Multimedia And Video--Lights, Camera, Action
As in-plants strive to grow by taking control of related services, several operations have found success by expanding into the audio-visual world.
Harry Beachler wants you to know one thing: if you see his in-plant staff boating or waterskiing on a weekday afternoon, they're not goofing off. In fact, it's a part of their job.
Such seemingly fun-filled days have become an occasional element of the job ever since Beachler—a communications specialist for the Phoenix-based water and power utility known as SRP (formerly Salt River Project)—encouraged management to meld the in-plant's printing capabilities with the in-house art and audio-visual/photography departments.
As a result, Beachler's customers now have the option of obtaining a complete project from one office: from printing to video to sound-mixing. Already, management has discovered that water safety videos, which used to be farmed out, can be produced and edited cost-effectively in-house. Best of all, SRP customers know that projects encompassing everything from manuals to instructional videos to CD-ROMs can produced simultaneously by Beachler's department.
"We've got the control right here under our roof," says Beachler. "If someone wants to do something tomorrow, boom, you're ready to go. Before, we'd have to schedule an outside contract person. Even if we did that on a regular basis and had some people standing by for us, it's still better now that we've got people in-house who are more familiar with the types of things the customers are looking for and how they want it done."
Expand Your Clout
Beachler's positive experience is not unlike that of many in-plants currently attempting to make the big jump into across-the-board production services. Experts say customers like the idea of one-stop-shopping, meaning in-plants that offer video and multi-media along with traditional printing not only wield more clout but are generally able to drum up business in other forms of media, instead of being content with customers' printing dollars alone.
"It was a good management decision," says Beachler, whose combined operation employs 30 people. "The art interfaces naturally with printing. We can also do jackets and labels for the videos."
Breaking into audio and multimedia after years of being a print-only shop can be daunting—and expensive—but it isn't impossible. What it does require, say those who have recently expanded, is the backing of both management and your staff, not to mention some anticipated expenses up-front for education and equipment purchases.
"We're just past the first year of implementation, and for the various departments we consolidated to make it happen, it was actually quite smooth," notes Don Landwehr, multimedia technical services supervisor at the Wisconsin Public Services Corp., a gas and electric utility based in Green Bay. "The tougher sell was to the company as a whole, the user and the organization. They were all afraid of losing the personal touch of each department, but I think we've overcome that, we've shown them we can still give them the personal touch and at the same time create efficiencies we didn't have before."
Landwehr spent several years encouraging management to merge the utility's print shop with its video, reprographics, CAD-CAM and mail services departments, with the intent of handling the workload of entire projects, from design to shipping. Today, the consolidated 15-person operation produces all of the in-house printing and training videos, with CD-ROM on the distant horizon.
"There's versatility now, because we've gained synergies with people," Landwehr says. "A lot of times we try to tie a common theme together between print and video, and the customers love it. The old adage applies: one person can lift a hundred pounds and two individuals can each lift 100 pounds, but together they can lift 300 pounds. The way I look at it, the print shop and reprographics room put images on paper, the video area puts images on tape, and the CAD area converts and eventually puts images on paper or film. It's all very labor-intensive, very hand-oriented. And what we do in bindery and printing is much the same thing. So the merging of those areas seemed very logical."
Wisconsin Public Services was fortunate in that its existing departments already had some of the equipment necessary to provide a near-complete operation, and, in fact, the department was actually able to save money by eliminating payments and maintenance costs on duplicate machinery.
But most in-plants—whether private companies or public agencies—will actually need to invest in equipment and software packages for videotaping, editing and sound mixing in both video and CD-ROM formats. Computers aside, prices vary according to the quality and capability of the equipment in question, but most agree it takes at least a $25,000 investment to produce a video project of high enough quality to please the average customer.
Features, Quality Are Improving
"You can obviously go to the stars with it if you want, but we're not NBC studios and don't want to be," says Jami Fristo, manager of publishing services at Ameritas Life Insurance Co. in Lincoln, Neb. "It's not cheap, and it's kind of like when desktop publishing got started: it was O.K. at first, but as time went on it got better and now the editing features and the quality are much better than they used to be for the same price. Today it's the same with digital cameras."
