Capabilities Archives - Consolidated Press

Strategizing for election success

July 7, 2023/in Capabilities, Consolidated Press Blog, Direct Mail, Print /by Consolidated Press

Print and mail campaigns can maximize voter turnout and positive results

Political campaigns heavily rely on print campaigns, especially in states like Washington that exclusively use mail-in ballots, printed materials and direct mail campaigns play a crucial role in reaching voters. Governments, candidates and political groups need to collaborate on a comprehensive plan with their commercial print partners to ensure a smooth and effective election-focused mailing in vote-by-mail states.

Understand the Mail-In Ballot System

In states where mail-in ballots are the primary voting method, it is crucial to have a thorough understanding of the deadlines and regulations governing the process to help shape the messaging and timing of the campaign to align with the election timeline.

Tailor Materials for Vote-by-Mail Voters

In states like Washington, where voters receive their ballots by mail, printed materials take on an even more critical role in engaging and informing voters. Governments and political parties should develop materials that educate voters about the voting process, highlight key issues, and provide clear instructions for completing and returning mail-in ballots. Design compelling brochures, flyers, and informational inserts that address common questions and concerns.

Collaborate with Printers That Have Election Expertise

Download our election checklist

Collaborating with experienced commercial printers is vital to the success of any election-focused mailing. Consider these aspects when working with printers:

Has your printer done this type of work before? Choose a printer with experience and knowledge in executing election mailings in your state. In Washington, Oregon, and California, they should understand the unique requirements, regulations, and deadlines associated with mail-in voting. Their knowledge will ensure that your materials comply with all the necessary specifications and arrive on time.

Consultation and design support. Planning is critical. For presidential election years, we recommend planning at least six to eight months out. For mid-term years, three to six months is fine. If your printer’s schedule fills up early, you run the risk of not having press time or paper secured in advance. Printers can put estimated deadlines in their schedule, and you can firm up later. Moving time around on a scheduling board is easier than creating time at the last minute. Work closely with the printer to discuss your campaign objectives, messaging, and target audience. Ask for advice on material design, paper selection, color choices, and printing techniques. Their expertise will help you create appealing and impactful materials that effectively convey your message to voters.

Look for extensive proofing and quality control. Establish a comprehensive proofing process in collaboration with your printer. Ensure that all printed materials undergo thorough proofreading to eliminate errors and inaccuracies. The printer should have robust quality control measures in place to deliver materials that meet the highest standards.

Develop a Mail Strategy

A well-developed mail strategy is essential to ensure that your printed materials reach the target audience in a timely and effective manner. Here are some key considerations:

Accurate voter data. Maintain accurate and up-to-date voter data to ensure your mailing list is precise and reliable. Work closely with the data management team at your print-and-mail house to regularly update voter information, including addresses and demographic details. Clean data will optimize the efficiency and effectiveness of your mailing campaign.

Targeted segmentation. Segment your voter base based on demographics, voting patterns, or specific interests to tailor your printed materials accordingly. Customizing your mailings allows you to address specific concerns or issues relevant to different voter segments.

A smart mailing timeline. Develop a detailed timeline that encompasses the various stages of your mailing campaign. Include all the steps, like design and production, addressing and labeling, sorting, and drop-off or delivery to the postal service. Account for production lead times, processing times, and the recommended mailing window to ensure your materials reach voters well before the election.

Compliance with postal regulations. A commercial printer with expertise in election mailings (like Consolidated Press!) knows the specific postal regulations and guidelines applicable to your state, and they can ensure that your materials meet size, weight, and format requirements set by the postal service to avoid any delivery issues or delays.

Tracking and monitoring. We utilize services provided by the postal service to track and monitor the progress of your mailings, allowing you to verify that materials are being delivered as planned and enabling you to address any issues promptly.

Evaluation and learning. Once the mailing campaign is complete, evaluate its effectiveness and gather feedback. Analyze response rates, voter engagement, and overall campaign impact. Use this information for future mailings and to refine your strategy for upcoming elections.

Leverage Digital Integration

While mail-in ballot states heavily rely on printed materials, it is essential to integrate digital strategies for enhanced engagement—the combination of print and digital maximizes the campaign’s impact and reach.

