Serving three markets
Some firms find it difficult enough focusing on one market. Graphic Services focuses on three: educational publishing, commercial, and financial. How challenging is it to serve three different markets? “That’s been the success of this company,” Fitzgerald said. “When you think about it, it’s only a challenge in the marketing sense. Our internal processes are the same for all of our clients. We can turn on a dime.”

Educational publishing
Graphic Services has been serving educational publishers since the firm opened its doors 15 years ago. They take a consultative approach as they work with clients to develop specifications; create dummies, samples, and prototypes; and plan each project from beginning to end.

Products for the educational market include books of all sizes as well as ancillary products, such as workbooks, posters, and cards.

Educational publishers have unique printing needs. There are strict, mandated requirements for textbook manufacturing. Textbooks must meet stringent manufacturing guidelines, commonly known as the NASTA specs. (NASTA stands for the National Association of State Textbook Administrators.) These specs dictate paper requirements, binding requirements, cover requirements and general rules about overall product quality.

Commercial
The company offers high-end, full-color sheet and web printing to its commercial base as well. The management team keeps finding new ways to differentiate the firm in they service their customers. One core motto is “Service without question.” In today’s competitive market, they know that printers need to deliver better and better service in order to retain customers and attract new ones.

Through a commitment to exceed customer expectations, Graphic Services focuses on the little things, the intangibles that make a difference to print customers. For example, if a client expects a proof in two days, the client’s CSR works closely with production to try to turn the proof around and deliver it in one day.

They talk about serving their customers with a passion — a passion for service and a passion for printing.

Financial
Like the educational publishing field, the financial services market has strict requirements. Financial printers have to have lightning-quick response time when delivering proofs as well as final materials. Many standard financial products, like 10Ks and 10Qs, annual and semiannual reports, and shareholder prospectuses, are time-critical documents.

Jim Bailey heads up this market specialty. With 30 years in this field, he’s completely familiar with his clients’ requirements and ongoing needs, including electronic delivery of digital proofs, the need for redundant operations in the plant in case of emergency situations, and perhaps most importantly, the importance of having web presses.

Bailey’s convinced that customers are looking for alternatives in financial printing here in New England. They want web capacity, high-quality sheetfed work, fast turnaround, good pricing, and quick press OKs.

“We perform,” Bailey said. “Our focus is on the client and on getting the work done. This is the most exciting place to work in North America,” he said. “It’s a world class operation.” He’s convinced, as is Fitzgerald and Koch that customers today are looking for an information distribution partner — not just a printer.

With the firm’s newest acquisition of a heatset web, they can offer financial customers high quality, long run, full-color materials that complement many of their products. In this way, Graphic Services can deliver a complete end-to-end solution.

All digital prepress
Graphic Services boasts a state-of-the-art, completely digital prepress operation. They don’t output film on site. They outsource this function as needed. More than 95 percent of their printing jobs are direct to plate. The rest are reprints.

Clients have options for sending in their files: via FTP (file transfer protocol), by e-mail, or by disk. The company can generate different kinds of proofs, including simple black and white laser proofs, high-end contract proofs, and backed-up digital lasers.

The company has two platemakers in prepress. The Basysprint UV 710 DTP System works with conventional printing plates and is used for the web presses. The other is the Screen 8600 Thermal CTP System, which has an inline plate processor. The 8600 produces between 20-25 plates per hour, about twice the standard industry rate. It’s used for the sheetfed presses. Prepress operations at Graphic Services run 24 hours a day, six days a week.

Sheetfeds crowned by the “mighty J Presses”
Akiyama sheetfed presses dominate the print production area. In addition to their 40-inch Akiyama Bestech six-color press with aqueous coater, Graphic Services boasts two J Presses.

One is a 40-inch 10-color. The other is a 40-inch 12-color J-Press. According to Fitzgerald, there are currently only four J Presses in the entire U.S. They’re impressive for several reasons. Both sides of the sheet are printed at the same time, without reversing or restacking. Each unit combination is stacked on top of another. Each upper and lower “stack” has its own plate, blanket, impression and transfer cylinders. There’s only one gripper edge. Dot reproduction is very sharp, and there’s no difference in quality from front to back.

The benefits of J presses include perfect registration on both sides of the sheet, phenomenal color, minimal sheet handling which means significantly less paper waste, and fast make-readies, all which contribute to quick press OKs.

Fitzgerald told of one client who flew into town for a press check of three forms (two 16s and a cover). He was in and out of the shop in 90 minutes.

According to Akiyama, these 40-inch J Presses can print between 4,000 and 11,000 impressions per hour.

Cold and heatset webs
The company has four web presses. The cold webs are used primarily for financial printing. They easily handle 16 and 32-page signatures, which is perfect for 10Ks and 10Qs financial printing. They can do 20,000 impressions an hour.

The newest addition to the company is the baker Perkins heatset web. It was purchased about four months ago and is just now up and running.

“This will open up a whole new market for us,” Fitzgerald said. The six-color, high-speed 36-inch web will be ideal for full-color direct mail pieces, including catalogs, and marketing collateral for their commercial and financial services customers.

Fitzgerald pointed out that they improved this new web by adding three new controls: an automatic cut-off control, an automatic register control (meaning quicker makereadies), and a scanner that reads color densities on every sheet, which ensures top quality throughout the press run. This web also has a sheeter.

Full bindery and fulfillment, plus online inventory tracking
There are complete bindery and fulfillment services at Graphic Services including spiral and perfect binding, scoring, folding, and saddle stitching. They also do film lamination.

A separate 105,000 square-foot-facility houses the kitting, collating, storage, and pick-pack-ship services. Eventually, the bindery operations might also be moved to this facility.

The company developed proprietary inventory management software in response to customer needs. LOADS (Literature Ordering and Distribution System) lets customers manage and track their products. It also shows them real-time information about their usage and inventory levels. A client told the company: “Make it easier for my salespeople to get what they need,” so Graphic Services built this system to give their customers access to their own product inventory. The software is hosted on a secure Web site.

Continued growth ahead
What’s in the future for Graphic Services, which already has a full complement of sheet and web presses, state-of-the-art prepress, complete bindery and fulfillment services, and online inventory tracking for its customers?

Fitzgerald and his team are currently looking into digital printing, including adding variable data capabilities for their financial customers in particular. They’re also contemplating the addition of EDGAR services for this same customer base to facilitate financial printing.

When the new web is in full production mode later this year, they may add staff. Fitzgerald and Koch also spoke about adding more functionality, such as online job status, down the road. Their new Web site, www.graphicserv.com will be launched soon.

One thing is sure: all three markets — educational, commercial, and financial — will be growth areas for this South Shore firm. “We’re always thinking down the line,” Fitzgerald said. “We’re not standing still.”

When asked about the key challenges he faces as a print company CEO in today’s economy, Fitzgerald said, “We must stay ahead of the curve. This includes understanding our clients’ future needs and being able to react quickly to stay ahead of our competition. I think this is important regardless of what the economy is doing.”

About the author: Margie Dana is a Boston-based marketing consultant who specializes in the graphic arts industry. She can be reached at 617-730-5951 or by e-mail at .