HOPKINS PRINTING -- Recipe for Success

BY ERIK CAGLE

You won't see Jim Hopkins' face on the cover of Fortune magazine. His commercial printing company, Hopkins Printing, isn't likely to challenge Quebecor World, R.R. Donnelley or any other top 10-performer as an industry sales heavyweight. Hopkins Printing manages to fly under the radar screen, and chances are you've never heard of the 27-year-old, Columbus, OH-based establishment.

Then again, Hopkins Printing has never laid off massive numbers of employees. You won't see any major restructuring because of missed quarterly revenue reports or disappointing stock valuation performances. His upper management team isn't a revolving door. There are no angry shareholders, no elimination of duplicity or any other face-lift scars that are visible on the now seemingly not-so-sexy faces of the industry bigwigs.

All Jim Hopkins has ever done is turn his garage into a quick print shop with a few thousand dollars—not even enough to buy a decent used car these days—and parlay it into a solid, regional commercial printing operation with sales in excess of $13 million in 2000. And while graphic arts companies boon and bust with the blowing winds of the economy, it's relatively smooth sailing at Hopkins Printing with its steady, measured growth. In fact, you can call Jim Hopkins 'Mr. 10 percent', which is the level of annual growth his firm has enjoyed, on average, during the past nine years.

That growth isn't likely to level off any time soon. Currently with 100 employees, Hopkins expects a 50 percent growth in manpower over the next three to five years. The printer moved into a new facility last December, which is 50 percent larger than its previous plant, and simultaneously ushered in full computer-to-plate (CTP) capabilities with a large-format Agfa Galileo platesetter.

The new, 75,000-square-foot facility was conceived in 1998 when it became apparent that more space was needed to preserve everyone's sanity involved. Wanting more equipment capacity, Hopkins carefully mapped out a plan.

"I don't believe in chaotic management. We tried to do as much planning as we could up front," Hopkins explains of the move. "We made a complete transition in four weeks; we already had 55 to 60 percent of the equipment moved after just six days.

Up on New Technology
"Computer-to-plate makes us better printers in that we can closely control dot gain," he adds of the company's new CTP workflow, which enjoyed a smooth implementation, as well. "We fingerprinted all the presses to see how they were printing. The Heidelbergs print so well; we were able to send a straight linear curve to them, and we change the curve for different customer needs."

Hopkins, now 60, once found himself in a mid-life crises at his job with Timken Roller Bearing in the early 1970s. He didn't buy a motorcycle and travel across the country; he kept his job, borrowed $2,000 from the bank and received a $1,000 gift from his mother. After watching a friend open a thriving, but small, print shop, Hopkins converted his garage and soon found himself moonlighting as a quick printer.

"In the early days, I asked a lot of questions and always looked for information," Hopkins recalls. "I worked 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. (at Timken), which left a couple hours in the business day to do some selling. So I printed one- and two-color work, all the while learning."

In 1976, Jim and his wife, Arnie, opened Hop-To Printing—as in hop to it quickly—with Arnie taking quick print orders during the day and Jim printing them at night and on weekends.

The workload soon burgeoned, and Jim had his sights set on doing larger volume, upscale commercial work. So he purchased a small two-color press and a larger format, one-color Harris press. In 1980, the name was changed to J.F. Hopkins & Associates Commercial Printers to reflect the shift in focus.

A four-color Heidelberg GTO arrived in 1984, sending the company deep into the commercial realm, and a two-color, 24x36" Heidelberg added another dimension, allowing Hopkins to print four-color covers with two-color text. All the while, Jim Hopkins never abandoned his roots, at least philosophy-wise.

"We've always tried to maintain the quick printer mentality: Get jobs in, turn them around quickly and then move on to the next customer," he says. "I'm a firm believer in what I call incrementalism—if you do a little bit every day, it adds up quickly."

