Community Impact Printing

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Community Impact Printing Protects Throughput and Reduces Overtime with an On-Demand Labor Pool

Community Impact Printing serves as the primary print partner for Community Impact newspaper while also managing high-volume impressions for a diverse range of commercial customers. In this environment, production is a tightly sequenced balancing act. The facility is highly dependent on maximizing equipment uptime, but those machines are only as productive as the skilled labor available to run them.

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In the print industry, schedules are preset, but conditions are fluid. Page counts shift, last-minute orders arrive, and absenteeism is a constant threat. Historically, staffing rigidly for a preset schedule exposed the operation to a brutal tradeoff: either stretch the team through expensive overtime or face the consequences of missed commitments.

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To stabilize operations without permanently expanding headcount, Community Impact moved away from staffing for "averages" and built a flexible Labor Pool through Veryable’s on-demand marketplace.

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Moving Beyond the "Overtime Band-Aid"

Before building a labor pool, the primary lever for handling variability was mandatory overtime. If an employee called in sick for the second shift, the only way to keep the presses running was to ask a first-shift worker to stay over. While this covered the gap, it was an expensive short-term band-aid that led to margin erosion and team burnout.

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By building a "sideline bench" through Veryable, the operation transitioned to a model of real-time responsiveness. This labor pool acts as a "second string" roster: skilled workers who are already familiar with the shop floor and ready to step in exactly when production volume spikes or absences occur.

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“Build your labor pool. That's the biggest thing you have to do," the team noted. "If you don't build a labor pool, you're gonna be in probably the same boat with everybody else.”

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Frontline Autonomy and 10-Minute Response Times

The success of the Labor Pool is rooted in frontline ownership. Rather than deployment decisions being trapped in administrative layers, the leads on the shop floor manage the roster directly. They look at the day's page counts, identify the gaps, and pull in resources as needed.

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This flexibility has transformed how the facility handles the "3:30 PM crisis." Now when a call-in occurs minutes before a shift change, the team no longer scrambles to find coverage.

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“I've got people when it's three thirty and someone hasn't shown up and I can call them up and they'll be here in ten minutes. And that's what we actually do nowadays.”

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Because these Operators return to the facility frequently, the traditional "temporary labor" bottleneck is eliminated. There is no repetitive paperwork or training ramp-up. Many of these Operators have worked with the crew for over a year and are viewed as "rockstars" who are integral to daily production.

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“They've been here many times before. that's so awesome. I don't have to be like, okay, let's go do the paperwork, let's show you what to do, like, that saves so much time to not have to do that... And I've got two out there right now who have been with me for a year or more that are integral parts of my team, a couple of my absolute rockstars.”

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Protecting the Press Schedule

In a high-variability environment, the ability to scale labor shift-by-shift makes the operation more competitive. Access to an on-demand pool ensures that equipment stays utilized and lead times remain short, regardless of how much daily volume fluctuates.

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By aligning labor to real-time production needs rather than a static forecast, Community Impact has moved from a reactive state to a proactive one. They no longer have to move product around or extend commitments to customers due to resource shortages.

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“The moment that you see yourself in a situation where you need to quickly turn around resources, labor, because there are needs to fulfill, And having the ability to do that with a platform and a company like Veryable, you know, it just makes us more competitive in any market. We don't have to move product around. We don't have to extend lead times to our customers because we don't have resources to be able to fulfill the work that we have in front of us.”

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Overall through this partnership, Community Impact Printing has successfully reduced its overtime exposure, protected throughput, and ensured that every product hits the dock on schedule. No matter what happens on the shop floor.