Cigna-Look, Ma, No Hands!

Cigna Printing and Distribution

Charleston, S.C.

If there's one thing John Panhorst doesn't want to do, it's get his hands dirty.

Not that Panhorst, assistant vice-president of printing in Cigna's Printing and Distribution department, has a problem with working; he just knows that the in-plant runs a lot more smoothly and efficiently if people don't get in the way of the machines.

"We've got our systems so automated that when an order comes in to ship 500 books, the whole thing drops into the demand print queue automatically," he says. "We don't interface with it at all, and frequently we put those books out the same day."

The books that Panhorst refers to are benefit books that detail Cigna's insurance, health care and investment plans—and with more than 12,000 different benefit books in existence, automation has proved to be a very good thing.

The quick turnaround and flawless automation are possible due largely to the department's Océ DI-8080, which Panhorst says is three to four times faster than the Xerox DocuTech 6180.

"There are fewer feeding problems because the Océ is a roll device instead of a sheet," he says. "The disadvantage is that you have to have a lot of work to run. You can't swap back and forth from a four-page to a two-page. It has to be very consistent."

Because of the time required to adjust the machine, Panhorst also consistently uses paper that's 20-lb. bond and 17˝ wide.

Still, that allows him enough setups to serve the company's needs, from a four-page folder that's printed as a 17x11˝ flat, to two 81⁄2x11˝ sheets side-by-side, to the multitude of benefit books.

"We do them two-up and offset stack them so that each stack represents a finished book," says Panhorst. "The output is stacked on a carrier board that's transferred by a roller conveyor to one of three bindery stations. We run that whole department in three shifts with two people on each shift."

That Océ speed also helps provide the numerous forms that Cigna employees request from around the country. The current inventory of the two Cigna warehouses—the main one in Charleston and another near Los Angeles—is accessible over the company's intranet, and employees can order supplies online right out of the warehouses.

"They don't realize it, but sometimes the request works its way through the system to a demand print job that I print that night and ship out the next day," says Panhorst. "It's all electronic—we could never do that with an offset press."

Employees on the West Coast are naturally served from Los Angeles, and those in the East from Charleston, but the real advantage of dual warehouses is in freight costs. Cigna orders envelopes in the millions and it's much more cost effective to bulk ship them to the West Coast than to drop ship a box here and there as needed.

Panhorst carries his hands-off style even into business cards, which make up just a fraction of his business. An employee can order cards directly off his or her PC, with the name, address and other data read directly from the computer. He or she then verifies the number of cards to be printed, and specifies where they should be delivered.

"When the order comes to us, we populate fields with that information along with 10 other orders [and print them on one sheet]," he says. "We sell business cards for $9.50 an order for a two-color card, the employee receives them in a week, and we make money on it. We never touch the business cards and it runs like clockwork."

Eric Martin can be contacted at:

eric@twowriters.net

Key Equipment

• Two-color 40˝ Heidelberg Speedmaster

• Three smaller sheet fed offset presses

• A Halm jet envelope press

• Two-color Apollo press

• Didde four tower press

• Riso duplicators

• Two-tower King Web Press

• A roll-fed Océ DI-8080

• Two Xerox DocuTech 6180s, one with a CP Bourg in-line binding unit