Engage with Local Communities

During an election cycle, governments, candidates and political parties should focus on building strong connections with local communities. Organize community events, town hall meetings, or rallies to engage directly with voters. Printed materials, such as posters, banners, and informational handouts, can play a vital role in promoting these events and creating awareness. Consolidated Press can coordinate your materials and timing so your brand identity is clear and clean across all collateral.

Print and mail campaigns are crucial for effective voter outreach. By collaborating with experienced printers and developing a well-defined mail strategy, local governments, candidates and political groups can maximize the impact of their election-time mailings. The efforts listed above will help ensure your materials ultimately contribute to a successful election campaign.

Download our election checklist

Use brochures, posters, guides and maps to promote your region’s summer fun

May 2, 2023/in Capabilities, Consolidated Press Blog, Direct Mail, Print, Publications, Retail, Trends /by Consolidated Press

When the sun comes out, people start looking to keep busy, feel refreshed, see something new, and get onto the open road.

Whether you own a business or work for a city, a parks department, a farmers’ market, or a nonprofit, summer is the time for printing projects aimed at the public—posters, brochures, calendars, maps, menus, guides, event collateral, direct mail, and more.

Posters reach more people.

Posters are an underrated source of advertising, and they are excellent at bringing people back to the spot they saw the poster in the first place. For example, if you are advertising a new farmer’s market or opening one for the season, plaster the area with posters.

An event like a farmers market draws mostly local people—people who tend to live, work, and play in the same places day after day. So it’s easy to ask them to return to a place they are already hanging out for something fun and ongoing like a farmer’s market, monthly flea market, or summer concert series. All they have to remember is the time or date.

The same principles work for one-time events like summer festivals, retail events, civic volunteer opportunities, and more. Be sure to print the website, hashtag or a QR code on the poster for an even stronger memory aid. A simple and clear call-to-action (CTA) like “Post a selfie with this poster” will go a long way toward engaging people and bringing them back to the very place they are standing —with friends.

Read this comprehensive guide to creating posters that bring a buzz to your event.

Brochures are marketing’s best bet.

Everybody likes to pick up free stuff! Brochures are better than free—they represent possibility, excitement, travel, fun, relief from boredom, and future purchases and services that make life better.

Consider these compelling statistics when planning your summer advertising campaigns:

7 out of 10 tourists, as well as visitors, tend to pick up brochures
95% of visitors that obtain brochures become aware of a business
80% of people consider visiting the business they saw in brochures

Keep in mind that brochures can truly reflect your brand’s aesthetic or personality. They don’t have to be the glossy three-fold six-panel classics we know from brochure stands in visitor centers across America. You can produce maps, calendars, posters, sales flyers, menus, and destination collateral, all in brochure form.

We can help you stand out with:

Strong brand identity through color matching and design
A variety of paper choices for your budget and brand
Professional folding and printing so your brochure is easy to read
Fun and functional stickers and seals
Addressing, sorting, storage, and direct mailing (if you want to go that route!)

Get on the map.

A March 2023 survey and report from The Vacationer revealed the potential for an enormous uptick in travel—especially domestic travel—this summer.

As summarized in Travel Agent Central this month:

Eighty-five percent of Americans plan to travel this summer. Nearly half of them are planning to travel more this summer compared to last, and those who intend to travel this summer represent a 5% increase over 2022. Ninety percent of American adults aged 30 to 44 intend to travel this summer, as do 88% of 45- to 60-year-olds and 87% of adults under 30. Forty-three percent of women said they intend to travel more, while 40 percent of men said they will.

Sixty-two percent of respondents said their travels will be domestic only. Seventeen percent said their travels would be domestic and international, while 6 percent said they would only be traveling internationally. Nearly four in five travelers plan to take a road trip this summer, most traveling between 100 and 500 miles.

Now is the time to get your community on a map. There are so many ways and reasons to do this!

Regional and state visitor associations can create road trip maps of cities and tourist destinations.
Cities and towns can publish a map of shopping and dining hubs, pointing visitors to all the places to play and spend money while passing through. Locals love these maps too, when they are updated regularly.
Hotels and convention centers can publish maps of nearby nightlife, dining, and daytime activities.
Tourist bureaus can offer maps of day trips within a radius of your city or region.
Business hubs and neighborhood associations can promote dining and shopping with hyper-local maps, capitalizing on “coop-ertition” to bring more people to the location by displaying or handing out the map at each business in the area.
Local Arts and Entertainment can distribute information on upcoming show schedules, venues, special events, or concerts.

