Seckman Printing — Keeping the Faith

FAITH, ESPECIALLY in regards to religion, is a very personal thing for many people. Not surprisingly, it’s often kept under wraps and not afforded the chance to commingle with daily business interactions. After all, religion—along with politics and sex—is among the big three of conversational taboos.

That the owners of Seckman Printing in Forest, VA, based just outside of Lynchburg, derive much of their inspiration and purpose from God is not unusual. After all, most printers probably would not describe themselves as secular humanists (though no statistics exist on the question).

In fact, some would credit Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority, with its ministry located down the road in Lynchburg, as being the catalyst behind the booming direct mail market that blossomed here during the 1970s and 1980s. Mail America and Direct Mail Holding’s mailing operation are both based nearby.

But what is fascinating about the Seckmans’ faith is its apparent influence on the way Seckman Printing does business. This is not to say that the Seckman family holds religion in the same regard as business; but their application of faith to entities other than God is nonetheless consistent, and likely refreshing to those who work for, and do business with, the commercial and direct mail specialist.

The Seckman family doesn’t wear their religious faith on their sleeves, but one can tell it’s steeped deeply in their souls.

“What we’re doing here is nothing that hasn’t been done before or won’t be produced in the future,” points out Mike Seckman, company president and founder. “But what’s gotten us to this point is being able to trust in the fact that we know there is a higher calling—that God has a plan for us and our company, and that it will all work out in the end.”

Faith, intended or not, permeates Seckman Printing’s relationships in a positive way. Though the company is 28 years old, many customers have stuck with Seckman Printing for more than 20 years. A good deal of the employees have been with the firm for a number of years; turnover is extremely low. And, when it comes to equipment vendor relationships, Seckman Printing does virtually all of its shopping with Heidelberg, a trusted name and brand over the years for the Seckman family.

It stands to reason that with faith comes loyalty. But don’t glaze over how good a printer Seckman is; just look at the product versatility and quick turnarounds the company offers, notes Leland Seckman, plant manager, who runs the day-to-day-operations with brother Clint Seckman.

“You’d be hard pressed to find another print shop that possesses our versatility as far as manufacturing forms, sheetfed offset work, envelope printing and converting, diecutting and foil stamping, bindery, and stitching our own books,” Leland Seckman remarks.

“We even have a Kluge flexfold 3600 folder/gluer for making our own pocket folders. In a time when a lot of printing companies have started to specialize in one or two areas, we’ve gone the opposite direction and expanded to be a one-stop source for our customers.”

Beyond Commercial Work

In the early years of the company, Seckman Printing performed mostly commercial work, completing largely $25 to $50 jobs. While the company still considers itself a commercial shop, roughly 75 percent of its work today is direct mail or will end up in the mail stream at some point. At least a dozen of Seckman’s customers are mail shops that lack printing capabilities; in need of forms and brochures, and/or printed and converted envelopes.

Private universities, those without in-plant facilities, are also frequent clients. State-run schools are “bid board,” according to Leland Seckman, but with private universities, the printer can forge relationships and track the school’s evolving needs.

Now, the average job tops out at $2,000 to $5,000. Instead of a handful of workers, the printer employs 80 with 60,000 square feet of manufacturing space.

Seckman Printing expects business to increase further with several key investments that have helped the company improve production time and create added capacity. Among the new acquisitions is a six-color, 41˝ Heidelberg Speedmaster XL 105 sheetfed press with aqueous coating capabilities, which came on the heels of a six-color, 40˝ Heidelberg Speedmaster SM 102 perfector that was obtained in 2002 (joining existing six- and two-color, 40˝ SM 102 perfectors).

According to Mike Seckman, it was the XL 105’s makeready capabilities and high speeds that made the machine most attractive, along with its ability to get up to color in short order.

“We enjoyed relatively strong growth in 2006. The problem was, we were capturing a lot of short- to medium-run sheetfed jobs in the 5,000 to 25,000 range,” he says. “We needed to improve our makeready times—it was taking too long to get the small jobs off-press.

