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
Buy recycled from Business Services
Consolidated Business Services: it was a pretty good year
UI recycled copy paper use up to 66%

Central Mail System
Automation: Who pays, and why
Character Counts: Meet Judy Stromer

Laundry Service
State-of-the-art monorail system automates UI Laundry Service

Materials Management
Equipment Rental moves to CBSB
Surplus moves again, to former General Stores building
General Stores catalog to be available this month
Publications staff joins Stores
Need MIGS, SIGS help?

We are . . .

Business Services directory

General Stores staff will deliver the phone books as soon as they are available to us, probably around December 1. Only standard size phone books will be available. Recycle old phone books by putting them in boxes placed next to your paper recycling containers.

If you do business with Document Services, Equipment Rental, General Stores, Printing Department, or Surplus, you are or can be using recycled products.

Recycled paper is an obvious starting point. The University Document Centers (formerly called Copy Centers) list 85 percent of their paper selection as recycled, giving you plenty of opportunity to use recycled paper there.

General Stores stocks recycled 8-1/2"x11" copy paper and sells it at low prices through a statewide paper contract designed to increase the use of recycled paper. Sales of this paper have increased over the past year, from less than 30 to 66 percent. The goal is a minimum of 90 percent.

Much of the material the Printing Department produces is on recycled stock, and about half of its stock list has recycled content. The UI watermark stationery is made from recycled paper, as are all the #10 envelopes we use. We special order many other recycled papers at the request of our customers.

Equipment Rental and Surplus operate expressly to recycle. Nearly everything they supply--computers, monitors, desks, chairs, tables, shelving, and more--is recycled directly, from one user to the next, without further processing.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reports Americans generate more than 208 million tons of waste a year. Through increased availability of recycling and consumer support, the national recycling rate has increased from 11 percent to 27 percent over the last 11 years. But there is a need "to increase the purchase of recycled-content products and recycling; to make consumers aware of the importance of 'buying recycled'" say organizers of America Recycles Day, a national event scheduled for Sunday, November 15. Business Services gives you many opportunities to do your part.

Reorganization
The four units have combined computer and marketing resources, and those at CBSB are also combining payroll and personnel functions. Campus Mail began making deliveries of small General Stores orders.

Equipment Rental and Publications Order Service became part of Materials Management, which also incorporated Oakdale Stores as a satellite of Maintenance Stores.

Programs and services
General Stores increased its recycled copy paper sales from less than 30 percent to 66 percent.

Materials Management staff trained custodians to use the SIGS on-line ordering system and worked with Facilities Services Group to develop a tire-derived fuel contract for the FSG power plant. Laundry Service initiated a new uniform rental program for FSG as well as adding several new uniform rental customers. General Stores' safety shoe program was modified to better serve its customers.

Printing Department customer service representatives increased their campus visits approximately 80 percent, to 91 visits. The Printing Department conducted eight staff development classes with a total enrollment of 136 UI staff. Materials Management began offering classes. Both departments increased on-site training for customers.

Staff development
All Laundry staff completed diversity training conducted by the Office of Affirmative Action. Management staff served on UIHC teams to help evaluate the hospital's linen functions.

The Printing Department hosted the annual Big Ten Printing Managers' and the Iowa Printing Managers' conferences; staff members had opportunities to attend sessions at both. The department also sent 45 staff members to Chicago for the largest printing-related show in the nation, and 18 staff members to electronic publishing production seminars in Cedar Rapids.

Materials Management staff attended Big Ten-plus Materials Management and PeopleSoft conferences and participated in a PeopleSoft focus group, an FUS reclassification review team, and a recycled paper committee.

Marketing, communications
All the Business Services units participated in a Staff Celebration Day exhibit. Materials Management's web site made its debut. The Printing Department continued to experience excellent quarterly customer survey reports, and it received four awards for the quality of printed items submitted to an international competition.

Operations
The Printing Department continued streamlining the Copy Center System and a strategic plan for the centers has been completed.

General Stores reduced its inventory 15 percent by using Electronic Data Interchange to order from its office products supplier. It has established campus connectivity and has worked with Information Technology Service to redesign the FSG and Maintenance Stores on-line ordering systems to accommodate PeopleSoft-related changes.

