Reprographics 101

This morning, I received an e-mail from one of my reprographics-industry friends, who pointed me to the web-site of a GC. He was doing some “internet research” on GC’s, and he found that this particular GC, Garrard, is using, in his words, an “unadulterated FTP” site to share project documents with (I guess) its sub-contractors.

You can click on this link to get to Garrard’s web-site:

Garrard

And, when you get there, you can click on “project drawings” in the upper right hand corner of Garrard’s home page.

Or, you can simply click on this link to take you directly to the “project drawings” Garrard is hosting:

Project Drawings

Well, I looked through the various folders Garrard hosts in its “project drawings” site, to get “a feel” for how Garrard has all of its project documents organized, and found it fairly easy to navigate my way around.

Certainly, Garrard, if it wanted to, could use a reprographer’s e-planroom service to host its project drawings, but I would imagine that Garrard is doing things on its own because Garrard doesn’t find it too time consuming to handle this on its own. But, keep in mind that someone at Garrard has to make sure that all documents are “up to date” (i.e., has to make sure that the most “current versions” of each individual document are posted.) Regarding that, even if Garrard was using a reprographer’s e-planroom service, Garrard would have to spend time to ensure that the reprographer’s document control person had the latest stuff.

How Garrard is “handling this” activity is, I think, a perfect example of the “distribute, then print” model. Instead of Garrard ordering bunches of sets of prints “for” its subs, Garrard is, evidently, leaving it up to its subs to obtain printing services (if hard-copy is found to be necessary by a sub.)

I hate to be redundant about this point (meaning, I’ve mentioned this before), but this is why (I think) it is important for reprographers to be involved in providing “FM” services …. even down to the sub-contractor level. Give the sub a low-cost ink-jet plotter, paper, ink, and service … and charge for the “output” they generate. Or, don’t do that and rely on the subs calling you for printing services … until one of your competitors “FM’s the subs.

If you have a maturing SBA mortgage on your commercial real estate, take note!

Date: Wednesday, March 30, 2011

The U.S. Small Business Administration is offering a lifeline to many commercial real estate owners with maturing mortgages.

Under a temporary refinancing program that will start on April 6, 2011, the SBA can refinance an eligible commercial real estate mortgage that is set to mature after Dec. 31, 2012, into an SBA-backed 504 loan. In February, the SBA initiated the program for mortgages maturing before that date.

Borrowers can refinance either 90 percent of the property’s appraised value or 100 percent of the outstanding mortgage, whichever is lower.

The lending limit on the program is $5 million. The borrower must qualify as a small business under SBA guidelines and the owner must occupy the property.

“With the collapse of the real estate bubble, many small business owners have found themselves unable to refinance as a result of inflated real estate values at the time they took out their mortgage,” SBA Administrator Karen Mills said in a news release. “SBA’s temporary 504 refinancing program was first made available to those small businesses with the most immediate need. Today’s step opens this critical assistance to more small businesses, giving them the opportunity to restructure their debt and free up capital that will be essential to keeping their doors open and also their future ability to grow and create jobs.”

The SBA 504 loan has three components:

· A senior loan from a bank covering 50 percent of the property.

· A second mortgage with 100 percent backing from the SBA covering 40 percent of the property.

· Owner equity of 10 percent.

After I visited the Texas Department of Transportation’s web-site to see how TDOT is currently “handling” access to plans for TDOT projects, I visited another state DOT agency and found that they were using a service provided by “BidExpress”. So, I decided to explore “BidExpress” a bit further. “BidExpress” was developed by a company called “InfoTech.” No reprographers there! You can read about InfoTech at this link:

http://www.infotechfl.com/about_info_tech/history.php

Apparently, InfoTech’s “BidExpress” service is used by a number of different public “transportation” (government) agencies – the agencies use BidExpress to publish digital files containing plans for projects – users can “view” plans and “download” plans. User’s can also “submit orders for hard-copy”, but only if the agency has signed up for the additional feature called “Online Plan Sheets.” Not all of the agencies who are using BidExpress are using the “Online Plan Sheets” service (which is an additional capability/service) available to agencies who’ve signed up for BidExpress.

The following (government) agencies currently use “Online Plan Sheets”:

• Calcasieu Parish Police Jury

• City of Toledo

• East Baton Rouge City Parish

• Georgia

• Iowa

• Maine

• New Jersey

• New Jersey Transit

• New Mexico

• New York

• Nova Scotia

• West Virginia

For more information about Online Plan Sheets, please visit:

https://www.bidx.com/main/services.html#planroom

I viewed the “video” of how Online Plan Sheets works, and noticed that, when one goes to select the reprographer to be used for printing hard-copy, there are two choices for reprographers – Napco and Triangle.

