RRD Facility Spotlight: RRD Labels Solutions – Brenham
7/10/2023
RRD Brenham is located in southeast Texas, just 76 miles northwest of Houston. This 150,000-square-foot facility is situated on 11 acres and specializes in stock and custom labels manufacturing.
In an interview with Kate Twomey, the facility’s Vice President of Operations, on what differentiates RRD Brenham from the competition, she points toward their unmatched level of customer service, which is made possible by the more than 400 years of combined print label and point-of-sale roll experience.
Kate took the time to further explain how this facility translates that remarkable expertise into a better customer experience.
What about this facility makes it unique in the current marketplace?
Kate Twomey (KT): We joke about it a bit, but the collective print and press experience of our front office group alone is unmatched — we’ve truly seen it all. Between the leadership and immediate support team, we have 441 years of combined print label and point-of-sale roll experience.
Running a print operation is complex. Above and beyond just printing, we’re always looking at new materials, reworking combinations for better pricing, and looking to improve service and delivery. With all these complexities, our experience and knowledge help us deliver the results our customers need. Having in-house expertise in so many areas enables us to take end-to-end command of any project that comes our way.
We’re also proud of our responsiveness and flexibility. Our business is built around the ability to adapt and change to the current market. We do this to minimize the impact on overhead costs to our clients when inevitable market fluctuations occur. We are able to maintain this level of flexibility even as the largest volume labels facility in the RRD platform. In fact, we’re the only site that runs two presses for POS rolls. Despite our size, we take pride in our long-run lead time being only two weeks.
If you had to narrow it down to one, what do you consider your facility’s forte?
KT: Outstanding customer service is a top priority given the combined years of experience across our team. We're all industry veterans with expertise across all facets of print production. That collective knowledge guarantees we can answer every customer question and deliver on every customer request. And that outstanding customer service isn’t just coming from our customer service department — it's a collective effort from every Brenham employee.
For example, in early 2022 as COVID-related supply issues still lingered in early 2022, backorder challenges loomed. By implementing a preventative maintenance program, we were able to greatly reduce equipment downtime, increase efficiencies, and minimize shift changeovers with schedule reviews.
This focus on improved productivity helped tremendously in the reduction of downtime and potential client delays. Today, we now exceed company-wide on-time goals and are well positioned to continue to.
What are you doing to help clients evolve to keep pace with their own customers' demands?
KT: In our eyes, it again comes down to flexibility. That ability to adapt ensures that our deliverables won’t be jeopardized due to staffing issues or other circumstances.
Additionally, three Benham employees — our maintenance supervisor, quality representative, and production supervisor — became Six Sigma Green Belt-certified this year, primarily to help reduce waste. The Green Belt course focuses on how to improve process efficiency and design workflows specifically to optimize customer quality. Continuous improvement is a main focus, so bringing this training to our facility was a priority. We now have three very different skill sets working to apply the Green Belt learning across our entire operation.
We've also been running monthly productivity improvements and establishing efficiency targets, and we’re exceeding expectations in both areas this year.
To learn more about this facility, visit our RRD Brenham location page.