Daniels Printing--Passing the Torch

Daniels Printing communicates—and flourishes—without limits, generation after generation.

By Erik Cagle

FORGET ABOUT Fenway Park and the Red Sox, the Patriots and Cheers, or even the Kennedy clan, for that matter. No, to find a truly enduring institution in the state of Massachusetts, one needs to look at one of its most successful, long-running businesses.

Long before anyone had ever heard of the Babe Ruth Curse or Frasier Crane, there was Abraham Daniels. And while community staples come and go, the name Daniels (three generations after Abraham) and its corresponding reputation remain a fixture in commercial printing.

Armed with a new logo, Daniels Printing is entering the new millennium with a new mantra as well: "Communicate Without Limits—Anyone, Anywhere, Anytime, Any Way." A fitting philosophy for the 119-year-old company and a sign of the times, as this printer's role continues to evolve into one of an information and communications provider.

The family torch is now being carried by Grover Daniels II, the president and CEO—and the founder's great-grandson.

"Because we've been in the business since 1880, it has given us the opportunity to watch our customers' needs change over time," Daniels says of his company, which realized $67 million in sales for 1998. "We would have been blind not to embrace the digital age. We have invested and made some very good decisions in adding products and services to our core business that we think are going to evolve over time.

"Communicate without limits . . . Our corporate mantra is to deliver that message to our customers and to the industry as a whole," he adds. "Our industry has an obligation to take a leadership position in enabling customers to communicate without limits. If we don't, we will be outmaneuvered and outsold by other, possibly undercapitalized, companies which might convince customers that it's better to deal with them than their printer. Printers, in general, have an obligation to communicate this to their customers to truly win the market battle over who should manage and deliver customers' content. At Daniels Printing, we're in a position to do that."

Daniels Printing has been winning the market battle for more than a century. In 1880, Abraham Daniels opened a printing business next to Jacob Wirth's, one of Boston's oldest restaurants. He had spent his early years leading a goat cart throughout the city, conducting door-to-door sales and deliveries of what he had printed the previous night. He slept when he could, mainly on weekends.

As the 19th century drew to a close, Daniels Printing relocated within the city, found a niche as a major printer for the theater industry and also embarked on full-color printing. The company would change residences a couple more times before finally landing just outside Boston in Everett, MA.

Abraham Daniels' goat cart has been retired in favor of more modern equipment. The 135,000-square-foot facility in Everett boasts computer-to-plate technology with two BARCO/Gerber Crescent 42 platesetters. Daniels also has four Scitex Dolev imagesetters and an Agfa SelectSet 7000. The pressroom features a two-color, 28x40˝ Heidelberg perfector; a pair of six-color Heidelbergs, one with aqueous coater; a six-color, 28x40˝ KBA-Planeta; three eight-color, 28x40˝ Mitsubishi presses equipped with aqueous coaters; a six-color, 41x55˝ KBA-Planeta perfector; a five-color Heidelberg Harris heatset web with combination folder/sheeter; two four-unit Heidelberg Harris full webs; a two-color Heidelberg Harris full web; as well as a Xerox DocuTech and a DocuColor 70.

As the years passed, it became obvious that locales were not the only things Daniels Printing—and the rest of the industry—would outgrow.

"The transition from the letterpress process to offset and offset to digital were both significant changes," Daniels notes. "Our customer base has shifted from predominantly a local base to a more national and, in some cases, international clientele.

"From an employee point of view, the changes are not dramatic. We have a strong culture and work ethic within the company, and a strong desire to exceed our customers' expectations. That's a hallmark of Daniels' tradition," Daniels remarks.

Old School
Through four printing generations, that business philosophy never changed at Daniels—the company's commitment to printing excellence. A Daniels advertisement from 1917 still rings true today:

The fashion in printing changes almost as often as in the clothes you wear. The majority of us would be most reluctant to appear clad in the fashion of the past decade, yet many send out their printed messages—their personal representatives—bearing all of the earmarks of a style obsolete.

Type styles change; paper styles change; the entire art of printing varies from time to time; and quality is now taking the place of mediocrity.

Your printing—like your personality—should be fully abreast of the fashion. Your advertising should outdo your competitor's and typify the progressive character of your business and the high-grade merchandise you sell.

Why not entrust your next order to an organization like ours, that is able to give you all that is the latest and most approved in the printing world?

"We have not taken for granted the fact that we're a great printer," Daniels notes.

Daniels is still trying to provide clients all that is the latest and, in the case of one offering, a unique service: Content Manager, a Web-based browser for media asset management, is the pride of Daniels' Internet commerce endeavors.

