JPS Books + Logistics Leverages Canon Inkjet Fleet for Consecutive Years Growth
Meet Canon Solutions America inkjet customer and thINK member Hunter Johnson
"It started with a conversation with my dad over Christmas break about the family print business, centering around how to regroup and move forward post-COVID and plan for strategic growth,” said Hunter Johnson, CEO, JPS Books + Logistics.
No stranger to the print world, Hunter Johnson grew up working his teen years shipping books out of his dad’s unairconditioned warehouse, and later took on various roles intermittently during college breaks. However, after college, Hunter began his 15-year career in business consulting, working at companies including IBM, Deloitte Consulting, and Sabre. It was in his role as a business consultant that the conversation took place.
Shortly thereafter, Hunter conducted a six-week consultation for his family’s print business and mapped out a vision and strategic path forward for the company to regroup from COVID and continue building on an already successful business. The consultation quickly morphed into his current role as CEO at JPS Books + Logistics. “I am pleased to represent my family’s third generation in the family print business and continue executing on the strategic vision to evolve and grow the company,” Hunter said.
“I was passionate about finding opportunities for optimization and growth”
When asked about his strategic approach to finding those areas of opportunity, Hunter replied, “First, determine what one thing you can best deliver to the world, and then figure out how you can deliver it with excellence, better than anyone else, and better than you ever have before.”
It quickly became obvious to Hunter that the “one thing” the company did better than anyone else was helping education publishers and corporate training departments produce printed books and kits, deliver them fast and on time, and remove the burden of inventory management.
Hunter commented, “It was no surprise to me to find this was the company’s sweet spot. Before establishing what was then called JPS Graphics, my grandpa was originally a public school teacher, and lifelong learning has always been one of our core family values. Naturally, that value manifested to be at the center of the business for the past four decades. I’m quite proud to have that value be at the heart of what our company delivers today.”
A recent example of how this core value of the importance of education and Hunter’s vision of book printing came together was illustrated by their printing of the inspirational children’s book Sprinkles the Fire Dog, which garnered great local media coverage following its distribution to a Long Island middle school last year.
With a clear vision identified, Hunter then turned to the next task at hand—how to deliver with excellence, better than anyone else, and better than they ever had before. He knew just where to look first—the press room floor. Hunter commented, “Technology can be a game changer. If your company is using outdated technology, you are at an immediate disadvantage, and it inhibits you from delivering to the standard of excellence that you could be.”
“Technology can be a game changer.”
They replaced their toner devices that printed 110 pages per minute at 600 dpi with a Canon varioPRINT iX sheetfed inkjet press that prints almost triple the number of pages per minute at a much higher quality of 1200 dpi. “We went from the ability to produce 2–3 million impressions a month to being able to produce up to 10 million high quality impressions a month. That was a significant change for us. The speed and uptime of the varioPRINT iX is impeccable, and the consistency of the prints is superior,” Hunter said. “In addition, we cut our processes nearly in half, allowing us to have more time for more jobs. And the operating costs are considerably lower as well, allowing us to get more pages per productive hour from our employees.”
JPS Books + Logistics also added a Canon ColorStream 3900Z web-fed inkjet press to their fleet. “The culmination of the advantages of the varioPRINT iX confirmed that we were moving in the right direction, and that our strategy was sound. We saw clear advantages that resulted from bringing in the Canon varioPRINT iX, so it was an easy decision to take the next step in our growth strategy and purchase the Canon ColorStream,” Hunter said.
The ColorStream prints up to 417 feet per minute, at over 109K letter impressions per hour and runs a wide range of uncoated and inkjet-optimized media—40 to 160 gsm.
The varioPRINT iX sheetfed inkjet press, teamed with the ColorStream 3900 web-fed inkjet press and two varioPRINT 6000 TITAN monochrome presses and complemented by a wide range of binding options—including saddle stitch, coil binding, wire-O binding, PUR perfect binding, and hardcover case binding—all delivered through fulfillment services and fast nationwide shipping from their Dallas, Texas hub, has culminated in helping to create a powerful competitive differentiator for JPS Books + Logistics.
“We cut our processes nearly in half, allowing us to have more time for more jobs.”
“Updating our press room floor with Canon inkjet has enabled us to offer high-speed black-and-white pages all the way to high quality, full-color printed materials including schoolbooks and reading materials for K–12 learning organizations, training materials for corporations, and personalized books and gifts for e-commerce companies,” Hunter said. “We have achieved 30 percent year-over-year revenue growth for two consecutive years, and I credit our Canon inkjet fleet for a large part of that. We simply could not have grown in the way we did without the powerful inkjet technology we have on our floor.”
“Canon Solutions America has been a great partner for us. They are hands on and invested in their customers’ success, and that, coupled with thINK, the Canon Solutions America production inkjet user group, has provided us with the training, tools, and resources we need to be successful in executing on our vision.”
“Finding out what you can best deliver to the world and delivering that based on your core values is not only an admirable goal, but one in which is certainly a sure path to success,” said Francis McMahon, executive vice president, Production Print Solutions, Canon Solutions America, Inc. “I am proud that Canon Solutions America has supplied the production inkjet technology that enables JPS Books + Logistics to deliver their value-based offerings with excellence.”
