By Eileen Fritsch
The digital transformation of printing that began in the late 1990s didn’t really take off until the Great Recession of 2008-2009 forced publishers and distributors of printed books. newspapers, and magazines to cut costs by publishing more of their content online or in e-books.
One company that has successfully adapted to the dramatic drop in demand for high volumes of printed books is Thomson Reuters Core Publishing Solutions. For years, Thomson Reuters Core Publishing Solutions operated solely as the book-printing, warehousing, and fulfillment division of Thomson Reuters information services for legal and tax professionals.
But by 2010, lawyers and tax professionals had begun relying on searchable, online databases that could provide faster access to the newest case law and tax information than printed books could deliver. This led to the transformation efforts for Core Publishing Solutions, which included:
- retooling the company’s 1.3 million sq. ft. facility in Eagan, Minnesota to handle a mix of offset presses and a fleet of production digital presses and finishing equipment for shorter press runs, reprint orders, and faster turnaround times.
- enhancing production efficiencies by investing in automated systems for book-printing, binding, and finishing equipment.
- building a culture that attracts skilled talent amid an industry-wide labor shortage.
The Core Publishing Solutions team first tested the concept of working with outside publishers after Thomson Reuters sold a few of their content-publishing companies to third-party private-equity investors. These companies didn’t require in-house capabilities for printing, warehousing, and fulfillment.
“So, as Thomson Reuters divested companies, we saw an opportunity to sign up those companies for third-party work,” says Steve Zweber, vice-president of Global Print Operations, Manufacturing, and Distribution at Thomson Reuters. “We continued to do the print manufacturing, the warehousing, and the order fulfillment for them, but the publishing business would be owned and operated by the private equity firm.”
The concept worked so well that they formed the Core Publishing Solutions division in 2013 to serve publishers outside the Thomson Reuters umbrella.
A Years-Long Process
The transformation didn’t happen overnight, but was strategic and impactful.
Today, Core Publishing Solutions is equipped to print much more than the text-heavy, high page-count monochrome publications they produce for the libraries of law firms and accounting firms.
First, they identified where they had extra production capacity, then developed tactics to fill it.
“We wanted to maintain the scale of manufacturing that we had achieved as a massive publisher for Thomson Reuters,” states Zweber.
As they filled excess capacity by printing for other publishers, the Core Publishing Solutions team observed that advances in production inkjet technologies were creating exciting opportunities to broaden their customer base and provide a wider range of services.
Previously, “We were primarily focused on single-color text printing, high page-count books, with lightweight papers and highly decorated foil-stamp covers.” says Zweber. But as we saw digital printing technology changing, we also saw the opportunity to grow into a lot of other markets.”
For example, shorter-run, higher-quality digital color printing enabled Core Publishing Solutions to serve publishers of books that featured color photos or illustrations, such as educational books, children’s books, gift books, and cookbooks. Core Publishing Solutions also offers the ability to ship printed books as needed.
“We can produce the books here, and keep them in our warehouse,” says Zweber. “Then, by connecting directly with the publishers’ business systems, we can take their incoming orders and ship the books directly to the customers.”
Today Core Publishing Solutions serves some of the biggest names in the publishing industry, including publishers of books for universities, education, trade, faith-based organizations, and associations.
Because of its size, Core Publishing Solutions has best-in-class processes to efficiently fulfill a large volume of incoming orders from multiple customers.
Equipment for high volume book orders includes Timson Zero-Makeready monochrome web offset presses and a Komori sheet-fed offset press for book covers.
Digital printing and finishing equipment for press runs of 10 to a few thousand copies include:
- Two HP PageWide T360 monochrome inkjet web presses
- Two HP PageWide T485 four-color inkjet web presses
- Two Canon varioPRINT iX3200 cut-sheet inkjet presses
- Two Kodak Nexpress digital-cut sheet presses
The HP presses have in-line Magnum FlexBook signature folding and Muller Martini SigmaLine III systems to create book blocks for hard-cover and soft-cover binding systems.
