Edwards Brothers Malloy: Making Change Their Friend

"This saves us significant time (that comes with) having a human being enter the order, prep it and push it into the production system," Coleman notes. "It also saves on the back end, since invoicing is also done automatically, along with order receipt acknowledgements and shipment notifications."

Clearly, the biggest change to visit Edwards Brothers Malloy was the 2012 merger that brought the two Michigan heavyweights together. John Edwards and Bill Upton began talks in August of 2011, and soon realized the companies had complementary aspects and little redundancy, including in their customer lists. Edwards Brothers offered a significant digital footprint, and Malloy Inc. countered with a solid fulfillment operation. Both firms were traditional family-owned businesses with vision statements that were essentially the same. The typical Edwards Brothers print run was half as long as Malloy's, but with twice the page counts.