In September of 2020, I spoke with managers running large in-plant print operations — Mike Lincoln, Colorado State Printer and Tammy Golden, Assistant Commissioner of Document Solutions at State of Tennessee. Despite significant differences in print volumes and approaches, both managers expressed the need to assess, adapt and expand their services to meet the changing requirements of their customers.

In-plants continue to face multiple staffing challenges from high absenteeism, large numbers of retirements, and state mandated hiring freezes.

The challenges in securing paper for printing and mailing are very real. The confluence of factors creating the challenges in paper supply are not likely to improve until the second quarter of 2022. In my last article I explored the perfect storm contributing to the challenging situation including:

Supply, Demand, Manufacturing cost , Distribution/transportation cost

To get perspective on the daily impact of the situation, I spoke with several print-mail service providers about their strategies to handle the challenges of longer lead times, price increases and lack of inventory. From the trenches of daily buying and managing paper, input for this article was provided by: