Core Publishing Solutions

Back in November of 2016, I had the pleasure of visiting Core Publishing Solutions, a Thomson-Reuters Company, in Eagan, Minn. At the time, the organization had just installed a sheetfed inkjet press, adding to its base of roll-fed toner and inkjet presses, along with web offset presses and an extensive bindery.

Today, Core Publishing Solutions offers publishers the convenience of seamlessly switching titles between offset and digital runs, and has installed two sheetfed inkjet presses and three wide-format web-fed inkjet presses, having nearly four billion pages on its digital presses.

As with many publishing segments, print in this professional space was declining due to the availability and convenience of electronic versions of these subscription-based documents, books and updates.

“Legal and tax professionals are in transition," said Vice President of Operations Todd Roth. "We provide content any way our customers want to consume it – in print, online with our Westlaw product or in tablet format with our e-reader, ProView. This electronic migration affords us the opportunity to make our printing capacity available to other publishers, and we have taken advantage of that.”

Roth notes that Core Publishing Solutions has retooled its web press platform, consisting of six conventional presses, five of which are wide format and three of which are zero-makeready. All the presses are crewed all shifts. And the company is now producing, in addition to legal publishing, YA books, trade and educational publishing, as well as faith-based books. In fact, the company produced its first Bible in 2016, marking its entry into the Bible production and spiritual printing market. Its expertise in printing and binding very lightweight papers for the legal industry was an advantage here.

While the company had historically produced some color printing on older 16-page web presses, it exited the color business in the 1990s.

“It’s really fun to bring color back into play with inkjet," Roth said.  "And in February, we are added PUR binding, which will better support customers with coated color work options”

A hybrid Mueller Martini binding line that does both conventional and inkjet was installed in 2017, and an additional binder for digital work has since been added. This spring they will add a high-speed binder for longer run web work. The binding platform is rounded out with new sewing capabilities that add more flexibility for customers.

The result? Since 2016, the company has transitioned from primarily legal publishing, to 70% for the broader publishing market. Unit output has more than doubled. Roth credits his talented and dedicated team with making this shift possible, as well as the company’s long-term focus on lean manufacturing and continued process improvement.

“We do a variety of different work, including a lot of high page-count printing on lightweight paper, which has a certain ‘fluff factor,'" Roth said. "When it comes off the printing line, you need some time for the pages to compress to make a quality book, making in-line finishing not really an option.”

Roth also sees significant advantage in having both web offset and inkjet formats.

“We can be there for the transitioning of a title," he said. "Where we tend to do well is midsize runs in the 500- to 10,000-unit range, and we are focused on efficient changeovers. Another unique capability we have is that because we are a subscription-based business for our legal work, we know how to provide automated solutions for kitting and packaging product for our customers, and we have all the distribution logistics in place. I don’t know a lot of book manufacturers that have that side of the equation on site.”

Core Publishing Solutions has not been immune to the effects of the pandemic and the "Great Resignation" trend that has made it difficult for many types of employers to source and retain talent.

“If you think of a book manufacturing plant, it’s people, paper and postage," Roth said. "How do you care for your people? And paper is tough to come by today. And postage prices continue to increase. Beside the three Ps, we are now adding an ‘I,’ which is inflation, and that’s a tough one for all of us. The challenge is how we navigate through all of that. On the people front, especially during the pandemic, how do you keep your people safe and how do we not wear them out? We have to create a balance.”

Roth said that Core Publishing Solutions has hired more than 150 people in the last 30 months to fuel growth. To do that, they have implemented both signing and referral bonuses at a level higher than he ever thought he would see. One thing that helps in the hiring process, according to Roth, is bringing candidates into the plant so they can see the equipment, meet the people and get a sense of how things are organized.

“Early in the pandemic, like many other companies, our hiring process was virtual," Roth said. "But as soon as we could, we began to get people back in for a walkthrough. Oftentimes you also learn more about a person when you begin to talk about equipment, and they can see things and ask questions. So we are finding it more and more important to have the hiring process be in-person whenever possible.

“Book manufacturing is an exciting space, and it’s exciting to see the way books have gone up in popularity, in 2020 and 2021. Questions remain on whether this growth can continue and what it will look like as we exit – or learn to live with – COVID. Many, for a long time, have predicted the demise of printed books, and it just hasn’t been the case. Books are inspiring, they are valuable. I’m very bullish on books. We are committed to exploring growth to better service our publishing customers’ book manufacturing needs, while also continuing to service our own legal and tax customers."  

Captions Key:

Continuous Improvement: Every month we recognize a team or teams that have improved our operations through their continuous improvement efforts.

Muller Martini D60:Muller Martini D60 casing in line

Timson’s: Timson's ZMR Web Press