In its purest, simplest form, Content Manager is a self-storage warehouse for the digital age. Once a client has an area set up within the system, the client—or any party the customer provides access to—can log in and access any digital files (images, text, formatted pages, video and audio clips, layout programs and 3-D illustrations) created and uploaded into the system.

A standard Web browser is used through Internet, intranet, ISDN line or extranet connections. The application's architecture is based on Apple's WebObjects platform and WebWare's MAMBO, written in Objective C.

Security and access convenience are two of the main reasons behind its success, according to Daniels Printing's Tim Post, project manager for information management systems.

"We're supporting clients to strengthen their creative output and enhance their brand and marketing positions," Post says. "We're also helping to protect those brands, as well as protecting their knowledge assets. We can also help the client significantly decrease the time to market when putting together a book, campaign or annual report."

Post claims that, since there is no labor or material costs, the savings are passed on to Daniels' clients. Customers can perform some functions themselves in order to save money.

"Overall, we handle a massive amount of elemental materials," Post says. "We help people get organized."

Daniels Printing helps itself, as well. The company is beginning to use Content Manager in-house in addition to selling the service.

Content Manager came to fruition with the help of two other companies. WebWare was responsible for writing the code and tending to the software applications. USWeb Cornerstone plays the role of integrator, ensuring that the application runs on the specified software.

"It isn't just an application," Post explains. "It's hardware, software, people and the entire digital infrastructure that we built here the last few years.

"We consult with our clients to add extensibility to this application. If someone wants to add a workflow-type module or an auto numbering feature . . . that's where [WebWare] steps in and assists us."

Protected by a Cisco PIX Firewall, Content Manager has experienced few problems, virtually all of which Post termed development-type bugs. Implementing the system proved a relatively problem-free task; Post reveals it took a day or two to hook up the system.

The feedback Daniels Printing has received on Content Manager ranges from puzzlement to amazement. While the system is still in its infancy, the early reviews indicate a complex but powerful system.

"The concept is quite bulletproof," Post says. "Think about it. You're pouring extremely valuable, but nebulous, information into this thing, and you've got to make sure that it's not going to go anywhere. We don't have any problems in that regard; the information goes in, stays there and it doesn't come out."

One Size Fits All
Boasting a cool 21⁄2 terabytes of available storage, Content Manager can be tailored to a one-person shop just as easily as 1,000-user accounts. It is easily integrated with financial industry clients, and Post says that it can integrate with the systems of other corporate sectors, as well.

Daniels Printing has also entered into a strategic partnership with Xerox, delivering print-on-demand and digital print capabilities through its DocuColor 70 and DocuTech equipment.

"The Internet, all our desktop systems and typesetting systems are PostScript centric, which allows us to publish in applications required for print, but also automates their conversions for HTML, XML, ASCII and PDF," Daniels explains. "We understand that our customers are going to be delivering content both in print and online, and the prepress systems that we built are fully integrated to be able to deliver on that promise."

Daniels Printing found its niche in the early 1960s, as the mutual funds industry shifted its marketing strategy from institutional mutual funds to retail mutual funds. During that period, the shareholder/individual investor was able to buy shares in the mutual fund companies in order to help manage their personal portfolios.

As it turned out, Boston was a hotbed of mutual fund activity.

"We saw that in the '60s and began to service that market by adding typesetting to our already-known sheetfed printing capabilities," Daniels recalls. "By adding typesetting, we were able to service that market locally. Mutual funds and annuities have grown to be a significant business in Massachusetts, as it has shifted from a manufacturing economy to a financial services economy. As the economy shifted, we were very well-positioned to deliver products and services to that marketplace."

During the last six years, Daniels Financial, a division of Daniels Printing, has expanded in that area to include corporate transactions, initial public offerings and SEC documentation, with offices in downtown Boston and midtown New York City.

Daniels Printing has enjoyed its fill of groundbreaking technology and product/service enhancement. Daniels has already embraced computer-to-plate; Content Manager is in full swing; and the veteran shop can convert any type of file to a desired format—and deliver that data anywhere in the world. Thus, the new aim is to find ways to make it easier for Daniels' customers to communicate with their customers.

"Our focus—and I think the industry's focus—is not so much 'Can you make a plate five minutes vs. eight minutes faster?' or 'Can you shorten a makeready from 30 minutes to 15 minutes?' Rather, it's 'How do you take the productive tools that are already available and gain some additional efficiencies in order to increase the [profitability] of our company?'

"Our focus continues to be on building shareholder and customer value. At Daniels, the two will forever be linked."