Share Production Knowledge Across Departments

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, April 1, 2000 by Dedra Smith

To increase efficiency and avoid costly mistakes, include editorial, circulation and ad sales in the basics of the production process.

Picture this: A monthly travel magazine spins off an annual 800-page directory that lists hotels in every state and country. Two hundred pages into production, the magazine's publisher wants to fit a full-page ad into, say, the Arizona section. Upon being told the book has no space for the ad, that person insists that the page must be added.

The production-savvy are invited to laugh (or cringe) but, naturally, this does happen. Ask any printer: Every day, magazines make poor and ultimately costly decisions because not all members of the publishing team fully understand the complex world of preparing, printing, binding and distributing periodicals.

A well-run machine?

The most efficiently-run magazines tend to have production departments that function as the hub of a wheel that interfaces with editorial, ad sales and circulation. They have knowledgeable staffs with the authority to make decisions, ensuring that the best interests of the magazine are served. The result: Deadlines are understood and the financial ramifications of decisions are considered prior to manufacturing.

The production departments of magazines that frequently experience cost overruns and scheduling difficulties tend to plan largely without manufacturing input until the final stages. Does your production department have the authority necessary to operate effectively? Some questions to consider:

(1) Are your internal deadlines for editorial and sales frequently not met, causing the production staff to work extreme hours?

(2) Do pressures to meet deadlines result in errors or rush charges (such as blueline changes)?

(3) Is production frequently the sacrificial goat when blame is allocated for mistakes that cause cost overruns?

Production triangulates every department. It's purview includes everything from establishing deadlines and budgets to keeping apprised of the ever-changing complexities of postal regulations; and from ensuring reproduction quality to understanding the benefits of imposing a book a certain way.

Production must be experts on how decisions at one end impact outcomes at another. But if your magazine suffers from weak production authority, very often projects are planned, deals are closed, or material produced before production is consulted.

For example, consider the publisher who once promised an advertiser to dot whack to an ad on the inside front cover of his book before being informed that this would have to be done by hand at an extraordinary cost. Had he checked with production first, he would have saved himself the embarrassment of having to go back to the advertiser and rescind the offer.

Failure to consult the production department can also have hidden costs. For example, an advertiser might request that an insert be polybagged to half your subscribers based on demographic data. The ad salesperson is likely to ask only, "How much does it cost to polybag?" If production is not consulted, your ad sales department might realize only after the deal is closed that the insert actually caused significant cost to your magazine in lost postal sortation discounts.

In order for other departments to trust production enough to include them as consultants earlier in their planning stages, sales, marketing, circulation and editorial decision-makers need to trust that the staff is expert enough to advise them. Your staff must know all the basics of prepress, printing and binding, but also have an understanding of how changes to any specification may impact imposition, schedule, cost or postal classification.

In one case, the marketing department wanted to add perceived value to a calendar that they had run in their magazine every year, so they put a price on it. No one even thought to check this out with production. The Postal Service assessed a whopping amount of postage to the piece, which the magazine was obligated to pay.

Expertise doesn't equal authority

Next, evaluate whether cultural obstacles need to be overcome to place manufacturing in the decision-making hierarchy. Is production represented on the executive level at your company? Clearly, for manufacturing to be considered a key piece on the game board, someone at a high decision-making level must both understand manufacturing and consider it vital.

Dedra Smith is President of Printmark West.