Work orders are the primary means of communicating order information to the work force, but scheduling and complexity of jobs force a continual two-way dialogue to expedite orders. Supervision is frequent but not continual. Reasons for low inventories include lack of space, high insurance costs, limited financing ability,large variety of paper used, and reliability of suppliers. However, a higher inventory level would allow faster service and volume discounts on some raw materials. Orders for raw materials are initiated by workers and triggered by stock-outs.
Physical inventory is taken once per year.
Quality is the responsibility of the individual operators. No formal control system is used and at this time appears unnecessary. It was suggested that newer, more automated equipment further reduces the need for formal quality control procedures. Most of this involves the typesetting, lay-out, and stripping processes. Average collection period currently runs at 45 - 55 days.