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Volume 3, Issue 3 Nuts
& Bolts: Toolbox Helps Hammer Out Mechanics of Printing Nuts & Bolts: Toolbox Helps Hammer Out Mechanics of Printing “Essentially, Toolbox is just that,” said Phil Salvo, Client Services Leader at United Litho. “It’s a collection of tools to help streamline the order entry process.” The Toolbox software, a stand-alone program created by Prograph, provides an “electronic job jacket,” to include manufacturing instructions for each title, said Salvo. Tools include page-by-page component login, book makeup, press planning, insert information, finishing instructions and a shipping order template. In addition, Toolbox collects page-by-page billing information, explained Salvo. “It summarizes each page’s needs for output and printing instructions, which gives us an accurate billing module to work with.” When United Litho receives a file from a customer, Toolbox will read those files and include the necessary information for printing. “Ideally, publishers will build their job specifications in Proteus (an automated job building and tracking software), then transmit the job directly to us using a menu option in the program,” said Salvo. “Then our customer support specialists will download these files into Toolbox,” continued Salvo. “Essentially, they’ll be sending us the book layout, then we’ll look closely at the file to see what equipment can best produce the title. It helps us understand how to manufacture each publication most efficiently.” Aside from streamlining equipment decisions at United Litho, Toolbox also changes the shape of customer service. “Until the present time, we’ve had customer support specialists, who are the main customer contacts, and then we’ve had planners, who oversee the production end of the process,” explained ULI customer support specialist Mike Schumacher. “Toolbox will help us combine those responsibilities into a single position called account manager, with job coordinators doing more of the production work.” What benefits do our customers see? “Toolbox gives us a finite management tool that further improves accuracy and efficiency in producing titles for our customers,” said Salvo. “With customers using Proteus to build and transmit jobs to us, the workflow becomes almost entirely digital. It gives us even tighter control over information integrity. “The electronic workflow also takes advantage of our customers’ intimate knowledge of their own publications, as well as all of their hours of hard work,” added Salvo. “Rather than reinvent the wheel once materials arrive here at United Litho, we have the files right from the experts.” The accurate, efficient workflow frees United Litho from the nuts and bolts, so they can make time to cultivate customer relationships. “We’re better able to work with our customers, teaching them the new processes and technology,” said Salvo. The new process and technology of Toolbox has been up and running since June 26 of this year, after running parallel to an older “legacy” system for six weeks, giving United Litho time to compare the two workflows and troubleshoot as needed. “The older system was tried and true,” explained Salvo. “But we knew we had to keep up with the growth of our company, and keep up our electronic communication with our customers. That’s what led us to Toolbox and to Proteus.” In response to many customer requests, we have changed the way we’re giving you paper pricing information. In each issue of PressProof, we’ll print a spreadsheet of the most recent pricing activity for each type of paper we use. The spreadsheet will include all papers, regardless of whether there was a change in the pricing. This way, you will know for sure if the paper you use is affected. The spreadsheet below reflects pricing changes since May/June 2000. If you have any questions or comments regarding this spreadsheet or your paper pricing in general, please contact your Account Executive. Paper Pricing Changes Effective 8/1/00 Type % Chg Cum % ; 40# #5 Groundwood 0.0% 6.6% ; 45# #5 Groundwood 0.0% 7.0% ; 50# #5 Groundwood 0.0% 7.2% ; 40# #4 Groundwood 0.0% 5.4% ; 45# #4 Groundwood 0.0% 5.9% ; 50# #4 Groundwood 0.0% 6.0% ; 60# #4 Groundwood 0.0% 6.7% ; 45# #3 Freesheet 3.3% 10.4% ; 50# #3 Freesheet 3.5% 11.4% ; 60# #3 Freesheet 4.0% 13.0% ; 70# #3 Freesheet 4.2% 13.6% ; 80# #3 Freesheet 4.2% 13.6% ; 100# #3 Freesheet 0.0% 9.1% ; 35# UNCOATED 0.0% 0.0% ; 50# OFFSET 0.0% 7.2% ; 60# OFFSET 0.0% 7.3% ; 75# OFFSET 0.0% 0.6% ; 7PT COATED COVER 0.0% 5.6% ; 50# DULL COATED 0.0% 7.4% ; 60# DULL COATED 0.0% 8.5% ; 70# DULL COATED 0.0% 8.9% ; 80# DULL COATED 0.0% 8.9% An Extraordinary Service Experience: élan “The staff here is like an America’s Cup team,” explained Michael Gallagher, associate publisher at élan magazine in Great Falls. “We’re navigating uncharted waters, and each of the crew members is called upon to pitch in wherever necessary.” The four-person staff at élan produces a monthly four-color, 68- to 72-page publication