Organizations often have state or local funds to produce maps promoting their area. Local businesses can offset these costs by advertising or paying for a prominent location on the map. Be sure to create a connected website for the latest updates, specials, and events.

Invite summer fun—and spending!—with print products like maps, brochures, direct mail, guides and posters. Visitors and locals alike will be happy to jump in.

With our efficient presses and professional staff, we can help you steward your resources while creating important print products that benefit everyone. Let us help you—reach out today.

Clear and accurate print materials help elections stay secure and accessible

August 17, 2022/in Capabilities, Consolidated Press Blog, Direct Mail, Print /by Consolidated Press

Free and fair elections are the bedrock of American politics. Communicating in print has played a crucial role since the first one in 1788, and it continues to make the elections process secure and accessible to the entire voting public.

Election materials need to be clear, accurate and on-time

In the Northwest, we use mail-in ballots which, coupled with voters’ pamphlets, afford voters the time to sit down at their kitchen table and become educated on each candidate and issue while filling out their ballot. Accurate and clear printing means an accurate and clear message. Smudges, misalignment, missing pages and improper binding can all contribute to misinformation—particularly for those who are disabled or do not have easy access to the internet, including elderly and under-resourced adults.

Voters’ pamphlets are printed, addressed and mailed directly to voters in time to make informed decisions. Using a reputable printer for both printing and mailing services is key to proper list management and on-time mailing to registered voters. Any mistake or delay means a vote may be cast late or not at all.

A large printer like Consolidated Press can save money on mailing in several ways. We provide volume postage discounts by analyzing your files and providing postal logistics planning and strategy. We deliver mail direct to USPS bulk mail centers for faster delivery and postage discounts, and ink-jet addressing occurs in-line on our stitchers to save you time and money.

Printed campaign communications help sway voters

Taking part in our election process means being able to convey our specific ideals, opinions and plans to our constituents. Whether that is through flyering, print and direct mail, or canvassing, there’s a personal touch with print that you don’t get with digital communication. Besides that, print–even print and mail—is much cheaper and better trusted than television spots and outdoor advertising.

After a contentious race in Virginia, the USPS teamed up with the American Association of Political Consultants to ask voters about their sources for political outreach and information. The results revealed the power of direct mail for local campaigns.

Nearly 70% said mail sent to their homes was the most credible political outreach technique. Sixty-six percent of female voters, 56% of millennial voters, 57% of nonwhite voters, and 69% of college-age voters trusted direct mail the most. The survey also revealed direct mail in the top three most persuasive channels.

In addition, most people visit their mailboxes every day. They have positive associations with mail vs. unrecognizable digital campaign messages that are frustrating because of pop-up ads, potential privacy issues, and frequency.

Reliability is key to the civic process

The printing industry has been in a tough spot since the pandemic started. In the early days, working together in a building was nearly impossible. Later, worker shortages slowed commercial printers across the nation. Add to that supply chain tangles and paper shortages, and presses were in a constant state of catch-up.

Today, Consolidated Press is completely staffed up and enjoying a surplus of paper. Our suppliers and vendors are all coming back up to speed and are at pre-Covid turnaround times.

All of these factors add up to a reliable, cost-effective process suitable for government budgets and responsive to tight deadlines on the campaign trail.

With our efficient presses and professional staff, we can help you steward your resources while creating essential print products that benefit everyone. Let us help you educate voters—reach out today!

The Power of the (Printing) Press to Make Information Equitable, Timely, and Useful to Everyone

May 4, 2022/in Capabilities, Consolidated Press Blog, Direct Mail, Print, Trends /by Consolidated Press

Government Agencies and Municipalities Rely on Print

Municipalities and government agencies produce a lot of print publications, and for a good reason—they are responsible for educating citizens. By law, they need to make certain publications available to everyone, regardless of whether they have internet access.

Think voter’s pamphlets and, in Washington state, the ballots themselves. Municipal recreation center program catalogs. Transit schedules, walking maps. Driver’s guides. There are fliers and brochures at every public office in dozens of languages represented in any major city.

Governments are also required to seek citizen input on new developments and major projects. They require diversity and volume of input from citizens on projects such as bridge construction, new highways, and public spaces that are coming online. Zoning changes and redevelopments need public buy-in to move forward. A public involvement team is often brought in specifically to do this outreach, and printed communications or publications are essential.