Facilities, equipment
Laundry Service and Materials Management started and completed construction and remodeling projects for their new facilities. Both departments moved, with minimal disruption of service to their customers.

Materials Management replaced eight old delivery vehicles with new ones from Motor Pool.

The Printing Department completed installation and training on DocuTechs at the Boyd Law Building Copy Center and CBSB. It purchased and installed a new color copier, tripling color copy production.

The units in Business Services are active, vital elements of the University. We will keep you posted on our progress.

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Barcoded mail will cost .2 cent less than nonbarcoded mail after the rate increases. Businesses that use bar codes on their mail will reap the benefit with lowered mailing costs, and those that mail without bar codes will pay the extra cost. The University contracts with a private vendor to bar code its mail.

Delivery-point bar codes, those little hash marks adorning the face of your mail, allow the Postal Service to mechanize mail sorting. Your mail carrier used to spend up to 50 percent of the work day sorting mail and the remainder of it delivering what he or she had sorted. Today the carriers spend less than 25 percent of their time sorting, allowing more time for delivery. More delivery time equates to longer routes and fewer carriers. Automated sorting machines can sort 30,000 pieces an hour.

In 1990, Postmaster General Anthony Frank stated the goal of having 95 percent of U.S. daily mail barcoded by 1995. In 1994 I spoke with then Postmaster General Marvin Runyon about the legacy left by his predecessor. Runyon's answer was very astute: The 95 percent goal was unattainable! The business community did not begin to apply bar codes to the extent anticipated by Frank and his advisors. The financial incentives were apparently insufficient to defray the costs. Runyon knew by then if the mail was to be barcoded, the Postal Service would have to do the job.

What's next? By the year 2000 the Postal Service will offer postage discounts for bar-coded flats, envelopes like 8"x10". Barcodes will be used on parcels for automated sorting as well as tracking.

Yes, the Postal Service will offer delivery confirmation. Aided, of course, by those little hash marks. The delivery confirmation service should be available this fall.
Lou Eichler

Mail Service employee Judy Stromer and friends made a quick trip to the Canadian Rockies via Montana and Glacier National Park. "We drove up and back--in a week," she says. "We took a leisurely drive getting there, but it took us three hard days of driving to get back." Earlier this year she was in New Orleans during Mardi Gras. Twice she has visited San Antonio during the Thanksgiving holiday, allowing her to do Christmas shopping in Mexico. All this has been in the past three years, and she hopes to visit New York City next year.

Judy reared four daughters, one of whom still lives at home, and now has three grandchildren. She "keeps an open door" for her children if they need "a roof over their head--temporarily," she says. She also helps her children with expenses when she can. She feels that today's salaries make it hard for young people to get ahead.

She and her two dogs (Fluffy is a spaniel mix and "Petie's some kind of hound, because his tail wipes everything off of tables") and cat share a home with Judy's parents.

Judy went back to school at age 41 and graduated from the UI with a degree in anthropology. She likes to "read for fun," she says. Her reading is mostly mysteries. "I'm not much on drama," she says. "Life's been enough drama."

In the past, Judy has worked at ACT and NCS. She currently works evenings at Wal Mart, in the shoe department, in addition to working at Mail Service.

Judy likes the variety in her job. The staff alternate on tasks and equipment: some days she works on the inserter, other days she operates the label machine, works on the folder, or meters mail. "We take turns on the billing. About once a month each person works on that task," she says.

Currently, she is hand-stuffing the insurance packets that University employees receive each year--all 13,000 of them. Duct tape covers her hands and fingers to prevent paper cuts. When you receive your insurance packet, think of the person who sent it: someone who loves to travel and read, keeps her home open for her children, and found yet one more use for duct tape.

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The system allows efficient use of space through the overhead transport of laundry. It uses gravity in combination with electrical power to move slings full of laundry from one station to another (slings carry laundry along the monorail system through the plant while bags hold incoming soiled laundry). Its stainless steel components provide more durability than steel rails, and a trolley design means reduced metal wear on the rails.