that reaches residents of three ZIP codes in Northern Virginia. The magazine, dedicated to “the good life in McLean and Great Falls,” showcases local artists’ work and provides calendars of local cultural events. “It’s the only community arts magazine I’ve heard of, at least in this area,” said Gallagher. “A year ago, the magazine was just an idea. We just put to bed our first anniversary issue. It’s exciting.” élan’s success has been bolstered most recently through United Litho’s mailing services department. When United Litho began doing mailing services for élan, they sent the labeled magazines to a bulk mailing facility in Merrifield, which in turn sent the magazines to the individual post offices in the three ZIP codes for delivery. Gallagher took the initiative to see how the magazines could more easily and quickly reach the hands of the consumer. “I went to the different post offices and talked with the postmasters about how this procedure was working,” he said. “The postmaster in Great Falls told me that they could take deliveries directly.” When Gallagher discovered that other post offices could also receive direct deliveries, he talked to his sales representative at United Litho, Mike Keefe. “Mike, in turn, contacted Hugh Tolson in the mail services department, and we talked about the logistics,” explained Gallagher. For United Litho, the new process involved dividing a mailing list and delivery cycle into three portions, as well as doing the research necessary to make sure post office regulations are met. “There was also a question of payment,” added Gallagher. “But the folks at United Litho worked it out so that the post office personnel come to United Litho’s facility and weigh the bundles, and we pay them there.” The end result is about three days shaved off of the delivery cycle and less cost in post office handling fees. “It has saved me time and money,” said Gallagher. “A vendor who can do that for me has my attention, and has my business.” “It’s a classic win-win situation,” said Keefe. “The customer’s happy to save the time and money. The post office is happier without the extra hassle. And United Litho learned a great deal in the process.” Changes to Business Reply Mail (BRM)
Periodical ID Statement
Carrier Route (C/R) Sacks
Rate Case R2000-1
TechTips: Cryptic File Names, Reading Mac Disks Avoiding cryptic “L450R~10.TIF” File Names One of the hyped-up new features was the ability to have filenames up to 255 characters long. Have you ever put a PC-formatted CD in your Mac and noticed that all of the long filenames turned into some cryptic mess that is a real challenge to figure out and decode? This is a result of the CD being written in the Joliet format. When Microsoft introduced Windows 95, one of the hyped-up new features was the ability to have filenames up to 255 characters long. Personally, I can’t see how naming a file as long as “the file I worked on last night while watching television.qxd” would help anybody, but I digress. In order to write CDs with the new filename limits, the Joliet format was created as an extension of the standard ISO 9660 format. One of the built-in fallbacks of Joliet is the writing of a “8.3” compliant file name that would aid any system that couldn’t handle the longer filenames—the 8.3 came from the maximum number of characters before and after the “.” in the name. Most modern Windows systems write data CDs in this format today. Apple has never caught up with support for the Joliet format, and therefore if you try to read a CD with contents from a modern Windows system, you’ll end up seeing the backup filenames. Software writer Thomas Tempelmann didn’t like that, and created a freeware utility called Joliet Volume Access to solve it. After installing this system extension, the original filenames will convert cleanly, unless the name is longer than 31 characters (the Mac filename length limit). I would highly recommend checking it out. You can download it from www.tempel.org/joliet. If everything is working correctly, Joliet CDs will show their own icon. Reading Mac Disks on a PC Now what about reading Mac disks on your PC? There are two programs that will help you: MacDrive 2000 and MacOpener 2000. They will install into Windows 95, 98, 2000 and NT; both cost about $65. These programs handle floppies, Iomega Zip and Jaz drives, CDs and external hard disks as if they were regular Windows media. You can read, write and format at will. If you receive a lot of Mac disks from advertisers and struggle with conversion, check these programs out. MacDrive has a nice feature in that the icons change to remind you that you are working on a Mac formatted disk. Can you guess which drive has a Mac disk in it? A Couple of Quick Photoshop Tips Double-clicking on the hand tool in Photoshop will automatically zoom your graphic to fill the screen. Double-clicking on the magnifying glass tool will automatically set the zoom/scaling amount to 100%.
Copyright 1997 - 2009, United Litho, Inc. All rights reserved. |