Direct Mail Reaches Each Household

Direct mail is also vital for municipalities and contractors specializing in government outreach. Each year, updated recycling brochures are mailed out to every person who gets services. Changes in water, gas and electricity rates come through the mail. Every homeowner is mailed a value assessment on their house periodically.

Recently, the pandemic has compelled governments to disseminate critical public health information to huge populations as quickly as possible.

All of this information is printed to reach the most diverse and complete group of constituents.

Consolidated Press Specializes in Government Projects for Several Reasons

We have enormous capacity on our web presses. We can run thousands of pieces in a short period of time. Because we work at scale, we can nimbly produce essential publications very cost-effectively right when they are needed.
We are experts at getting your direct mail to citizens and employees quickly and inexpensively. We create and mail announcement postcards, parks and recreation catalogs, visitor’s guides, regional newsletters, and more. We can work with you on paper choices and other tweaks that create a lighter, less expensive, yet attractive and useful piece.
Some pieces are just workhorses, and they need to be durable for months or years to come. Books, manuals, catalogs, guides, directories, curricula, and collections of regulations can all be perfect bound into books of any size at Consolidated Press. Optical cameras on our presses confirm quality and placement, so even nondescript projects look professional and hold up for years.
Even public documents deserve their privacy. We understand that government information is sensitive and timely. We protect your information from public view until its designated release time and treat each project as highly confidential.

We believe in the power of the (printing) press to make information equitable, timely, and useful to everyone. Contact us today to start reaching your citizens tomorrow.

The Benefits of B2B Catalogs

January 18, 2022/in Capabilities, Catalogs, Consolidated Press Blog, Retail /by Consolidated Press

If you are a manufacturer or wholesale business, you know getting your product into the right hands is vital to your sales. One way to get a buyer to notice your product is to put a catalog mailed directly in their hands. Like in the B2C space, B2B catalogs are tangible content pieces that have a long shelf life, can build a brand, help cross-sell, and offer an overall picture of what is available.

What You See

Because a printed catalog remains in someone’s sight, the brand, products, and other details stay on the buyer’s mind. Especially for manufacturers and wholesalers who offer many different products in larger quantities, a catalog with comprehensive information makes it easier for a buyer to make wise decisions. Instead of clicking through tabs on a web browser, they can enjoy the convenience of having a single piece to view.

In addition, printed catalogs are more likely to be retained for future reference. Suppose a customer likes an in-stock product but is interested in a different size or color. In this case, the seller can quickly refer to the catalog rather than attempting to navigate a website.

Another advantage to a print catalog is that the visual elements help build brand recognition. The way the photographs are styled, the colors and fonts used, even the finish and weight of the paper, create positive brand associations.

Finally, a print catalog shows commitment. The planning, design, and distribution of catalogs assure your audience that you invest in quality and aren’t afraid to promote your business and showcase your products in the best light.

What You Get

Whether you are a buyer who is sourcing inventory for a storefront, a construction company looking for building materials, or a manufacturer locating replacement parts, the experience of browsing a catalog is more immersive than scanning multiple websites. As the digital space becomes noisier with pop-up ads, email notifications, and social media alerts, having curated content in one place lets the viewer discover products and potentially uncover new items that may not have been generally found with an online search.

Wholesalers and manufacturers can use catalogs to inform businesses that they have options. With delays in the supply chain disrupting inventory, the arrival of a wholesaler’s printed piece can open the door to new relationships. On the flip side, showcasing your product in print can help move excess inventory from your shelves to where it is needed most.

Let Consolidated Press help you open those doors and move those products. Whether you need to provide a business customer a quick and simple directory of parts, or you want to feature beautiful goods in quality imagery and special paper finishings, Consolidated Press can help you explore cost-effective options. We also specialize in one-stop printing, binding, and mailing, for an end-to-end process that will streamline distribution, getting your pages where they are needed most.

CONSOLIDATED PRESS IS AWARDED WITH 10 PRINTROCKS! AWARDS

December 23, 2021/in Capabilities, Consolidated Press Blog, Print /by Consolidated Press

Consolidated Press is thrilled to announce its recent awards at the 2021 PrintROCKS! competition. We were awarded Best of Division for printers with 51 – 100 employees for our work to produce the Advantage Mailing / Pearl Jam / Fender Booklet and Poster.