Touch-screen controls transmit information about each sling, and laundry can be monitored and accounted for throughout the process. The data are used for laundry processing and for reports that can be generated on demand. The all-graphic interface shows each sling's content and weight; its location in the system; its place in the sequence of all work processed; customer codes; washing formula and drying time needed; and final destination of the sling. The wash formula itself specifies the water levels and temperatures; quantity of wash chemicals; run time of each cycle; revolutions per minute (rpm) of the washing cylinder; drain time; drain openings; water extraction speed; and rpm for extraction (the maximum is 500).

"The system is 90 percent implemented. Now we are working on fine tuning," says Laundry manager Dave Gray. "The goal is to speed up production and service to the campus, to enhance our service to customers by having a faster turnaround time," he says.

Sorting is imperative and includes a manual and an automated process. Soiled linen is sorted along a conveyor "on the monorail side" and tossed into blue, 110-pound-capacity slings. A sorting employee moves the laundry into the automated part of the process when he or she connects the slings to the system and touches the appropriate screen icon for that category of linen, sending the laundry into overhead rows where they are held for washing.

Next, the slings move along the rails to deliver laundry to the top-loading washers. Each washer holds four slings (440 pounds) of laundry. At the end of the cleaning cycle, each washer dumps its load onto a shuttle conveyor, which transports the clean laundry to a dryer.

Everything else happens "on the clean side." The dryers deposit laundry onto a conveyor which carries it uphill, then drops it into a white, 220-pound-capacity, "clean-side" sling. From here the slings move the laundry along the monorail system to the finishing stages: ironing, folding, and packaging for delivery back to the customer.

"We have put more than 7,000 slings through the system since the beginning of September," says Gray. "We have accomplished a more efficient process for the flow of goods through the facility. We've reduced processing time and increased productivity to move the goods through much faster than before."

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Surplus has the same phone number, 335-5001; give manager Joe Hennager a call to make arrangements to visit the new location. It is open the same hours as before: by appointment to UI departments and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursdays to the public.

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Moisture, specifically the correct moisture level in paper, is critical for efficient printing operations. So critical that the department installed a system which maintains a minimum 40 percent humidity in the paper warehouse and production areas and 50 percent humidity in the plateroom. The system operates continuously to offset the drying effect of air conditioning as well as heating.

What happens when the air has too little moisture?

Uneven drying is one problem. Think of a 3x4x6-foot skid of paper as a block of wood, says Reuter. Moisture evaporates from the outside surfaces first, leaving the core more moist. "You get what's called tight-edge wrinkle," a condition where the edges of each sheet are dry and shrink slightly from the original size, but the body is still damp and takes a slight bubble shape that flattens and wrinkles when the paper runs through the press, he says. "Once that happens, there's no way to recondition the paper."

Another problem is static electricity. It attracts particles to the film used for making printing plates; the particles cause unsightly flaws in ink coverage. Static also causes sheets of paper to stick together, which results in misfeeds. The press stops running if it picks up two sheets simultaneously or does not pick up a sheet fast enough, and the resulting delays can last from a few seconds to indefinitely.

When all else fails, press operators have been known to "dump a bucket of water on the floor around the press," says Reuter. That has not been necessary since the humidification system was installed, he says. "Moisture is not only necessary, it is imperative so we can keep the machines running smoothly to be able to meet our customers' deadlines in this fast-paced, 'I need it now business.' Without it we would literally be shot out of the water."

When the old stock is depleted and the new stock is in full use, we will make up new stock books. This may be as late as February, 1999.

Colors that have been discontinued will be available at the Document Centers until supplies have been depleted. If you need a particular stock color, contact one of the centers soon to find out if it is still available. For more information, contact Marge Kline, 384-3717.

Managers attend Big Ten conference
Printing Department managers attended the Big Ten Printing Managers' Conference at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Session topics included workflow, management systems, and new products. The highlight of the conference was a tour of Georgia Pacific/Fort Howard paper company, where they saw a paper-making machine the company had purchased at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. The machine had been built for demonstrations at the fair and has been used continuously by the company since then.

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We are . . .