So, I went back to Infotech’s web-site, and, yes, Napco (RS Knapp / Napco) is listed under InfoTech’s “corporate alliances” and, yes, Triangle is also listed as one of InfoTech’s “corporate alliances.” Since there are several reprographers who use word “Triangle” in their names, let me clear this one up; this is the “Triangle” operation founded by Joe Teti, located (multiple locations) in New Jersey. Anyway, I found it kind of funny that both reprographers are only located in New Jersey (and they are “somewhat” competitors of each other) and that, if a “user” in New Mexico wants to order hard-copy, that order, apparently, would be fulfilled by a reprographer in New Jersey. Well, New Mexico and New Jersey do have something in common. (hint: NOT the weather.)

Here’s a link to the video I mentioned. (Give it some time to load-up!)

http://www.infotechfl.com/downloads/bidx/plansheets/

Anyway, if found the info about BidExpress and InfoTech to be very interesting. A great example, I think, of a “niche” carved out in the e-planroom field – this niche being the DOT world.

A “printing” business that hasn’t been affected by, and won’t be affected by, “cloud printing”. Growth in this sector of the printing business will continue to be be directly proportional to the world’s population growth. No on-line e-document-management services necessary for these guys!

St. Paul, MN – April 4, 2011 – Two of the premier label printers in the country are now one entity as Smyth Companies, LLC of St Paul, MN proudly announces the acquisition of Dow Industries of Wilmington, MA. Dow Industries is the world’s most decorated label printer, winning countless awards around the globe for its unsurpassed high-definition flexographic printing processes, used in the Health and Beauty markets and other demanding consumer goods segments. “Walter Dow has been a long time friend whose company I’ve admired from afar, and I’m delighted that he has aligned with Smyth,” says John Hickey, Smyth CEO. “Our goal will be to provide the industry’s highest quality label production for those companies who demand the very best!”



Smyth has been in business for 133 years, and recently partnered with Novacap, a Montreal-based private equity firm, to help Smyth in its quest to be the most relevant label company in the industry to the high end consumer goods companies. With established production locations in Minnesota, Virginia and Colorado, and the addition of the Dow facility in Massachusetts, Smyth will now employ approximately 400 people. The company specializes in package labeling for mass marketed consumer goods products, and serves clients in the food and beverage, personal care, household care, and beer markets, among others.

Here’s how the Texas Department of Transportation (TDOT) “handles” this process:

1. TDOT self-operates an “On-Line” planroom service. Here’s TDOT’s general description of “plans online”:

Plans Online

Plans Online provides engineering plans, informational proposals, addenda, bid tabs and contract plans for TxDOT’s bid lettings. Projects include highway construction, maintenance, and aviation. This information is valuable to contractors, subcontractors, suppliers, city and county governments, consultants, planners, design and construction engineers, businesses and the general public.

Plans Online – (View, Search, E-mail, Print)
View and search for project plans, proposals, addenda and bid tabs. All are indexed for easy navigation. E-mail, download or print individual plan sheets. (This is a free service.)

Plans Online – FTP Download (Print)
Download and print letting plans, proposals, addenda and contract plans, and save them electronically for future reference. This is the best option to use if needing to print multiple pages or the entire plan set. (This is a free service.)

You can access the “main page” for TDOT’s “plans online” at this link:

http://www.dot.state.tx.us/business/contractors_consultants/plans_online.htm

And, you can see a better picture of how this works at this link (you will notice that TDOT uses a software (document management) product called “Alchemy Web”):

http://www.dot.state.tx.us/business/plansonline/plansonline.htm

2. TDOT publishes a list of Texas reprographics firms, so that anyone who needs hard-copy prints will quickly be able to identify a reprographer who can fulfill reprographics needs. (Funny, but perhaps some smart-ass reprographer will register a whole bunch of different company names, all beginning with AAAAA or AAAA or AAA.)

The following firms have indicated they will reproduce plans. The listed firm names are provided strictly for informational purposes and inclusion of a firm on this list does not constitute an endorsement of advertisement of the firm or that firm’s services by the Texas Department of Transportation.

http://www.dot.state.tx.us/business/contractors_consultants/repro_companies.htm

SO, HOW DOES YOUR STATE’S DOT HANDLE THIS?