Giant Leap Forward

“Once we installed the XL 105 to complement the newer Speedmaster 102, production just leaped forward. Whereas the year before, we were struggling to get our work done. Now, we have press time to sell,” Mike Seckman adds.

“The XL 105 is designed to run jobs at 18,000 sheets per hour (sph). The old presses might run 8,000 sph, but we’d be lucky to get 6,000 and, most of the time, it was 5,000.”

Seckman Printing has also increased its envelope printing and converting capabilities in recent years. It added a two-color Halm SuperJet perfector, as well as three Kluge foil stamping and embossing machines from Brandtjen & Kluge.

With the ability to print and foil stamp/emboss the envelopes, all that was left was to actually convert the envelopes. So Mike Seckman bought an older F.L. Smithe WRW envelope converter, followed in short order by a pair of newer RA 800 models. The 800s run 20 hours a day and provide flexo printing and converting of envelopes.

One more recent equipment purchase has yet to touch down at Seckman Printing: An eight-color Muller Martini Concepta UV continuous forms press was ordered in late 2007 as a major upgrade to its older Didde Glaser web press. The Concepta is slated to be installed by June.

“Having sheetfed offset printing capabilities and, now, envelope printing and converting, have allowed us to open new markets in the direct mail industry,” Leland Seckman says. “Tied into all that is our contract to purchase the Muller Martini continuous forms press, which will do roll-to-roll, roll-to-fanfold and roll-to-sheet production.

Raising the Bindery Bar

“If you’re a mail shop, you have to go to one place to buy forms, another to buy envelopes, and maybe a third company to buy your brochures,” he adds. “Now, mail shops that don’t do their own printing and don’t have the capabilities to do that kind of work can turn to us. We can produce everything in-house, all under one roof, and at commercial quality levels.”

Seckman’s full-service bindery features a six-pocket Muller Martini saddlestitcher with cover feeder, as well as several Stahl folders and Polar cutters from Heidelberg.

“I’m not saying all direct mail is down-and-dirty work, but the type of work we often do—with the modern equipment and skilled operators we have—consists of high-end, multiple match mailings. We hold our operators and equipment to high quality standards.”

In order to accommodate the XL 105 and a few other pieces of gear, the printer tacked on a 24,000-square-foot addition. The other machinery had been kept at another building a mile away, and made for a lot of back-and-forth managing, which was less than ideal. On the other hand, the addition has maxed out Seckman Printing’s facility, and the company may have to seek out a new home in the future.

Due, in part, to its solid relationship with Heidelberg, Seckman Printing was chosen as a Beta site for Heidelberg’s Prinance MIS solution. According to Barry Witt, prepress manager, the Prinance installation at Seckman was only the second in the United States, and the printer worked closely with Heidelberg to improve the product.

“We’re able to pass job [ticket] information from our Prinance MIS system right into our [Prinect] Printready workflow, which we implemented in 2006,” Witt says. “We’ve actually seen a huge difference in productivity. We only run one shift in prepress, and it’s ready to produce above and beyond what we output on our presses currently. All that productivity starts with automation, and all that connectivity between the MIS system and our workflow.”

Turnaround, high quality and competitive pricing have been staples of Seckman’s ability to thrive in the competitive direct mail arena. Its ability to foster loyalty and show unwavering faith to customers, vendors and employees alike is what keeps their phones ringing.

“One of the things that makes our company special is our employees,” says Mike Seckman. “Everybody—from the people in prepress, the pressroom and bindery, to our truck drivers—realizes the importance of timeliness and meeting deadlines. We’re all turning the wheel in the same direction to achieve that goal on every job we do.”

In the early days of the company, Seckman used monetary goals as a measuring stick for his success. The aim was to earn $100 a day, he would tell his wife, to put food on the table and take care of what bills they had.

Mike Seckman is in a different place now.

“What’s important is the people who work for us, the families that become a part of the business,” he says. “We take what comes at us one day at a time and we do our best with what we’re given.” PI