- The mailroom builds packages in the usual manner.
- The transportation department assembles the packages into carrier-specific routes (using custom software that drives their Harris inserting equipment) and loads them into the trailer's carrier-specific compartments at the plant dock.
- The driver delivers the trailer to a location (i.e., a supermarket parking lot), immediately unhooks the trailer, and drives the tractor back to the plant for another trailer load.
- Carriers unload their individual routes from their designated compartments and leave to deliver their routes.
- Drivers pick up empty trailers later in the morning.
Post-Press Award: Leading With Trailers
by Steve Ostrofsky
Produce, assemble, package, load, transport, unload, unpackage, reassemble, reload, transport. If this sounds inefficient, and (unfortunately) familiar, it should, because it's the typical flow of papers and packages at newspapers using circulation distribution centers. Not however, at the News & Record in Greensboro, N.C., where they've rethought the process and developed an ingenious solution that slashes several steps to save time and money-mobile distribution centers.
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Like many papers faced with the move to finer and finer zoning and an adult carrier force, the News & Record initially considered setting up distribution centers. But according to Production Director David Reno, when they analyzed that option in detail, they saw redundancy and increased cost-handling and then rehandling products, setting up, staffing and managing centers, etc.
Instead, they built specialized trailers designed specifically to deliver route-specific packages to carriers in the field. The trailers have 10 or 11 doors on each side. Each door opens into an individual walled compartment that is designated for a specific carrier. If necessary, each door can be locked and an individual key given to the carrier. Since the trailers are built on horse-trailer chassis, they are low to the ground (about one foot clearance), allowing the carriers to easily unload their designated compartment.
The typical flow works as follows:
According to Reno, the program has been a resounding success. He estimates that the typical cycle time involved between arrival of the trailer to the site and the departure of the carriers is approximately five minutes, a huge savings compared to the time usually taken for dropping bulk bundles to a distribution center, sorting, reassembly of routes and subsequent departure of carriers.
David Barrier, circulation and distribution manager, echoes these sentiments, also pointing out that the individual compartments on the trailers permit very tight control of routes with better insert targeting and improved multiple-product delivery.
Production Distribution Manager Dennis Creamer, who developed the inserter control program, states that the benefits of the system extend beyond the obvious cycle-time savings and improved targeting. The trailers are relatively inexpensive (he estimates that a tractor and two trailers cost about the same as two standard delivery trucks), eliminate the costs of staffing and supporting distribution centers, and reduce the waste implicit in rehandling papers. Additionally, he says, the carriers "love it"--they don't have to argue and bicker over bundles of papers, and they can get and complete their routes much faster.
While highly enthusiastic about the program, all three executives point out that any newspaper thinking about moving to a trailer-based system needs to plan carefully, particularly when designing docks and conveyor systems for simultaneous side loading.
The News & Record looked at a problem common to many newspapers and came up with a different solution. According to Harshad Matalia, NAA's post-press manager, they won the 1998 TechNews Best Practices Award for Post-Press by "showing creative, out-of-the-box thinking that resulted in significant cost and time savings for the paper."
Sources
Don Hensel, Harshad Matalia and Eric Wolferman, NAA, 1921 Gallows Road, Suite 600, Vienna, Va., 22182. E-mail, wolfe@naa.org; phone, (703) 902-1600; fax, (703) 902-1842.
Michael L. Rosen and Ira Asinofsky, The New York Times, 229 W. 43rd Street, New York, N.Y., 10036. E-mail, micros@nytimes.com; phone, (212) 556-1224; fax, (212) 556-1324.
Wayne Bean and John Lundgren, Tucson Newspapers, 4850 S. Park Ave., P.O. Box 26887, Tucson, Ariz., 85714. E-mail, wbean@tucson.gannett.com; phone, (602) 573-4400; fax, (602) 573-4294.
Richard Hackney and Tom Roman, Charlotte Sun Herald, 23170 Harborview Road, Punta Gorda, Fla., 33980. Phone, (941) 255-8142; fax, (941) 629-2085.
David Barrier, Dennis Creamer and David Reno, News & Record, 200 East Market Street, Greensboro, N.C., 27410. Phone, (910) 373-7202; fax, (910) 373-7183.
Vitas Normantis and Kelley Noonan Piccone, Guy Gannett Communications, P.O. Box 15277, Portland, Maine, 04112-5277. Phone, (207) 828-8138; fax, (207) 828-8160.