PIM Members Seeking Workforce Development

PIM Members Seeking Workforce Development

Apr 23, 2015 | Workforce Development

Should Visit MI! Works Site

We visited the easy-to-navigate MI! Works site and PIM Members seeking workforce development help are encouraged to do the same!

Go to www.michiganworks.org and Click on “Employers”

Click on “One-Stop Service Centers” Twenty-four MichiganWorks! Service Agencies oversee the local Michigan Works! Service Centers where employers like you can access services.

Choose a number from an area of the Michigan map, or, use the search bar to the left of the Lower Michigan map to choose by county or zip code. When we entered 48067, a Royal Oak zip, we got:

“One-Stop Service Centers results for 48067”

    • 22180 Parklawn – Oak Park
    • 21030 Indian – Southfield
    • 550 Stephenson Highway – Troy
    • 31186 Beck Road – Novi
    • 501 N. Cass Lake Road – Waterford
    • 713 East Nine Mile Road – Ferndale
    • 1850 North Perry Street – Pontiac
    • 2218 S. Milford Road – Highland

Plenty to choose from!

When you click on a specific location, you’ll get the address, phone and fax numbers and a link to click on for the hours of operation (which vary by Service Center). You can also click the “Directions” tab, which opens up the Google.com/maps site.

Once you choose your Service Center location, there are three steps recommended:

  • Visit a Michigan Works! One-Stop Service Center so their staff can show how they can best help your business.
  • Develop a plan tailored to your own business when you speak with local, experienced Michigan Works! staff who are on-the-job to help you meet your talent demands.

Baseball & Printing

Apr 18, 2015 | Finance

Financial Ratio Analysis

by Stuart W. Margolis, CPA,MT • ( Philadelphia Phillies Fan!)

baseball-printingFor most of us, ratios are not something we think of every day, at least not until springtime and the onset of baseball season. If you want to compare two Major League home-run hitters, you are likely to compare their batting averages. If one is hitting .389 and the other’s average is .236, you immediately know which is doing better, even if you don’t know precisely how a batting average is calculated. When applied to business, think of ratios as “batting averages for business”. In baseball or in business most ratios measure some form of productivity. They generally give an indication of how one result varied in relation to another. Ratios are a tool to make it easier to do an “apples to apples” comparison.

In fact, the classic batting average statistic is:

The number of hits made by the batter, divided by the number of times the player was at bat. (For baseball enthusiasts, those are “official at-bats,” which is total appearances at the plate minus walks, sacrifice plays and any time the player was hit by a pitch.)

The batting average is thought of as a measure of a baseball player’s productivity; it is the ratio of hits made to the total opportunities to make a hit.

Hits at Bats

Other baseball ratios include Earned Run Averages, Average Pitching Strikes to Ball Ratio and more. For some reason, they all make sense to us. Avid fans can visually see each pitch, strike out and hit so they have a general idea of how players and team are performing.

In business, it is more difficult to “see” productivity, especially productivity as compared to the competition. After all, we don’t line up and engage a competitor in an open field for the whole world to see. It makes monitoring ratios all the more critical.

There are many ratios you can use to monitor productivity verses the competition. They all measure how good a job your company is doing using its assets, generating profits from each dollar of sales, turning over inventory, or whatever aspect of your company’s operation you are evaluating.

For your business, ratios are nothing more than simple comparisons between specific pieces of information pulled from your company’s balance sheet and income statement. You can use ratio analysis to examine the current performance of your company in comparison to past periods of time, from the prior quarter to years ago. Frequently, this can help you identify problems that need to be fixed. Even better, it can direct your attention to potential problems that can be avoided.

In addition, you can use ratios to compare the performance of your company against that of your competitors or other members of your industry.

Remember the ratios you will be calculating are intended simply to show broad trends and thus to help you with your decision-making. They need only to be accurate enough to be useful to you. Don’t get bogged down calculating ratios to more than one or two decimal places.

General trends and striking disparities are important to watch. There could be good reason for the disparities, but understanding them, understanding why they exist and how they impact your pricing and bottom line profit can make all the difference in the world to estimating, sales pricing, sales pitch delivery, future purchasing and more.

Our example firm resulted in a factor of 1.87 and fell into the “Could be a chance of the company heading towards bankruptcy within 2 years of operations from the date of financial figures given.” In reality, they fell towards the bottom range of this category. This particular company was sold, instead of moving into bankruptcy, almost 2 years after these results received!

In recent years, we’ve helped companies with less than favorable Z-Scores turn around and thrive. If you are in trouble call and get help.

Just like baseball General Managers use ratios to decide who to sign for a season, banks and investors use financial ratios as a method to decide who is worthy to sign too. Knowing your “stats” ahead of time will help your position if evaluated. Can you imagine a baseball General Manager drafting a player who is unsure of his batting average?

