"When you work in an industry as dynamic as customer messaging," he explains, "where needs, priorities and opportunities can change virtually overnight, the only sure way to assure success is to tap into the experience, insight and initiative of everyone involved.

"That means reaching out to empower employees to take risks and solve problems, to solicit ideas and innovations from vendors, and to work with business unit managers proactively and as peers to develop solutions and new applications."

Bush's team philosophy was implemented almost from the start four years when he was brought in by Senior Vice President Steve Fredericks to help boost mail processing performance.

Keeping Up with Growing Demand
"At the time we were struggling to keep up with rapidly increasing volumes," recalls Fredericks. "Every day was a challenge as we constantly pushed against and sometimes missed our service level agreements for turnaround time."

The mailing operation at Prudential Securities processes roughly 75 million mail pieces and half a billion print pages a year. More than 100 different applications are involved, but the majority of the volume occurs in only four: monthly account statements for the brokerage unit and other Prudential businesses; daily trade confirmations; daily checks to customers; and the annual distribution of prospectuses.

However, the monthly volume is anything but even. Nearly 55 percent is concentrated in the first seven days of each month, when the processing of end-of-month account statements coincides with trade confirmations and the daily checks for customers.

"We were really hindered by our legacy application for customer trade confirmations," Bush continues. "The format we used was a 4.25" x 11" single-panel page and it was cumbersome and slow to process. The equipment couldn't be adapted to process other applications. And we couldn't get more than a modest improvement in speed using the various 'tweaks' suggested by our vendors.

"Given the rapid and continued growth in both customer accounts and trade volume, we needed much faster and more flexible equipment if we hoped to keep up," he says. Such equipment was available. But it was designed to handle documents in a standard 8.5" x 11" paper format. And switching equipment meant Prudential would have to abandon a legacy format that had existed for many years.

Working with Peers
To solve the dilemma, he enlisted the aid and guidance of Fredericks, who is experienced in finance and accounting and benefits from insights gained from a lengthy tenure at Prudential. And together they solicited the ideas and views of the key staff and line managers with a stake in the existing trade confirmation application.

Armed with support from their peers, they then developed an airtight case for reducing costs and boosting productivity by reformatting the legacy application to a standard 8.5" x 11" size, which allowed for the use of higher speed and more flexible equipment.

Senior management approved the switch, which at the time was projected to save more than $400,000 annually, chiefly due to higher productivity and lower labor and maintenance costs.

Indeed, the new equipment -- which consisted of five 8 Series intelligent inserting systems from Pitney Bowes Document Factory Solutions -- cycled at roughly 4.5 times the speed of the legacy inserters and enabled the pair to dedicate one new system to absorb new business acquired by the unit while the other four replaced the equivalent of seven older inserters.

The new systems were also flexible enough to handle virtually any application in the mail center. That includes the full array of 10" x 12" flats, 6" x 9" half-fold, 5" x 12" broker fold, and the standard tri-fold #10 envelope. So the equipment operators could easily process the end-of-month statements, shift quickly to any other high priority applications that might emerge, and shift back again just as easily to handle trade confirmations or other assignments.

The real test of the new systems came in the week following the tragic attacks on the World Trade Center. With the stock exchanges closed and trading suspended for nearly a full week, the Prudential Securities mail center faced a near avalanche of work on Tuesday, September 18th. Bush warned his people to expect a long day.But the entire work load of the previous day's frenzied trading activity was completed in just one shift.

"We were able to go home at 5:30 p.m. that Tuesday knowing that the day was a success," he says. "Previously, with that kind of volume we might have worked until 9:00 p.m. or later and still not be finished."

Yet another benefit comes from the ability to offer superior levels of service to Prudential's most important clients. "We are committed to processing every customer statement with seven days of the end of the month," explains Fredericks.

"But for our most important clients, those with the largest amount invested or the most active traders, we want to provide even better service. Since these elite accounts generate multi-page, complex statements that are best processed in a flats format, our new systems enable us to process our most important end-of-month statements within just 72 hours with ease and consistency. Which means our new equipment is saving us money, our people can accomplish their work more quickly, which that helps boost morale, and we are providing better customer service as well."

A Motivated Staff
Although getting the right equipment was important to boosting performance, Bush is quick to credit his people as well. "It wasn't always so," he says, "but we now have an 'esprit de corps' among our operators and supervisors along with an attitude that we can handle just about anything that comes our way."