Cut sheets printed on the Canon and Kodak presses are finished with digital embellishment, laminating, hot foil stamping, and UV coating equipment.
Automated Workflows and Cobots
Automation has helped Core Publishing Solutions maintain the scale of their manufacturing operations while adhering to the lean manufacturing principles they adopted in 2006.
“As a manufacturer, if you lose scale, you lose efficiency. So, we had to find a way to maintain the unit costs, and protect the margins of our business,” says Zweber. Their employees focused heavily on identifying lean manufacturing methods that could reduce time and waste from their manufacturing processes.
The company collects and analyzes production data to detect and evaluate inefficiencies in their workflows. Core Publishing Solutions uses the SAP enterprise resource planning and business management software platform integrated with production equipment software such as Kodak Prinergy RBA, Ultimate Impostrip, Canon Prisma, and Muller Martini Connex.
“We tackled the biggest problems first but quickly saw that there were far more opportunities for improvement than just a few large projects a year in an operation of our size,” says Zweber. So, Thomson Reuters Global Print organized their teams and culture around it. They started looking for opportunities for improvement not only across the entire operation, but also within each department and work cell.
“We gave each work cell team the autonomy to look at the metrics for their part of the business and decide whether they were pointed toward the ‘true north’ vision that would guide the future success of the business as a whole.” explains Zweber.
If the metrics were out of control, the teams were asked to suggest ways to improve. If the metrics aligned with the company’s over-arching vision for improvement, employees were asked how they could keep it going.
Every month the improvement project that adds the highest value to the organization is publicized in the employee newsletter and in posters hung near the doors where employees enter or leave the building. Recognition luncheons are held to honor the teams that delivered the results.
“The employee recognition builds so much momentum for change, that continuous improvement is now ingrained in our culture,” reports Zweber. “Each team wants to succeed. They want to be a viable part of our future.”
Core Publishing Solutions has long used robots to handle heavy materials on their production floor. But they recently began using collaborative robots (“cobots”) to free skilled employees to handle more challenging work.
Traditional robots work well providing repetitive tasks for a large volume of work, explains Zweber, but they can only do a finite number of things that are defined by a hard-coded program. Safety cages are used to keep fast-working robots from accidentally harming employees that come too close.
“Collaborative robots are teachable. They have vision systems and sensors and infinite programming opportunities,” explains Zweber. “If a human employee walks within a certain distance of it, the robot will slow down or stop.”
“Collaborative robots are taking over some of the jobs that are hard to staff – such as jobs that involve repetitive tasks that create a safety or muscular-skeletal risk,” he adds.
Managing a Mix of Offset and Digital Printers
While digital presses have come a long way in terms of quality, speed, and capabilities, they aren’t likely to replace high-volume web-offset printing anytime soon.
Manufacturers of offset presses have significantly reduced the manual touchpoints required to change from one print job to another.
As both offset and digital print processes become more efficient, automation and artificial intelligence can help calculate the most cost-effective method of fulfilling each order.
“The breakeven point between offset and digital printing is extremely dynamic, and it’s changing every day,” says Zweber. Run length isn’t the only factor to consider. Other variables include ink coverage, single-color or multi-color pages, page count, trim size, and finishing requirements.
“We tell publishers that we can serve the entire life cycle of the products,” says Zweber. Before a full production run on an offset press, they may use a digital press to provide short runs of proofs and sample copies. After all copies of the full production are sold, a digital press can be used to produce reprints.
Advice for Other Print-Service Providers
In recognition of Core Publishing Solutions’ successful adaptation to shifting markets, Printing Impressions recognized the organization as Innovator of the Year in 2024.
For other print-service providers that must adapt to market shifts, Zweber offers this advice: “Stay close to your customers to predict what their needs are going to be. Also, stay close to the technologies and the industry to see what solutions are going to be available. This can help you understand the challenges your customers will face and leverage applied technologies to help solve those challenges.”
For More Information
Core Publishing Solutions
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