What the Printing Industry Needs in the Next Public Printer

While the GPO puts a heavy emphasis on low bids, GPO work does not always go to the lowest bidder. GPO jobs are awarded to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder. This is a way for the GPO to control federal print costs but not at the expense of quality.

For the GPO printer, filling downtime maximizes production utilization, increasing it from a print industry average of 70 percent to full utilization of 90 percent to 95 percent. Before GPO work, a print supplier can average 2.5 percent profitability on 70 percent production utilization. Add GPO work and the bottom line grows to about 14 percent on 85 percent production utilization.