A general commercial printer by definition, with some emphasis on advertising pieces, point-of-sale materials and directory work, Hopkins confesses to having a soft spot for "high-quality, fast-turnaround, multicolor projects that need a lot of customer hand holding." Partly due to his affinity for difficult jobs, the company's work has drawn praise and award recognition on the local, regional and even national levels.

Self-made Man
Jim Hopkins, himself, was named Master Entrepreneur of the Year in the 2000 Central Ohio Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards program. The company captured six gold and three silver awards at the 2000 Printing Industries of Northern Kentucky (PIANKO) Print Excellence Awards contest, and also came away with three gold, two silver and one bronze award in the Association of Printing House Craftsmen's 2000 International Gallery of Superb Printing.

The new facility and platesetter weren't the only recent highlights. The current name change occurred, complemented by the creation of a new graphic logo developed by David Bull, Via design director and an Ohio State University professor. The company also welcomed the addition of its second six-color, 40" Heidelberg Speedmaster CD press with an in-line aqueous coater. The Hopkins Printing pressroom also includes five- and two-color, 40" Speedmasters; a five-color, 20" GTO; a two-color, 173⁄4" Ryobi; and a pair of two-color, 17" A.B.Dicks.

The family business has grown to include daughter Michelle Waterhouse and her husband, Roy Waterhouse, who serves as sales manager. Roy Waterhouse started out in prepress before moving into the art department, then to the electronic prepress department. He feels his digital prepress and pressroom floor experience give him a unique perspective.

"Moving into CTP is a huge advantage for us," Waterhouse notes. "My approach to customers is more technological, and this gives me something else to do for them."

Waterhouse points out that Hopkins Printing is looking to gravitate toward the high-end market. "We're going to make the biggest difference with customers with their high quality, critical color jobs," he says.

While largely a Heidelberg sheetfed press user—buoyed by its new Agfa platesetter, two existing Agfa imagesetters, as well as a Muller Martini stitcher with three-knife trimmer, an eight-bin Duplo collator and three Polar cutters—Hopkins Printing has also found success with new folders purchased from MBO America, particularly its Perfection models. In addition to a small-format MBO folder, Hopkins has three other MBOs capable of folding 16-page signatures with perfing, slitting, scoring, gluing and gatefold attachments.

Busy in the Bindery
According to John Kaufman, the printer's bindery supervisor, the dual-feed, MC-control, vacuum infeed belt and the vacuum alignment table (VIVAS), in conjunction with the high-speed guides on the subsequent units, are a couple of the strength areas of the Perfection series.

"We really find them to be an advantage when running oblong materials," Kaufman remarks. "We do a lot of multiple-up work and it seems to have a lot of advantages such as helping keep the guiding consistent, so that it's true and square."

Kaufman particularly likes the Perfection's sheet monitoring system with electronic sensors. "The sensors read the sheet throughout the entire machine," he states. "It reads one sheet, basically, in three different spots coming through the parallel unit. If there's a misfeed or a misfold, it will quit feeding and the folder will stop. When you're running at higher speeds, it's really capable of reading the sheet and making sure everything is going well."

Having a second high-speed guide (split guide) is another perk for performing multiple-up work, Kaufman remarks, allowing the printer to control the material at the right angle. He feels the Perfection folders are user-friendly in their ability to adjust on-the-fly, and that the high-capacity delivery, which includes marking and pressing devices, also automates the off-loading process. "As long as they keep making our jobs easier, I'll be happy," he adds.

Kaufman is just as complimentary about Jim Hopkins. He admires his boss' devotion to his employees and appreciates how he fosters a conducive work environment which, in turn, results in a higher quality product. "We do have a distinct culture here and we want to maintain that," Kaufman remarks.

With its new plant and equipment generating numerous gains in efficiency and productivity, Jim Hopkins hopes to make the company a positive experience for all those who come in touch with it.

"We're always trying to make this a better place to visit and a better place to work," he says. "Most of our managers came off the floor. They have craft skills and now they're learning how to be good managers. We have plans to grow as craftspeople, managers and strong corporate citizens."

If the last decade is any indication, that annual growth should be at least 10 percent.