An annual glance at the competition is worth the time. In print and packaging, Printing Industries of America (PIA) has an Annual Financial Ratios Study that’s free to members of the association and members of PIA’s affiliated groups. (survey sea- son extends through May). Membership to PIA and affiliated groups is “corporate”, so find out if your company’s a member and participate. Non-members can participate for a fee. If you don’t feel like filling out a survey, contact me. We will complete it for you. To make it really easy, you can even order a Customized Financial Report. It shows your actual numbers verses the competition. It’s worth it especially if the GM of the competition has this information. Now go out there and play ball!

Industry News: Announcing a New Buying Power Program

Apr 4, 2015 | Programs

From the PIM

PrinterTowelsThe Printing Industries of Michigan has recently partnered with ITU AbsorbTech as a preferred provider for printer towels and other rental service programs, including SorbIts® reusable absorbents, garments, floor mats, cotton roll towels and mops. Members have two ways to save – an annual rebate for rental services and 15% discount on direct purchase services, including First Aid and ITUdirect.

For over 80 years, ITU AbsorbTech has provided launderable, reusable textile products in support of cleaner, safer work environments. They are a family business committed to Genuine Service Excellence, process and service innovation, and community involvement.

“We are proud to partner with the Printing Industries of Michigan,” says Jim Leef, president and third generation owner of ITU AbsorbTech. “Our in-house processing technology is uniquely set-up to benefit the graphics industry. In addition to providing a cleaner, better printer towel, our proprietary solvent recovery and reporting technology supports key compliance requirements and environmental initiatives for our graphics customers.”

ITU AbsorbTech’s processing facilities utilize advanced processing systems for wastewater, VOC emissions and other environmental controls. ITU AsorbTech became the first laundry facility to achieve ISO 9001:2008 and ISO 14001:2004 registrations in the United States and is unmatched in recovering and recycling hydrocarbon soils.

“As a family business, we have a long-standing tradition of service excellence and look forward to demonstrating that difference to the Printing Industries of Michigan membership,” says Leef.
For more information about the rebate and discount programs, please visit ITUAbsorbTech.com/PIM, or call their Customer Response Center at 888-729-4884 and identify yourself as a Printing Industries of Michigan member.

Compensation: Group Incentive Plans

Compensation: Group Incentive Plans

Jan 2, 2015 | Workforce Development

By Stuart Margolis, Margolis Partners • www.MargolisPartners.com. P 610.667.4310.

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At year end, you reviewed annual performance. Now is a good time to put the numbers to work. As you set company goals for 2016, consider translating corporate objectives into performance goals. As you communicate with staff to let them know just how valuable they are to you, consider creating ways to tie performance to goals over the next 12 months. If you are successful in doing so, you could end up with better overall results than last year. How do you reward staff, recognize their efforts and encourage their ongoing loyalty while ensuring performance meets or exceeds benchmarks that will meet or exceed company goals?

Incentives Based on Operating Improvements

One way is to provide creative opportunities for the staff to receive incentives. Since a typical goal is to remain efficient, incentives could be based on operating improvements, 14 efficiencies, etc. This way, by challenging your staff to help contain costs and be more productive, you will be able to recognize and financially reward them for doing so.

Generally, it is best to reward staff and management for areas of operations they work in and can control. Generally, those items to build the incentives around should have a level of variability to them, and hence need a focus of effort and/or control. For example, direct production overtime is variable, it needs a level of focus from management on a regular basis all year, whereas building rent does not. Some possible group incentive based benchmarks include:

  • Gross Profit
  • Spoilage
  • Overtime
  • Pre-tax income
  • EBITDA

Gross Profit

Virtually anyone in a manufacturing company is a candidate for inclusion in an incentive program based on gross profit.

Here are the key elements of a Gross Profit incentive program:

  • Higher chargeable production hours or lower non-chargeable hours or a better utilization factor
  • Direct Labor including overtime
  • Utilities – turn off the lights, HVAC
  • Supplies – cut out waste and overuse
  • Repairs and Maintenance – maintain rigid maintenance schedules and take care of the equipment

If there is a shop supervisor or manager that can personally impact a certain area of performance, it could be wise to break out a separate/personal goal for them that ties-in to the overall goal. When doing so, make sure they take responsibility for the goal and buy in to plans for achievability.

Spoilage

Reducing spoilage is a great opportunity. It seems that almost everyone is satisfied if spoilage is 1.5% of sales. At $10,000,000 in sales spoilage of 2% is $200,000. A 25% savings would improve cash flow by $50,000 which is a decent monetary reserve to utilize for incentives. Is there a department or team that can directly impact spoilage? If so, let them set the annual goal. Then, delineate how they envision spoilage decreasing. Break it down into monthly or quarterly estimates. Suggest ways the estimate can be achieved on a weekly basis with an actionable item. Ask them to try to meet the weekly goal and monitor their results. Realize that change is hard. Closely monitor it in the beginning. If performance is off course, uncover reasons. If correctable, suggest adjustments.