Great Article … for those of us who are interested in examples of how the Federal Government wastes taxpayer dollars! (Keep in mind that I’m “conservative” on many issues, but a “liberal” on other issues.)

This article appeared on the web-site of printceo.com. I’m going to show you the first two paragraphs of that article and then, later on, provide a “link” to the full article.

Is Printing the Congressional Record Wasteful?

By Cary Sherburne on March 31st, 2011

On a relatively recent visit to the Government Printing Office, I was surprised to learn that despite the great work former Public Printers Bruce James and Bob Tapella have done with FDSys (the system that makes electronic versions of government documents such as the Congressional Record and Federal Register available to the government and the public), the GPO was still printing the Congressional Record–about 1,500 copies DAILY every day Congress is in session, I was told. (And the Federal Register, by the way.) I questioned why that would be, since the information is available online before it is available in printed form. Each issue can be hundreds of pages, depending on what went on in Congress that day. I wondered what happens to all that paper. Where is it stored? Does anyone ever look at it? Why is it even still being printed in those volumes? According to my tour guide, people still wanted the paper. And according to the release cited below, that number is actually 4,551 copies! (I thought 1,500 was low if it was going to everyone, multiple copies to each Congress person’s office, etc.).

Today, Senators Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK) and Herb Kohl (D-WI) introduced the Congressional Record Printing Savings Act of 2011, a bill they say would save taxpayers up to $8 million by requiring the Government Printing Office to limit excessive printing of the Congressional Record. According to the release, “The GPO annually spends over $8 million to print hard copies of the Congressional Record that are rarely used since these documents have been digitally available since 1994. Approximately 4,551 copies of the Congressional Record are printed daily [on offset web presses] at the cost of roughly $240 per original page. The Congressional Record Printing Savings Act would require that the distribution of the printed edition is limited to archival purposes and those copies explicitly requested by the Vice President or Members of Congress.”

Here’s a “link” to the full article:

http://printceo.com/2011/03/is-printing-the-congressional-record-wasteful/?utm_source=whattheythink&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=WhatTheyThink+Daily

Joel’s comment(s):

I was born in Washington, D.C., lived in the D.C. area until I was 45 years old and my first reprographics company operated throughout the Washington-Baltimore Common Market Area. I’ve actually visited the GPO operation that prints the “Congressional Record” (did that many years ago.)

I say “give ‘em” an iPAD or Kindle and let them read the electronic version of the “Congressional Record.” In this day and age it makes ZERO sense to print hard-copies of that daily report.

PROVO, UTAH, April 1, 2011 — The museum housing the world’s most advanced exhibit of the history of printing is facing foreclosure and a lawsuit, and risks losing more than the board members bargained for.

The article I mention above appeared on the web-site of “The Daily Herald” (at www.heraldextra.com).

Sad situation. A printing museum facing foreclosure! Let’s hope that someone comes to the rescue.

Which brings to mind the question, why isn’t there a museum for the reprographics industry? I guess our industry is too small for that. But, if there was a reprographics museum, what equipment should be in that museum?

My picks would include:

Ø A “Pease” blueprint machine.

Ø A Bruning Star Revolute diazo machine (one with a beautiful polished wood feedboard!)

Ø A Xerox 914 copier.

Ø A “Photostat” camera (forerunner of “the copier”).

Ø A 24 foot long Brown Admiral engineering-photo camera.

Ø Three Dupont photo-lab processors: Cronalar, Cronaflex and Crovex.

Ø A Xerox 1860 wide-format engineering copier.

Ø A Xerox 2510 wide-format copier.

Ø A pin-bar, with Jack Cushing’s name engraved on it.

Ø An RH fixed-focus engineering camera.

Ø An OCE 9800, plotter-printer-copier-scanner system (“a repro shop in one box”)

Ø An early-stage pen-plotter.

Ø An HP DesignJet ink-jet plotter (earliest model that offered b/w and color)

Ø A “Peep-Squirrel” binding-strip maker.

Ø A “Roll-Vac” vacuum frame.

Ø A Cactus “full-color” photo-realistic, wide-format printing system.

Ø A Canon “Bubble-Jet” large-format color copier.

Ø A flat-bed printing frame and “roll-out-the-window” track (showing how large-format prints were made by rolling flat-bed frames “out the window”), around the turn of the century (1900).

Your picks?