In addition to our Best of Division Award, we received the following recognitions:

Best of…

Books, Book Jackets, and Diaries
Offset: Sheetfed 40” and larger
UW Publication A7597 Clamor Literary Journal 2021

Magazines and Magazine Inserts
Offset: Sheetfed 40” and larger
Freehub Media Craft Magazine

Second Place

Brochures, Booklets, and Flyers
Offset: Sheetfed 40” and larger
Western Washington University Jeopardy Magazine 2021

Catalogs
Offset: Sheetfed 40” and larger
Barn Pros

Books, Book Jackets, and Diaries
Offset: Sheetfed 40” and larger
Western Washington University Jeopardy Magazine 2021/JEOPARDY MAGAZINE

Third Place

Catalogs
Offset: Sheetfed 40” and larger
Mallory Paint Catalog

Magazines and Magazine Inserts
Offset: Sheetfed 40” and larger
Charles Wright Academy TIES Magazine

Honorable Mention

Brochures, Booklets, and Flyers
Offset: Sheetfed 40” and larger
MOHAI Q4 Programs and Events Brochure

Books, Book Jackets, and Diaries
Offset: Sheetfed 40” and larger
Bloom Journal

Hosted by The Pacific Printing Industries Association, now PIASC, the PrintROCKS! competition celebrates the outstanding work of printing companies in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Alaska, Hawaii, Montana, and Utah. Learn more about the PrintROCKS! event by visiting: http://www.printrocks.org/

Consolidated Press – Seattle’s Printer

September 8, 2021/in Capabilities, Consolidated Press Blog /by Consolidated Press

For over 80 years, Consolidated Press has been a part of Seattle’s thriving and vibrant evolution. When our doors first opened in 1934 near the famous Pike Place Market, no one could have imagined that our city would be the center of technology, innovation, retail, and tourism that it is today. Fast forward many decades and one big move down to Sodo, Consolidated Press brings print and mail projects to life for many of the companies that have helped drive Seattle’s success and bring new people to the region to live, work, and play. Here are some of the Seattle-based projects that help tell the story of our great city.

Destination guidebooks

No destination is complete without a guidebook. Whether sending these out to prospective visitors or handing them to customers who have just arrived, tour books and guidebooks are a great way to welcome new business and help retain customer loyalty. These are often kept for the duration of a trip or stay and taken home and shared with others.

Gameday books and fan guides

Our location in Sodo makes us a little partial to our neighbors in the Stadium District and beyond. Whether you root for the Seahawks, Mariners, Huskies, Sounders, or our new NHL expansion team, the Kraken, fans love to take home a piece of the action. Gameday books, fan guides, commemorative player rosters and more are all a part of the ultimate fan experience.

Direct Mail to Reach Your Community

Seattle is known for its many distinct neighborhoods, each with its own unique style and flavor. Community events and festivals are the glue that keeps our city together. Seattle Farmers Markets serve the city population providing food access and promoting Washington State farmers. Communities participate in the National Night Out with neighborhood block parties and other relationship-building events. Rack cards or direct mail are great ways to reach residential-based lists to spread the word about events and other important initiatives in your area.

Pass booklets

Amongst Seattle’s many attractions are its wineries and breweries. Woodinville, the popular wine region about 45 minutes outside the city, is home to more than 100 wineries. Locals and visitors pick up pass booklets to take advantage of discounts and find information along our many wine and beer trails throughout the region.

Consolidated Press is proud to be a part of Seattle’s rich heritage and looks forward to growing along with its strong future. We are honored to serve our many local companies and organizations with effective solutions in print — direct mail, brochures, catalogs, booklets, and more to help them stay on time and on budget. Let us know how we can help with your next project.

Catalogs are a Powerful Investment in the Marketing Mix

May 25, 2021/in Capabilities, Catalogs, Print, Publications, Retail /by Consolidated Press

A great printer increases the return on that investment

It’s fun to get mail, and studies show consumers simply love it. Yet for a business, communication needs to be purposeful and powerful. With every page, there is a new opportunity to create a positive and lasting relationship with consumers that need your products and services.

Enter the direct mail catalog—a powerful marketing tool that works synergistically with online purchasing, dynamic user experiences, and superior measurables.