To develop that kind of 'can-do' attitude, Bush and Fredericks empowered managers, supervisors and operators by stressing training and team work, the sharing of ideas and problems, and the need for everyone to seize the initiative whenever possible. The goal is for everyone to be on the alert and constantly searching for new ways to improve performance, lower costs and provide customers with superior service.

As an example, supervisors are encouraged to operate equipment on a regular basis so they can see first hand how the various applications are handled as well as help break down any vestiges of a 'we-they' mentality. "Our equipment operators and supervisors often see problems and opportunities first," he continues. "They should all have the confidence to take action, based on their experience and knowledge, without worrying or having to wait for an okay from a long chain of command."

A case in point recently occurred when the shop was processing a large regulatory mailing involving the enclosure of pre-printed booklets. One of the unit leaders noticed that some of the booklets being inserted contained a different title. Without hesitating she shut down the production line and started to pull booklet samples out of inventory for comparison.

As it turned out, the problem was limited to a small batch of booklets that were mis-packaged. But her prompt action isolated the problem quickly and allowed the remainder of mailing to proceed as scheduled.

Additional confidence and initiative is developed by asking team members to help set department and individual goals, by sharing production and financial data, and by allowing individuals to determine how goals are achieved.

Training is another key priority and is structured to provide employees with: (1) the technical skills needed to perform their specific job; (2) the interpersonal skills to work as part of a team; and (3) the flexibility to switch assignments and pitch in whenever and wherever they are needed.

The messaging center at Prudential Securities, which stretches over about 100,000 sq. ft. in downtown Manhattan, consists of approximately 100 full time employees, who work an 11-hour shift four days a week. However, the center operates five days a week. And a second 11-hour shift is added for five to ten days at the beginning of each month to handle the peak volume due to the processing of the end-of-month customer account statements.

Open Communications
Since individual employees work only 40 out of the possible 50 hours that the center operates each week -- and the second shift is staffed by both full time and temporary employees -- open communication and full cooperation among workers, shifts and even maintenance staff is essential.

"Our maintenance people are a valued and valuable part of our team," says Bush. "They often have experience in other industries and we want them to volunteer their ideas so we can improve our performance, correct weaknesses and avoid problems before they occur or multiply. We expect and need them to do much more than just repair the equipment."

Another recent innovation initiated by Fredericks and Bush involves the placement of a new 2-D barcode symbol in the address block of all outgoing customer statements. Like the shift to the new format for trade confirmations, this initiative was also coordinated with vendors, employees and other managers in Prudential, notably those in a 'back office' function that is responsible for complying with state laws concerning abandoned properties.

The new 2-D barcode offers two important benefits. First, it will allow the operators to automatically regenerate any mail piece that is flawed or damaged during processing. To recreate a mail piece, all they need do is scan the 2-D barcode and an exact duplicate statement will be prepared.

The barcode will also help speed and simplify the handling of returned mail by eliminating the need to open and examine the contents of an envelope, which will greatly ease the job of the 'back office' people responsible for alerting local branches of the need to obtain correct address information or otherwise update customer accounts.

Once again, the 2-D barcode project was a team effort. "Jeff Willard, a Senior Vice President with Prudential Securities, was instrumental in determining the best place to locate the barcode, and George Driscoll, a Pitney Bowes Customer Development Engineer provided expertise in scanning and symbology, which helped assure that the 2-D solution was best for us," says Bush.

Today, with a soft economy and a stock market in search of a firm footing, the focus is no longer on accommodating extra work. It's on reducing expenses. And new technology is expected to help once again.

"We are adding three FlowMaster FX10F intelligent inserting systems from Pitney Bowes Document Factory Solutions this fall," says Bush. These will supplement the eight 8 Series that we already have and will again replace the equivalent of seven of our older, aging inserters."

With both added flexibility and higher throughput, the FlowMasters are expected to reduce costs by roughly $300,000 a year and will also compress turnaround time by about 10 percent.

Although the newer inserting systems will reduce the overall need for equipment operators, there will be no net loss in full time jobs. That's because the full time employees affected by the switch will be reassigned to other positions. And the temporary employees affected by the upgrade will be offered other assignments by their agency, which specializes exclusively in placing workers in print/mail finishing centers.