Into Print, The University of Iowa Business Services' quarterly newsletter, aims to educate, inform, and entertain its readers, with a goal of fostering positive communication between the department, its staff, and its clients.

TypeStrikes

General news
Regents approve plans for CBSB addition
End-of-year accounting time nears: place orders now
Conferences, seminars keep staff up to date
Surveys bring good response

Central Mail System
Address for success: Use USPS guidelines on first-class mail
Use return address on all outgoing mail

Laundry Service
Laundry orders FSG uniforms
Laundry Service was first in U.S. to use new 70s technology

Materials Management
Receiving, shipping made easy
Use MIGS on-line order system for General Stores products
Former manager Claude Williams retires

Printing Department
Include Affirmative Action Statement on printed material
DocuTech training available
Printing Department wins honors
Check copier meters, send count at end of month
Character Counts: Meet Jerry Kilts
What's in a year?

We are . . .

Business Services directory

The project will add a new 6,000-square-foot facility to the southwest part of the building and will include shipping and receiving docks and a staging area. It will also allow for improvements, office construction, and remodeling within the existing building.

The new loading dock area will be used by all the departments in the building and will serve as the new location for the University's Central Receiving and Shipping service. The staging area will provide a place for General Stores' primary office product supplier and other vendors to deliver goods. After items have been received on one side of the dock facility, they will be sorted according to the delivery point and loaded onto pallets in the central staging area, then reshipped in University vehicles from the other side of the facility to various campus locations.

The project will add general office space to the building. In addition, plans feature a conference room, new rest room facilities, a break room, and a customer service center. These new areas will be available for units throughout the building.

Construction is scheduled to begin this summer, with completion in the fall. The project will allow General Stores to move from its current Gilbert Street location to the Consolidated Business Services Building, where it will join the Printing Department, Central Mail System, and Publications Order Services. The progress of this project will be updated in future issues of Into Print.
Gary Anderson

This includes all services the department provides: offset printing and related finishing; copy center work; color imaging and photocopying; editing, proofreading, and design; and electronic publishing output.

Our billing policy does not allow us to encumber funds, so only the work performed as of 4 p.m. June 30, 1997, will be charged in this fiscal year. The balance of charges for any job in progress will be made when the job is completed and closed.

State Printing Order (SPO) charges will be billed in the present fiscal year only if we receive the order by 4 p.m. June 30, 1997. The charges are based on the estimated invoice from the vendor.

If you wish to purchase an office copier from your current budget, contact the Printing Department accounting office immediately to start the process and give yourself time for machine trials.

Submit a written request describing your copier needs. A member of our staff will provide you with a customized list of copiers that meet your criteria and will make arrangements for the trials.

Central Mail System manager Lou Eichler attended and conducted sessions at MailCom97, a national conference for mail professionals held annually in Atlantic City. His presentations were titled Continuous Quality Improvement, Customer Service Using the Internet, and the UI Central Mail System operations.

At other sessions, information was exchanged about the expected increase in first-class mail rates and about possible changes in the USPS's handling of parcel post in response to increased competition, says Eichler. Watch for more information about these topics in future issues of Into Print.

Jerry Miller, assistant manager of Laundry Service, attended an information technology seminar to learn how to program and use the processing system that will be installed in the laundry's new facility. The system will "enhance the capability of Laundry Service for total automation," says Miller. The seminar, conducted by American Network Systems, was held in Acworth, Georgia, near Atlanta.

Mary Jane Beach, director of Business Services, and Lee Vasquez, also of Business Services, participated in the Big Ten Business and Support Service Administrators annual conference, held this year at Michigan State University. The conference provides an opportunity for exchange of information and ideas, says Vasquez.

A variety of services are represented at the conference because the schools' organizational structures vary. Administrators for areas including residence, food, purchasing, printing, mail, laundry, parking, bookstores, arenas, travel, and accounts payable attended the meeting.