Overtime

Overtime is a culprit that can drain cash flow quickly and it may be difficult to control and reduce. After all, it may be the most important “culprit” in meeting production schedules and job turn around. With the cooperation and communication among the salespeople, production management and staff on focusing to improve efficiencies, it is possible to improve overtime efficiencies.

Here are some creative ways to think about it. Ask salespeople to get a clear understanding of client deadlines and demand. If 12-24 hours can be added to a production schedule, overtime can sometimes be avoided. Alternatively, if a job’s set up time is negligible, and the client doesn’t need the full order of the product immediately, sometimes a partial order fulfillment could work. Run part of the job now (to give the client what they presently need), then run the rest of the job latter when there is a break in the schedule (without overtime). We have actually seen both these tactics work and the savings can be very significant.

Pre-Tax Income

or EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest and Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization)

Setting a goal based on Pre-Tax Income or EBITDA is typically another group goal. The group as a whole must work together for achievement. It can provide valuable teamwork and learning opportunities for your staff since some players will pay attention to the goal while others may not. The philosophy? Hopefully the result-driven members of the team will pull along the less focused, reminding them to stay on task. Of course, it’s important to have the right people on the bus (Jim Collins, “Good to Great”.)

Summary

Different types of incentive programs may be appropriate for different personnel or departments in your organization. Be careful, to set goals so that the assigned parties are actually able to achieve the goals. Incent teams to achieve the goal with individual goals given to particular people, departmental goals given to specific teams that can contribute and company-wide goals set when a full effort is needed. Safeguard against setting goals that destroy teamwork and a commonality of purpose or set up “walls” or friction between departments.
If this sounds like too much planning, too much to handle, take a day to retreat, think about goals and bring them back to the grind. If it doesn’t work, rethink it. We run retreats all year long for profit leading, goal-focused companies to help re-focus.

Using incentive-based pay can help maintain a healthy cash flow environment since labor costs only increase when goals are actually attained. It creates a positive energized and forward-thinking environment. Savvy staff members thrive under great leadership, hope and purpose. Challenge them with incentives that are not just based on sales. Next year at this time, you will be glad you did.

 

About Margolis Partners: Margolis Partners has long been recognized as the financial expert for family- owned businesses with a specialty in the printing, packaging and allied graphic communications industries, assisting thousands of companies with strategic and financial management, valuation, mergers/acquisitions, accounting, audit and tax services. The firm is noted for its expertise in enabling companies to optimize profits. Proudly, it is the purveyor of the industry’s Value-Added Principles of Management, and compiles the annual Printing Industries of America Ratios, the printing industry’s premier financial benchmarking tool.

Health Insurance

Health Insurance

BCBSM has individual health insurance plans available to PIM members. Association Benefits Company, an authorized independent agency with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, is here to help you take care of your families and your employees. Call them today to discuss the individual and group options available to you. They work with all agents!

Description for Individual Coverage:

Introducing MyBlueSM– Individual Coverage direct with BCBSM

Printing Industries of Michigan now offers new BCBSM health care plans for individuals and families at all stages of life. Whether you’re single, a recent college graduate, self-employed, starting a family, or considering early retirement, BCBSM has a plan to meet your needs and budget. Click here for eligibility, review plan options and to enroll on line!

Description for Group Coverage:

Employers providing health insurance for employees

Printing Industries of Michigan now offers new BCBSM health care plans for individuals and families at all stages of life. Whether you’re single, a recent college graduate, self-employed, starting a family, or considering early retirement, BCBSM has a plan to meet your needs and budget. Click here to get started with our BCBSM/BCN Administrator!

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Fee Schedule

Fees schedule for PIM Active Membership

Annual sales volume Monthly Membership Dues
Under $100,000 $25
$100,001 – $200,000 $25
$200,001 – $250,000 $25
$250,001 – $300,000 $25
$300,001 – $350,000 $30
$350,001 – $400,000 $35
$400,001 – $450,000 $40
$450,001 – $500,000 $45
$500,001 – $550,000 $50
$550,001 – $600,000 $55
$600,001 – $650,000 $60
$650,001 – $700,000 $65
$700,001 – $750,000 $70
$750,001 – $800,000 $75
$800,001 – $850,000 $80
$850,001 – $900,000 $85
$900,001 – $950,000 $90
$950,001 – $1,000,000 $95
$1,000,001 – $1,500,000 $105
$1,500,001 – $2,000,000 $115
$2,000,001 – $2,500,000 $125
$2,500,001 – $3,000,000 $135
$3,000,001 – $3,500,000 $145
$3,500,001 – $4,000,000 $160
$4,000,001 – $5,000,000 $185
$5,000,001 – $6,000,000 $195
$6,000,001 – $7,000,000 $210
$7,000,001 – $8,000,000 $230
$8,000,001 – $9,000,000 $260
$9,000,001 – $10,000,000 $280
$10,000,001 – $11,000,000 $300
$11,000,001 – $13,000,000 $315
$13,000,001 – $15,000,000 $340
$15,000,001 – $17,000,000 $365
$17,000,001 and over $390
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