For a generation, the doomsayers have been insisting that the development of the computerized digital world would mean the end of the traditional printed word, but you’d have a hard time convincing Delaware’s printers.
The environment may be tough, but printers are adapting to change, embracing new technologies and identifying niches that enable them to prosper.
They have little choice. "About 5,000 printing companies have gone out of business in the last five years, and it’s projected that another 5,000 will go out of business in the next five years," says John Ferretti, CEO of Foxfire Printing in Newark.
In the mid-1990s, Associates Graphic Services (AGS) of Wilmington could have been one of those companies. Then, its president and CEO, Charles L. Copeland, adopted the "lean manufacturing" principles taught by the Delaware Manufacturing Extensions Partnership (DEMEP) in the late 1990s.
AGS has been growing steadily ever since, says Copeland, who is also a state senator. Revenue growth averaging 25 percent a year for the last five years and 2006 revenues should top $12 million, he says. The firm now has about 100 employees — 10 times what it had when Copeland took over the company in 1994.
Lean manufacturing is all about eliminating wasted time and adding value in every step of the process, To accomplish that, AGS reconfigured its building on Rogers Road, relocating work spaces and equipment to eliminate wasted steps, and spent more than $2.5 million on new equipment, much of it for digital printing. AGS recently opened a second facility in the First State Industrial Park in Stanton.
"We are probably the leading provider of on-demand digital print to high-end and corporate clients in Delaware," he says. Clients include businesses in the pharmaceutical, chemical, financial services and gaming industries.
To meet clients’ needs with speed and efficiency, AGS has fine-tuned job scheduling to maximize use of its presses and has invested in database software that enables it to personalize direct-mail pieces. By tailoring messages to individual recipients, AGS helps its clients get a better response to their mailings, Copeland says.
"If you’re doing short run, on-demand work, digital is the only way to do it because each page is imaged uniquely and there’s no big setup of plates," Copeland says. "If you want each one of those 150 cards or letters to be unique, digital is the only way to go. It’s a very different skill set than putting a single file on a plate and running 1,000 copies."
Delaware’s older printing companies know they can’t afford to rest on their laurels and the newer ones have learned quickly that strong customer service is essential to growth.
Dover Litho Printing Co., which will celebrate its 50th anniversary next year, has been able to thrive by developing several niches, according to its president, Michael Frebert.
In addition to printing brochures, flyers and newsletters for area businesses, Dover Litho uses its Heidelberg 40-inch presses to turn out self-published hardcover and paperback books, as well as coffee-table books and professional journals. And it’s not all local work, either.
"We’ve got clients in Maryland, Philadelphia and New York. Some publications and journals are for organizations based in the Virgin Islands, Bermuda, Maine and Michigan," Frebert said. "They must have connections. I get a lot of jobs through word of mouth."
Another venerable name among Delaware printers is the McClafferty Printing Co., founded 58 years ago. Shawn McClafferty, the third member of his family to head the business, says the company’s prosperity depends on providing customers high quality with quick turnaround. The Wilmington firm has invested heavily in new technology and keeps its presses running through three shifts.
Globalization concerns McClafferty, especially when he sees calendars, textbooks and other items with huge press runs and long deadlines being outsourced to China and other countries where labor costs are low.
"If you’ve got a year to print it, you’ll never match the price (of Chinese labor). But if you need it in 10 days or less, you’re not going to go to China," he says.
As its niche, McClafferty touts stochastic printing, a high-definition process that relies on tiny dots of ink to produce rich-color halftones with exquisite detail. Stochastic printing, he says, is ideal for high-quality calendars and jewelry catalogs where minute details must be reproduced precisely and clearly. McClafferty, whose gross revenues topped $7 million last year, has used stochastic printing on projects for Longwood Gardens, Winterthur and the University of Delaware.
Ben-Dom Printing Co., a 12-year-old digital and offset shop in Newark, has only 10 employees, and doesn’t play in the same league as Foxfire, AGS, Dover Litho and McClafferty. But "there’s still a lot of work out there," says Carla G. Mancari, president and owner.
Ben-Dom doesn’t do any work for the big banks and pharmaceutical companies. It’s mostly small businesses, Mancari says, and the key to survival is conscientious customer service, dispensing advice not only on printing but also on many of the problems small businesses typically faced. "I’ve been there, done that," she says. "I want to see their business succeed too."
That often means recommending that they run 250 copies of a flyer or brochure, rather than the 1,000 that used to be her minimum. With digital files, it’s easy for clients to gauge response, make changes and order a second run, she says.
Mancari doesn’t see other printers as her biggest competition. Rather, it’s the Internet, as companies decide they’d rather distribute newsletters online than print paper copies. But there are still plenty of forms, flyers, brochures and business cards to print, she says.
Small Associates Inc. of Wilmington has been around for 42 years, and now does "a lot of small jobs for big companies," like J.P. Morgan Chase, The News Journal, Bank One and W.L. Gore & Associates, according to its president, Alice L. Small. To cushion itself against the ups and downs of printing, Small has developed a niche selling promotional products — pens, pins, mugs and the like — that accounts for about one-third of its $3 million in gross revenues.
While Delaware’s printers have developed different niches and satisfy different types of clients, they’re all certain that, whatever they’re doing now, it won’t stay that way for long.
"Five years from now we won’t be doing what we’re doing today," Copeland says. "If we don’t change, someone will make us change, or we’ll be out of business."
RSS Feed