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  • Blog Post
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  • Howie Fenton
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  • 05 August 2022

The Shift in the Costs and Risks of Hiring VS Automation

As production volume increases and staffing remains a challenge, we have a choice to hire inexperienced staff and train them or increase the amount of automation. We compared these options and found that more rework resulted from hiring inexperienced staff, which cost more and reduced the availability of paper. When comparing hiring/training to automation, remember that the costs and risks of hiring inexperienced staff are higher now because of the staffing crisis and paper shortage.

  • Blog Post
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  • Howie Fenton
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  • 07 July 2022

If You’re Problem Solving Who is Steering the Ship?

At a recent in-plant conference I was reminded of the benefits of remaining focused on long term strategic goals. Spending too much time on production issues like finding paper and rehiring staff can shift your focus away from strategic issues like remaining aligned with your parent organization. An excellent presentation about workflow automation showed how one in-plant has benefited from remaining focused on working toward their strategic goals for over a decade.

  • Blog Post
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  • Howie Fenton
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  • 09 June 2022

Surviving Today’s Challenges to Help Your Recovery

In this post, Howie Fenton previews his IPMA conference presentation designed to help in-plants in your recovery from the last two and a half years. He offers suggestions for dealing with four top issues: declining volumes, hiring new staff, and minimizing complaints about pricing, and the impact of the paper shortage.

  • Blog Post
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  • Howie Fenton
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  • 06 May 2022

Print Center Consolidation Stumbling Blocks

Some in-plant print centers, including a university in-plant, survived through the pandemic by consolidating staff, cross-training everyone, and performing more like a nimble, small commercial company where all staff could perform all the shop's tasks. We discuss the motivation, previous in-plant consolidation trends, and five stumbling blocks to consider if you need to plan for the consolidation of staff or services.

  • Blog Post
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  • Howie Fenton
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  • 04 March 2022

Adapting an Old Strategy to Increase Satisfaction, Awareness, and Sales

This article talks about using an older strategy to increase customer satisfaction, awareness, productivity, and sales. The ability to demonstrate shop value has been threatened as more customers work from home, and more communication, marketing, and sales activities have switched to video communications. Adapting the demonstration of operational excellence can help in-plants increase satisfaction, awareness, and sales. 

  • Blog Post
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  • Howie Fenton
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  • 02 February 2022

New Strategies to Increase Satisfaction, Awareness, and Sales

To celebrate the IPMA's in-plant awareness month, this article talks about combining some new strategies to increase customer satisfaction, awareness, and sales. The ability to demonstrate shop value has been threatened as more customers work from home and more communication, marketing, and sales activities have switched to video communications. Using video for communications and demonstrating services can help in-plants increase satisfaction, awareness and sales. 

  • Blog Post
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  • Howie Fenton
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  • 07 January 2022

How to Plan for Growth or Recovery

Despite pandemic challenges remaining, typically there is a sense of new hope associated with the beginning of a new year. There are two planning scenarios. Planning for recovery/rebound while addressing staffing needs, and researching the root cause(s) of lingering low volume and overcoming volume declines. Both involve planning for growth, and we discuss planning and tips for each scenario.

  • Blog Post
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  • Howie Fenton
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  • 09 December 2021

3 Strategies to Prepare for Next Year’s New Challenges

Research shows that not only will we continue to experience supply chain and staffing issues in the coming year, we could also experience customer pushback about price increases and slower turnaround times. In the worst-case scenario, this could result in questions about the value of print or, worse, the value of the in-plant. This article will discuss the threats and offer three strategies to overcome them.

  • Blog Post
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  • Howie Fenton
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  • 02 July 2021

Is it Time to Pivot to Growth Applications and Strategies?

In this article, we discuss print applications that are likely to decline and grow post-pandemic and a strategy to help you win back clients of your in-plant that may have outsourced their work during the pandemic. Using this knowledge will help you negotiate the twists and turns in product demand.

  • Blog Post
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  • Howie Fenton
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  • 03 June 2021

The Cost Savings of Killing E-Mail May Be 3x-5x Higher Than Estimated

Do you realize that killing e-mail can reduce labor costs for CSRs, estimators, and billing staff and that there are additional savings possible by reducing the costs associated with manual estimating and billing? The savings of killing e-mail may be 3x-5x higher than estimated in recent research. To best understand the savings you can achieve, read this blog post.

  • Blog Post
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  • Howie Fenton
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  • 10 May 2021

Why Killing E-Mail Orders Matters for Your Recovery

Do you realize how much time and labor costs are associated with processing e-mailed orders? Do you understand the total cost of operation and the savings you could achieve by automating order entry? Find out in this post where we discuss the time, costs and production challenges of accepting e-mail orders and how a Web to Print solution can save you money and accelerate your recovery.

  • Blog Post
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  • Howie Fenton
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  • 07 April 2021

Recover by Adapting to Lasting Pandemic Changes

By recognizing that some of the changes from the pandemic will disappear and others will remain you will be better positioned to recover and take advantage of the permanent changes. Innovative in-plants will find ways to take advantage of these changes and convert them from threats to opportunities.

  • Blog Post
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  • Howie Fenton
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  • 04 February 2021

5 Ideas To Support In-Plant Awareness

Inspired by in-plant awareness month, this post talks about the often-overlooked importance of understanding product and service awareness and offers five ideas to help you increase your in-plant’s awareness.

  • Blog Post
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  • Howie Fenton
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  • 09 December 2020

Planning Your 2021 Post-COVID Recovery

Howie Fenton's latest RSA blog suggests three areas of your print operation to inventory and strategies to strengthen your print shop's 2021 recovery.

  • Blog Post
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  • Howie Fenton
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  • 16 November 2020

Manual Data Collection- The Worst Data Problem in the Industry

In this the second article in a two-part series about print shop metric issues we focus on four issues with manual data collection: unreliable data, staff productivity loss and dissatisfaction, and the inability to compile and analyze manually collected data.

  • Blog Post
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  • Howie Fenton
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  • 15 October 2020

Are you Collecting Bad Print Shop Metrics?

First in a two-part series about issues with print shop metrics. This article discusses bad metrics such as vanity metrics and suspect metrics and how on-time delivery and cost estimates may be a bad metrics.

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About Us

Since 1986, thousands of production print centers have turned to Rochester Software Associates to improve their workflows, increase their productivity, and delight their customers. Our software solutions for transform and conversion, output management, and web to print Turn Printing Into Productivity™. Above all, what really sets us apart is our intense focus on customer satisfaction.

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