Even with the up-front expense, there may still be a short-term cost-savings if your department is already outsourcing its video work. As Fristo notes, "Once they know you don't have this stuff, they charge [a lot] per hour to edit, and that makes it real pricey to shoot anything."
Fristo says price will probably be the major consideration for any in-plant interested in expanding its capabilities. Training is also an issue, but Ameritas found employees were interested in learning and generally enthused about the expanded capabilities. In any event, formal extension classes at colleges and universities—which Fristo says he may send employees to—are inexpensive compared to the equipment itself.
"We're researching new cameras at this point, and it can be costly," he says. "But the real problem we run into is trying to find files and formats that will go from video and print to Internet without sacrificing quality. File management of all those things in the electronic world has been a struggle for us."
Fristo says his 11-person department is still in the learning stages and has yet to produce any video or multimedia products without external hand holding. Nonetheless, he feels multimedia is a direction all in-plants will have to turn to remain competitive.
"We're still in the trial-and-error stage, but we're confident we can do it," Fristo says. "We know we're going in the right direction."
Proceed Slowly
At SRP, which began expanding its capabilities several years ago, Beachler says that barring an unexpected windfall, the best strategy is to tread slowly and carefully until you know exactly what it is your customer needs most.
"Your first step is going to be a small one, maybe a video camera and some minor editing bays of some kind, because otherwise it can get too pricey," Beachler says. "It has to be a gradual build. That's the way it was with us. Then, as you demonstrate that you're doing something worthwhile, the money tends to be more available."
That was the case at SRP, which now has three video editing suites, all digital, and one digital-audio suite. The in-plant also has four Sony Betacams, and produces nearly all multimedia work in-house. The only work farmed out is diecutting for video jackets, and occasions where customers use 35-mm film, which Beachler's shop cannot yet handle.
Each month, SRP's in-plant produces a six-minute video that covers a "safety topic of the month." The same subject matter is then incorporated into a CD-ROM package distributed to local schools. The goal is to distribute water safety information to both children and adults via three vehicles: print, video and CD-ROM. Thanks to the expanded in-plant capabilities, it's all produced in-house. In fact, if you look closely you'll even see a shot of Beachler on a Stair Master in one of the safety videos.
With all of the attention to equipment and technical details, Landwehr says in-plants looking to expand should not assume they can ignore the practical needs.
"We're still looking for some synergies because we haven't yet been able to physically locate all of our departments together," he says. "Right now they're split up between three buildings, and that has created some problems for management like myself—mainly a lot of sneaker time. So I'd say it's important to get things centrally located as soon as possible."
In any event, managers agree the initial obstacle will be the internal alterations necessary to give the expanded in-plant a shot and making new capabilities succeed.
"As budgets get tighter and things change, people have to change," says Landwehr. "That's the biggest key, everyone has to want to change."
Once they make the shift and the synergies begin to fly, however, the differences will start to become apparent.
"Sometimes it has been easier to get funding for video equipment than to upgrade printing equipment," says Beachler. "Video is the hot item now."
Communication Is Crucial
Organization, both of management and purchasing guidelines, also plays a role in whether multimedia services can be successful at in-plants. At Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, video and multimedia are part of an overall department that includes printing and copying but are headed by different individuals. Working together has gone smoothly, but there have been occasional mix-ups.
"We had one project where we printed the labels for a videotape on safety and preventing crime that was supposed to be sent to all incoming students," says John Bowser, the school's manager of printing and copying. "But for some reason the video project got killed—after the labels were printed. We still have 1,000 sheets of those things laying around."
Still, unlike most universities, Miami houses its print, video and multimedia services under one roof, which Bowser hopes will pave the way for customers to bring in single projects that cover the spectrum.
"It hasn't come up yet, but that might have something to do with the setup here," Bowser says. "Customers don't have to run things with us, so the video could be done here and then the customer might run off on their own instead of coming to use for the printing or artwork."
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