If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It

Old-world craftsmanship trumps contemporary fulfillment tech.

By Chandra Johnson-Greene
06/10/2009 -03:01 PM

During the “Fulfillment Trends 2009” session at the AD Show earlier this week, Heather Holmes, VP, circulation and consumer marketing, Technology Review, gave attendees a view of how her job has changed since she started her career in circulation at The Christian Science Publishing Society in 1986.

Holmes shared that during her stint at Christian Science, the company’s circulation team of 300—the company’s fulfillment for its 70+ titles was done entirely in-house—used the first inserter system that mail and document processor company Bell + Howell created in the 1930s. Christian Science had been using it since the 1960s. “It was an uncomplicated inserter with five or six pockets,” she said. “They’re made of wood and brass, and they never break. It doesn’t insert 25,000 pieces, but what it can do, it does correctly.”

The most surprising fact about Holmes’ trip down memory lane is that she still uses an original Bell + Howell inserter at Technology Review (whose tagline is “The Authority of the Future of Technology”). “You know the old saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,’” she told attendees.

One of the session attendees told me that fulfillment company Kable, which was recently acquired by Palm Coast Data, had about 30 or 40 of the Bell + Howell inserters at their former Colorado location and were still using them up until the office closed.

This make me wonder how many other companies have stuck to tried-and-true mailing machines as opposed to the new ones with all of the bells and whistles. And if so, why are they still considered to be the gold standard? And what are some other machines that are held to the same regard?

Chandra Johnson-Greene is senior editor of Audience Development magazine.