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Format
Every mailpiece must have a delivery and return address. Type or machine-print the information, using upper-case letters and no punctuation. Make sure the type is clear and sharp, and that individual characters do not touch or overlap. Maintain a uniform left margin. Choose high-contrast colors, black ink on a white background, for example. Include floor, suite, and apartment numbers whenever possible. Put the city, state, and ZIP or ZIP+4 code, in that order, on the last line. Leave one or two spaces between words and between the state abbreviation and ZIP code. Use standard, two-letter state abbreviations. The recipient's country, spelled out in English, should be on the last line of international mail.

Placement
The following information describes the sequence and position to use for addressing your mail:

Envelopes: Placement of the address on the face of an envelope should conform to USPS specifications, which are available from Central Mail System. When using window envelopes, make sure the complete address is always visible, even if the insert shifts around inside the envelope.

Labels: Labels for use on parcels, packages, or large envelopes must be addressed according to the format guidelines described above. The address must be complete. Apply labels parallel to the bottom (long) edge of the envelope for processing by automated USPS equipment. Central Mail Service will return improperly prepared labels for correction and/or completion.

Address area: The delivery address should be located fully within this area. Do not allow return address information to extend into this space. Place nonaddress printing or markings, such as logos and slogans, as high on the mailpiece and as far away from the address as possible. Extraneous information that extends into this space may cause the optical character reader (OCR) to misread the address.

Bar code read area: Make sure that this area remains clear of all printing. It is reserved for the bar code that will be printed by the OCR. Make sure the place (not office or suite number) where you want the mail delivered appears on the line immediately above the city, state, and ZIP code line. For example, use 123 W MAIN ST STE 400, or P O BOX 125, but not both.

Central Mail Service can provide lists of standard abbreviations on request. Call 384-3810 to request a copy of the lists or for more information.

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Gone are the polyester trousers with matching poly/cotton shirts. In their place, employees can choose blue jeans or blue industrial pants, eight pairs each; and eight short- and eight long-sleeved shirts in button-front or polo style and a variety of colors. The long-sleeved shirt choices include sweatshirts.

Each employee makes important uniform choices as he or she is sized, addressing fiber, shrinkage, washability, the differences in fit of each brand, and shirt colors. The colors vary due to vendor, fabric, and style. Five colors for polos, four for button-front shirts, and three for sweatshirts are available. All of this color adds pizazz to otherwise monotonous work wear. In order to distinguish different FSG groups, all shirts have Gothic Bold lettered shirt emblems. Uniformity(!) is now a choice, but no longer required. Laundry Service issues the garments after ordering, receiving, checking for fit, and bar-coding them.

This cycle is repeated for each FSG group. Each of 410 employees receives eight new uniform sets. At four to five sizings per hour, it takes 80 to 100 hours just to size the FSG service area employees. Add to that the hours needed to collate the orders, unpack shipments, and bar-code and issue the garments, and this project really gains magnitude. Changing one's mind is frowned upon by our uniform staff, causing them to make veiled threats for noncompliance (just kidding)! The uniform staff does request that FSG employees give some thought to their choices.

Many hours of planning by the FSG uniform team, which collaborated with Jerry Miller and Karen Lorence of Laundry Service, preceded this major change. We think it is a positive move for everyone involved and urge you to check out the new look on June 1, when Custodial Services employees, the first FSG group to be sized, are issued their new uniforms.

Jo Anne Worley

The period from 1960 to 1990 was a very interesting and progressive one for the Laundry Service. During the 60s, the laundry experienced a significant increase in the volume of textiles processed, and expanded its services to include a dust control program.

The first automated tunnel washing system in America was purchased by the Laundry Service in 1970 and in use by the end of 1971. This system represented the industry's first effort at engineering a "hands off" approach to washing, extracting, and drying textiles. The Ametek tunnel system involved three stand-alone machines that were operated as one system by combining the control panels of the three machines into one. This was the first successful effort in America at combining West German electronic relay logic with American solid-state electronic control technology. The marriage of these different systems revolutionized the laundry industry, and the UI Laundry Service was the first laundry in America to benefit from it.

This new washing system processed 100 pounds of soiled linen every 3.5 minutes throughout a workday and could be monitored and controlled by one employee. The UI Laundry Service had many visitors from around the world who were interested in observing this new technology and assessing its applicability to their businesses. For the first time in the United States, a tunnel washing system was used in a laundry facility dedicated to processing large volumes of hospital linens. Tunnel washing systems were commonplace in Europe, but not in the United States because the use of electronic technology was different.

