Top In-plants Ranked by Sales per Employee

By Bob Neubauer

Ranking in-plants by the average amount of revenue each employee generates is one way to compare the efficiency and productivity of different-sized operations. To provide a glimpse of how some in-plants compare, we used the annual sales and employee figures from our December ranking of the largest in-plants to calculate the sales per employee for each.

As we’ve seen in the past, doing this often brings smaller in-plants from the bottom of the sales or employee lists to the top of the sales-per-employee list. For example, the State of New Mexico, the University of Oregon, and Encompass Health each have 12 or fewer employees, yet rank among the top 15 in-plants by sales per employee. On the other hand, only four in-plants made the top 10 list in both overall sales and sales per employee: Yale University and the states of California, Colorado, and Michigan.

A thriving promotional products business boosted Encompass Health Print Services to the top of the sales-per-employee list, with each of its 12 employees generating $683,333 — almost $250,000 more revenue than the next in-plant on the list. To put that in perspective, the average sales per employee of the 60 in-plants listed below is $192,881 while the median is $181,954.

With $437,302 in sales per employee, Duke is again the top university in-plant on the list, owing to its very successful copier management program. Farmers Insurance is far ahead of the next insurance in-plant on the list, generating $284,822 in sales per employee. Government in-plants comprise half of the top 10, with the state of Michigan leading that group thanks to the $381,890 in sales each of its 62 employees generates.

To compare your in-plant with these leaders, you’ll have to follow the same steps we took. First, subtract your postage costs from your annual sales. Then divide that figure by the number of full-time equivalent employees in your in-plant, which means adding half your part-timers to your full-time number. If your in-plant ranks among the top 10 according to this list, let us know.

Download this new ranking here.

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Bob Neubauer Author's page

Bob has served as editor of In-plant Impressions since October of 1994. Prior to that he served for three years as managing editor of Printing Impressions, a commercial printing publication. Mr. Neubauer is very active in the U.S. in-plant industry. He attends all the major in-plant conferences and has visited more than 180 in-plant operations around the world. He has given presentations to numerous in-plant groups in the U.S., Canada and Australia, including the Association of College and University Printers and the In-plant Printing and Mailing Association. He also coordinates the annual In-Print contest, co-sponsored by IPMA and In-plant Impressions.