Bridge Publications Wins Sixth Manufacturing Leadership 100 Award
Frost & Sullivan’s Manufacturing Leadership Council announced in March that Bridge Publications has once again earned the coveted Manufacturing Leadership 100 Award.
For the sixth consecutive year, Bridge Publications, publisher of the religious works of author, humanitarian and Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard, has earned the prestigious Manufacturing Leadership 100 Award.
This year’s award is in the category of Operational Leadership, presented to companies that “undertake continuous improvement projects” that “have demonstrated commitment over time, measurable results, and will have contributed positively to the organization’s overall performance.”
In 2013, Bridge greatly increased its production to prepare for the November launch of the Golden Age of Tech Phase II at the Clearwater, Florida, spiritual headquarters of the Scientology religion.
This launch required the publication, manufacture and distribution of the greatest volume of technical and administrative material in the Church’s history: written issues, books, study aids and other religious items for the training and spiritual counseling of parishioners and the education of Scientology ministers. The launch consisted of:
- 137 course packs, books, administrative forms, reference packs and lectures in 17 languages, totaling 2,329 individual items
- The printing of a staggering 253 million pages of materials
- 12 50-foot truckloads of paper (11.8 million feet) and 100,000 pounds of plastic used in the production of the release
- 1,396,946 pounds or 699 tons of materials shipped out to Scientology Churches around the world
- In excess of 1,189,000 items added to the Bridge Publications stock warehouse
No fewer than 67,253,096 color printing impressions ran through Bridge’s digital presses for this release alone. In a single week, Bridge’s Hewlett-Packard Indigo printing presses ran at highest-rated speed and were off the top of the charts in uptime productivity—more than 5.4 million color printing impressions, breaking Bridge’s previous world record of 4.3 million impressions on one machine in a single month.
To cope with the production of such a variety of items, for many of which no machinery previously existed, Bridge worked with manufacturers to design and produce state-of-the-art, unique equipment.
Nearly every product required labels or covers with hot foil stamping, lamination, screen UV coating, embossing and die-cutting. Custom molds were made and used for plastic injection molding of binder packs, with cut, hole-punched and corner rounded text inserted into them. The decorated labels were printed and applied to each plastic pack with a custom-made machine, specifically engineered to apply labels through three feeders onto a 3-piece binder (front, back and spine), smoothly applying the rolls of labels into exact grooves of the plastic injection molded binder.
The result was a seamless launch, with all needed materials sent to Churches around the world in time for the November release.
“The production of Golden Age of Tech Phase II was the most exciting release to date,” says Bridge Publications Vice President for Manufacturing Veronica Rodriguez. “Our team pulled together, day in and day out, running our presses above the industry standards for production capacity output. We had to be streamlined, organized, and work as a team to make this happen. It was a great experience for which we all have an incredible sense of pride.”
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Established in 1981 in Los Angeles, California, Bridge Publications publishes the religious works of bestselling author and Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard for North and Latin America, Africa, Asia, Australia, New Zealand and Oceania. Its sister organization, New Era Publications in Copenhagen, Denmark, prints and distributes these materials for Europe and the United Kingdom.
Since the inception of its in-house printing facility in 2006, the organization has published more than 18 million L. Ron Hubbard works.