The UI Laundry Service purchased a second tunnel washing system in 1976. Purchasing and operating two of these systems was a significant financial investment. However, it allowed the department to eliminate old washing equipment that was very labor intensive. A 40 percent increase in departmental productivity resulted from the purchase of this new technology.

The UI Laundry Service has held a unique position in the institutional health care industry because it has the longest track record of using tunnel washing technology in America.

Dave Gray

Next: Energy costs and turnaround time drive Laundry Service changes, while environmental concerns affect the industry.

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General Stores typically receives from 2,500 to 3,500 tons of freight per year, with approximately 20 delivery trucks arriving daily. Many of them are large semis. We combine shipments from these trucks on one General Stores vehicle and make campus deliveries using our experienced drivers. This reduces the number of vehicles on campus because our receiving facility is located away from the campus area.

The goal of Central Receiving and Shipping is to deliver freight to the proper designee within eight working hours of receipt. The service operates under the following freight delivery guidelines and procedures:

Merchandise with HOT or RUSH designation is given prompt delivery service. Careful handling, securing of loads, and proper transportation of freight is important to ensure delivery of damage-free goods to the customer.

General Stores personnel does not uncrate, unpack, or remove merchandise from boxes or do any assembly.

The department receiving the goods is given a copy of the freight bill. The original freight bill and any attendant documents are retained at General Stores.

Deliveries are made via the shortest or most direct route between General Stores and the delivery point. We make every attempt to combine orders on a truck for efficiency.

Central Receiving and Shipping can send out freight for your department. The freight must be accessible at a loading dock or outside door. We'll shrink- wrap or band materials to pallets on request.

For more information, contact Wilbur Erhart at 353-2907.

Gary Anderson

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The Printing Department monitors inclusion of the statement on publications typeset there but does not do so on desktop, digital format, or camera-ready publications. If we notice that the statement is missing in the course of processing one of these orders for printing, we will notify you. However, correcting the oversight can mean delays and extra costs for you at that stage. Contact the Office of Affirmative Action, 335-0705, for more information about the use of the statement.

The University of Iowa nondiscrimination statement: The University of Iowa prohibits discrimination in employment or in its educational programs and activities on the basis of race, national origin, color, creed, religion, sex, age, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or associational preference. The University also affirms its commitment to providing equal opportunities and equal access to University facilities. For additional information on nondiscrimination policies, contact the Coordinator of Title IX, Section 504, and the ADA in the Office of Affirmative Action, 319/335-0705 (voice) or 319/335-0697 (text), 202 Jessup Hall, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, 52242-1316.

Jerry's press, about the size of a delivery van or small dump truck, is usually running. "I'm always busy," he says. "We have very little down time with it." He might print as many as 30,000 sheets on a good day, if the job is not too complex, he says. He keeps samples of his work, which include booklets for the Belin Center and Continuing Medical Education, brochures for Athletics, and newsletters for the colleges of Dentistry and Engineering, in a cabinet near his press for ready access.

Before coming to the UI, Jerry worked at a printing business in his hometown of Cedar Rapids. "I started as an apprentice, making $2.50 an hour, if I remember right. I stayed with them 25 years, until they closed," he says.

Jerry enjoys his colleagues -- he commutes to work with one, whom he met at his previous job, and plays golf with another. "I love it here. This is the best job I've ever had. The people are really nice. They help each other and deal with each other. They're friendly, too," he says.

He met his wife, Connie, at his previous job. She now works in accounting at another Cedar Rapids printing business. Their daughter, Kimberly, works at an Iowa City jewelry store. In addition to playing golf, Jerry likes to garden and watch television in his leisure time. Every year he grows tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, peppers, beans, and peas on his acreage in southwest Cedar Rapids. He buys plants and always starts putting them in about May 15. "I'll be tilling my ground up here real shortly," he says. Printing Department employees will reap the fruits of his labor in late summer, when he begins to supply the department with surplus tomatoes. In fact, they'll be depending on it.

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We are . . .