For those of you interested in more about “cloud printing”, I found an article – about Google Cloud Printing and HP – authored by Kevin C. Tofel, and here’s the title of the article, and, afterwards, the first two paragraphs from the article:

“HP Shifts Printing Away From PCs via Google Cloud Print”

When Google introduced its Cloud Print solution last year, consumers and device makers were left with more questions than answers. Fast forward to today, and Google’s cloud printing solution gets less foggy: HP’s ePrint-enabled printers now support Cloud Print. Printouts from a smartphone, computer or ChromeOS netbook can be sent to these web-connected printers through supported Google apps now, and third-party software in the future.

The new printing support shows how the web continues to change the paradigm of traditional computing. Instead of printers that are effectively chained to a single device or shared on a local wired or wireless network, the lowly, utilitarian printer is now web-connected. Evidence of that lies within the method used by HP to link the ePrint devices to Google Docs and Gmail: Consumers simply attach the printer’s unique email address to their Google account to use Cloud Print services. Once the link is made, documents or email can be printed out through a mobile broadband or wired web connection from practically anywhere.

Click on this link to access the full article:

http://gigaom.com/mobile/google-cloud-print-hp-eprint-printers/

Last year, Community Unit School District 303, a Pre-K-12 school system located west of Chicago, IL, awarded a contract for a fleet of multifunction copier-printers to the Gordon Flesch Company, a Canon and Kyocera dealer. Although the competition was held last year, I’m posting about this competition simply for the benefit of reprographers who are interested in doing “more homework” about deals like this one.

About the school district: Community Unit School District 303 is a high-achieving, pre-K-12 system covering 57.4 square miles in the picturesque Fox River Valley, 40 miles west of Chicago. District 303 serves about 13,800 students (August, 2009) from the City of St. Charles and portions of West Chicago, South Elgin, Wayne, Campton Hills, Wasco, Elburn and unincorporated Kane County.

About the RFP competition: Multifunctional Device – RFP: The St. Charles Community Unit School District #303 requested competitive proposals for the purchase, installation, and a 3 year support contract to maintain multifunctional devices in our schools and administrative facilities.

About the “awardee”: At the Gordon Flesch Company, we take a refreshing approach to office technology. We’re here to do more than simply sell you products. We’re here to provide you with solutions. Solutions that help you meet your business objectives. Whether you’re looking to save time or save resources, our print management consultants will analyze your current printing, copying and document management configuration, make recommendations for improvement and then help you implement a plan that has a positive impact on your business’ bottom line.

Costs offered by proposers: ranged from a low of $955,934 to a high of $1,600,701. (That’s quite a range, huh!)

All of the documents – the RFP document, Q&A’s about the RFP, and an abstract of the prices offered by proposers – can be found at this internet address (link):

http://www.d303.org/Departments/InformationTechnologyServices/InformationTechnologyPurchasingHomePage/MultifunctionalDeviceRFP/tabid/2996/Default.aspx

Jared Willis, who was, until very recently, Director of Sales at Barker Blue, made a big career change on April 1^st. He’s moved from the “reprographics” industry to the “real estate development” industry. Jared had been with Barker Blue for just about six years.

To Jared: Best wishes for fantastic success with your new career!

I’ve never met Jared, but, by reading his blog, it is easy to tell that he is a very, very bright young man. Jared, a graduate of the University of California Santa Barbara, is the author of the blog, “BuildIt”, and, while with Barker Blue, Jared continued his education and earned three real estate / construction industry certifications:

Certified Document Technologist

Construction Specifications Institute

California Real Estate Salesperson

California Department of Real EstateLicense 01886510

LEED Green Associate

Green Building Certification Institute

Jared’s joined a group that has a blue-chip pedigree:

Brookwood Group was established in 1989 by George T. Heery Sr., S. Shepherd Heery, and Laura M. Heery. 

Prior to establishing Brookwood Group, George Heery was the Chairman and CEO of Heery International, headquartered in Atlanta. Shepherd Heery was with Hines Interests, based in San Francisco. Laura Heery was with the New York architectural firm of Johnson / Burgee.



Brookwood focuses on: strategic advisory services; development & construction program management; and planning & design consulting. 

George Heery is one of a handful of pioneers of the Construction Program Management industry. He is also the creator of the Bridging Method of design and construction procurement. Brookwood has expertise in a broad range of project delivery methods. 



The company’s principal offices are in Atlanta, Los Angeles and San Francisco. 



Brookwood’s mission statement is “Advancing and Protecting the Interests of the Owner”.

Brookwood Group’s Specialties: Strategic Advisory Services, Development & Construction Program Management, Planning & Design Consulting

_________

Jared provides more detail about his big change – see post on his blog:

http://www.buildit.typepad.com/