Simply put, integrated online and in-hand marketing campaigns add up to much more than the sum of their parts. Beautiful, targeted, interactive catalogs are the beating heart of those campaigns.

Learn the powerful ways catalogs convert your browsers into buyers, and how Consolidated Press can leverage that spark.

Customers who have a multi-channel relationship with companies buy more — and more often

Multichannel shoppers spend three times more than single-channel shoppers, and more than half of marketers today use three or more channels to promote their brands. Nordstrom reported recently that customers who connect with its brand through multiple channels spend four times as much as those who don’t. And while 95% of marketers know they need a multichannel strategy, most do not have one. Targeted catalogs offer that extra channel for buyer connection.

Customers are 46% more likely to buy from a company they are familiar with

Seasonal mailings keep that relationship up and offer enticing solutions and ideas just as consumer interest is peaking. (Think seed catalogs arriving in February just as the ice begins to thaw. So exciting!) But it’s important to be very targeted and personalized with your message in those seasonal campaigns because your direct mail is likely to arrive in the same week or even on the same day as your competitors. If you speak to those consumers directly while pushing them to your website or other online sales channel, they will have your company at top of mind.

Direct mail response rates are excellent and on the rise

Response rates to direct mail have increased dramatically in recent years, both to house lists and to prospects. More than half of catalogs are reported to be read or set aside to read later, an astonishing number compared to email marketing. Recent studies found that direct mail averaged a 4.4% response rate, compared to email’s average response rate of 0.12%. According to direct mail industry trends, a whopping 90.9% of merchants still use catalogs as a primary marketing tool, and 44.4% report their catalogs’ circulation grew year over year.

The return on investment for catalogs is high, but smart businesses still want to keep that investment strategically budgeted and targeted.

This is where Consolidated Press comes in

A powerhouse printer like Consolidated Press can keep costs down through scale and technology. To achieve that sought-after ROI, catalog and direct mail printers need to be lean, agile, and consistent, reducing waste and saving time. With our web, sheetfed and digital presses, your project will always be on the most efficient equipment for the job. CP’s Quality Assurance process guarantees that crisp imagery and brand colors will be perfectly matched in each new publication printed, ensuring clients are always presenting a consistent brand to their customers.

Tip: Plan and design several seasons’ worth of catalogs at once

Increase brand familiarity and ensure your catalogs reach your buyers and prospective buyers just when they are ready to order!

21st-century printers help clients target their customers through clean data, versioned copy, and multi-channel connections. Consolidated Press can easily put the most persuasive message in front of stakeholders on the house list or tweak it for high-value prospective customers. If our clients have data on their customers, we can use it to the fullest extent during the printing, mailing, and metrics tracking processes. We can help you strategically and seamlessly connect your paper catalog with your digital point of sale using dynamic technologies and tracking codes.

Tip: Come to us early in your process, and we can make sure your data is clean and ready to target buyers and users

Remember: the better the data, the broader the reach!

Consolidated Press employs a consultative approach with our clients to achieve stand-out publications that will be read right away. We can walk you through the benefits of various paper stock and finishes to both save mailing costs and create an enticing user experience. We have the capability to print unique sizes and shapes, creating a coffee-table piece that will draw eyes and hands. Consolidated Press utilizes the strength of its front-end software to manage color definitions on the press, resulting in consistent quality throughout a project’s run, and on future runs.

Tip: Mailing costs cut into profits

Work with one of our consultants to achieve that sweet spot of eye-catching innovative paper that is low weight and highly printable!

Whatever your products or services, a series of beautiful, well-targeted catalogs can increase user engagement, resulting in higher sales and revenue. Call or click to find how Consolidated Press can put the pieces into place.

Quality Assurance

April 14, 2020/in Capabilities, Consolidated Press Blog /by Consolidated Press

International Standards for Print Quality Give Sensitive and High Profile Pieces the Attention They Deserve

Quality assurance provides peace of mind for our clients, especially those in critical industries like medical and pharmaceutical.

Consolidated Press offers Quality Assurance on each and every one of our projects. We pull pages from every run, and examine them for defects, splotches, wrinkles and more. Those pulled pages are set aside and stored for three months. Quality Assurance, or QA, focuses on sampling in process and final production to identify, isolate and report defects.

