Innovation, Focus, Digital: all keywords to their success

I recently had the opportunity to visit four printing firms in the Rochester/Buffalo NY area and was delighted with the level of enthusiasm the leaders of these innovative firms bring to the office with them each day. Their stories are worth sharing.  We hope you enjoy these brief vignettes of Cohber, Mercury, Monroe Litho and Packstar.  Also watch for upcoming video interviews on WhatTheyThink.  There is a lot more under the covers at each of these firms!  Part one covers Cohber and Mercury, while Part Two covers Monroe Litho and Packstar.

Monroe Litho prides itself on its leadership in sustainability within the printing industry and backs up that pride with a number of awards, including being named as a Thought Leader in the 2011 WhatTheyThink Environmental Innovation Awards.  The company has been in business since 1945 in downtown Rochester NY and employs 60 people.

Chris Pape, President & CEO, has a long history with the company. He was the Vice President of Sales when the company was acquired by Graphic Industries in 1989, leaving the company in 1990.  After Wallace acquired Graphic Industries in 1997, Pape was asked to come back in 1998 as President, which he did. Following 9/11, Wallace wanted to eliminate a number of plants, so Pape engineered an LBO at the end of 2001, taking the company over in 2002. Despite Pape's movement in and out company, the majority of the employees have been with the company for 20 years or more, including Ron Julian, who at Age 70 is in his 43rd year of working with a company in the athletics uniform manufacturing business. "He has worked with four generations of leaders at this firm," says Pape. "This proves our dedication to customer loyalty and long-term relationships with our customers." The team is so well-oiled that the pressroom runs without supervision.

For Pape and Monroe Litho, sustainability is a way of life especially since he took over the company. Monroe Litho was the 5th company in the nation and the first in the Northeast to be SGP certified. Monroe Litho has also achieved G7 Master Certification and is a beta site for a worldwide certification RIT is working on to better align color standards in different parts of the globe.

The company and its employees are committed to recycling just about everything. As a symbol and reminder of this commitment, its dumpster has been locked since early in 2010. An employee sustainability committee, which Pape chairs, comes up with ideas and projects. For example, wood skids are ground up for wood pellets; employees can bring electronics from home at no charge for recycling; and ink waste is sent to a supplier in the Midwest for remanufacturing into black ink. The company measures and tracks trucks that are coming and going to ensure that its paper merchant loads the trailer with as much product as is needed for the day.  Pape says, "We pool orders and night, tell them the sequence we are going to print, and a second truck brings what we use next.  This reduces the number of trucks that come every day."

Employee ideas are not limited to environmental issues. Pape says, "They are constantly thinking about how to do things better; it is the culture.  We have gone through a rough economy. There have been times when there hasn't been a lot of work, and we have kept people on.  We haven't cut wages, and we have tried to keep up the benefits. In return, our employees are exceptionally dedicated to ensuring that the company does well, and that we produce the best possible products while still saving money."

One example is moving to a house sheet a year ago rather than ordering paper by the job (Sappi Flo is used for 70% of the company's work). "Customers like the cost savings this brings them," says Pape. "We are giving them a quality product consistently, and we know how this paper works throughout the process. That has enabled us to reduce waste at every point, especially in finishing when waste is at its most expensive."

Despite the extensive amount of change these initiatives have driven into the organization, the company has doubled its backlog and the sales force has been reenergized. "Not only do they have lots to talk about on the environmental front, they are also excited about the Kodak NexPress we recently installed. It is something customers have been asking for, not that it will be used on every job, but it gives the sales force something new to talk about and some new capabilities to help solve customer business problems."