Presort makes room to move more mail

Presort makes room to move more mail
From CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS, May 7th, 2001

By DAVID BENNETT Midwest Presort Mailing Services Inc. is investing $1.25 million
in its West 110th Street headquarters plant to add space and bolster its
efficiency, and is devising even greater expansion plans for later this
year. The company, which sorts about 800,000 pieces of first-class mail for
corporate customers each day, is expanding its Cleveland operation to
74,000 square feet from 44,000 square feet. Part of the additional space
will be used for a $600,000, 105-foot-long sorting machine the company
bought last Friday, May 4, said Richard Gebbie, Midwest Presort president. One of only a handful of presort operations in Greater Cleveland, Midwest
Presort picks up customers’ mail, sorts it by zip code, assigns each piece
a bar code and transports it to the post office for delivery — saving
clients money because the U.S. Postal Service gives discounts to customers
who presort mass mailings. Those customers in turn give Midwest Presort a
share of the discounts for doing the work. The new machine, which was produced by Lockheed Martin Distribution
Technologies, a unit of Lockheed Martin Corp., will sort large pieces of
mail faster than Midwest Presort employees who currently do it by hand. “Our production will increase from 200 pieces (of mail larger than the
standard letter) one employee does an hour to 17,000 an hour,” Mr. Gebbie
said. The new sorter, however, will not displace any workers at the Cleveland
plant, which now employs 150, Mr. Gebbie said. Rather, he projected the
large-mail sorting operation will be expanded to a point where the company
will need 30 more employees in the next two months. Midwest Presort also has smaller plants in Akron and Pittsburgh and has a
total of 350 employees. By the end of this year, Midwest Presort plans to buy the
120,000-square-foot building where the company is now a tenant, as well as
an adjacent, 138,000-square-foot building, said Mr. Gebbie’s brother,
James, who is Midwest Presort’s chief executive officer. The brothers
declined to reveal a purchase price for either building. Richard Gebbie said the acquisitions should address any growing pains
Midwest Presort might experience in coming years. They also would keep the
company within a 10-minute drive to Cleveland’s main post office operation
on Orange Avenue — a key factor to serving its clients within its
promised turnaround time of 24 hours. “Our operation is so time-sensitive, to go east or to go south just
doesn’t work,” said Richard Gebbie, who acknowledged the company had
considered moving to Lakewood or Berea before deciding to remain at its
West 110th Street location. Page 2; Volume 22CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS, 07th May 2001