Quality Control, or QC, prevents defects in the first place. Using quality attribute based checklists, in process inspections are performed to identify and correct defects throughout the production process. QC is a proactive quality system element. Both the QA and QC elements of CP’s quality system are ISO 9001 based, with focus on actively developing and improving processes with a focus on eliminating defect root causes.

Consolidated Press has applied international standards of quality assurance to the printing industry to ensure our most sensitive clients and high profile pieces are consistently printed with the highest quality every time. This is how we do it:

CP hired an experienced and highly qualified Quality Assurance Specialist. Our QA specialist, Heidi, has been in the print industry for 32 years. She knows the print process thoroughly, and is devoted to building and controlling processes to prevent mistakes and defects at every step.

SOPs STOP problems before they start. Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) have been written for all departments within CP, from estimating to billing. As these documents are created or updated, affected employees are trained. The quality assurance specialist maintains training records and assures that all documents are readily available for employee access and use.

Documentation is king. Documents that are necessary to assure the quality and consistency of CP products and services are maintained electronically and stored on the CP network. Documents are assigned a control/revision number and entered into a document log maintained by Heidi. As documents are updated, the control/revision number is refreshed and affected employees are trained on the new/revised document.

Each individual job is assigned a quality process level. CP developed print grade guidelines to establish acceptance criteria for products printed by CP and for material provided by subcontractors. Print grade 1 guidelines are used for the medical and pharmaceutical industries, annual reports and high-end marketing collateral. Print grade 2 guidelines are used for direct mail pieces, magazines and directories.

Grade 1 jobs get extra attention. Print grade 1 jobs go through an additional quality step and are tagged to receive formal sampling by the quality assurance specialist. The pulls taken from each operator are examined, defects are identified, with inspection results recorded/charted. Charting the defects is used to identify trends and to pinpoint opportunities for improvement.

ISO based quality assurance is a rare find in the printing industry but customers find it here every day.

At Consolidated Press, we help the pieces fall into place.

We Are Here For You.

March 20, 2020/in Capabilities, Print /by Consolidated Press

CP Business Continuity Plan

The safety of our employees, clients, suppliers and all of our families remain of critical importance to us. At Consolidated Press we are mobilizing our team and pulling together the expertise needed to provide guidance during times like these. This includes the following:

• Disaster risk assessment and contingency planning tools.

• Communicating and educating all employees about contagious diseases by having department meetings, posting notices and explaining our facility’s guidelines and plans.

• Our management teams have regularly scheduled meetings to refine our production plan should we need to react to production that is more limited.

• Supply chain continuity: plans and communications are in place with our suppliers (i.e. paper merchants, buyout partners, freight carriers, USPS and equipment servicers).

• We are additionally planning, scheduling and staffing for cases where we may see higher than usual absenteeism as employees need to care for children that may be out of school due to school closures, or employees need to care for impacted family members.

In addition, we have taken the following immediate steps in each facility to prevent the spread of influenza and create a healthy environment to minimize the spread of COVID-19:

• We comply with ever-expanding social distancing requirements.

• Updated Consolidated Press visitor policy: we are prohibiting all “non-essential” visitors from entering our facilities. Essential visitors are those required to keep us operational, such as equipment maintenance/repair and deliveries/pick-ups.

• Suspend non-essential business travel and conduct meetings virtually whenever possible.

• Purchased additional hand sanitizer and disinfecting wipes and placed throughout the facilities.

• Added multiple posters throughout the facility to raise awareness of proper hygiene habits.

• Working with our cleaning services, we’ve added additional focus areas in the office, manufacturing and common areas.

We are also encouraging individuals to take the following responsibility for personal health:

• Talk to your doctor about getting the seasonal flu vaccine.

• Stay home if you are sick with a fever in excess of 100°F.

• Take preventive actions to help stop the spread of germs.

• Wash your hands frequently with soap or hand sanitizer.

• Avoid touching your nose, mouth and eyes.

• Cover your coughs and sneezes.

• Keep frequently touched common surfaces extra clean such as telephones and computer keyboards.

• Avoid using other employee’s phones, desks, pens, or other tools and equipment.

We will remain in close contact with all of our clients and supply chain vendors and will work through this challenge together. Our common goal is to maintain a safe and healthy work environment for our employees while maintaining the products in print you trust us to produce at Consolidated Press. We are here for you.