Wise papers country with its forms
CONNOQUENESSING TWP — Wise Business Forms Inc. products are used every day all over the country, but its name isn't as well known as you'd think.
That's because Wise makes products that display the names of other businesses. From notebooks to checks to invoices, nothing leaves the plant displaying the name of Wise.
"A lot of people have never heard of us," said Jeff Straub, general manager. "Nothing goes out with our name on it. They've seen our product but don't know we've produced it."
As one of the largest independent form manufacturers in the country, the company's customer base is varied, including restaurants, car dealers, lawyers, hospitals and government agencies. In addition to single forms and checks, the company makes multilevel forms, notebooks, receipts and other documentation.
"If it comes off of a computer, we could have done it," Straub said.
Distributors are used to sell the forms, saving the company the cost of having its own sales force, according to Straub. This method helps the company hit a larger market, he said.
Wise Business Forms can be found throughout the country and in Puerto Rico.
While the company was founded in Butler in 1969 by David Wise, its headquarters is now in Alpharetta, Ga. Plants also are in Florida, Indiana, Maine and South Carolina.
Products are shipped by UPS and truck freight from the various plants. The majority of business is done in the northeast sector of the country, according to Straub.
Plans for Wise include getting into commercial printing, including higher quality pieces such as glossy sales presentation sheets. Straub doesn't expect to do any more hiring in 2008, but that might occur in 2009.
Currently, the company is updating its process of making the forms. Until now, employees used a computer-to-negative system to make the plates that had the forms on them. The new system will eliminate the middle step of the negative, according to Billie Brink, promotion and human resource manager.The new process will be more efficient, but the change won't mean employee layoffs for Wise, according to Brink and Straub."No one will lose their job because of technology here," Straub said.If only two people are needed to do a job that once took three, the third will be trained to work somewhere else, he said. The company also promotes from within when possible.Employee relations are important to Straub, who said he and the current owners, Bill and Jeffrey Prettyman of Georgia, follow the philosophies of the late David Wise."People are the only truly appreciable asset you have," Straub said. "When you buy a machine, it depreciates as soon as you bring it to your business."Employees, on the other hand, learn more as they work at a job and their value continually increases, Straub said.The company has had three homes in Butler since it was founded. It was started on Pillow Street, and then it moved to East Butler Street. It is now housed in an 85,000-square-foot building on Kriess Road.The building includes 19 presses that can handle all different sizes of paper and can produce up to 70,000 forms per hour. One check machine, called a microprinter, prints up to 13 million checks per year.Several large machines called collators are lined up next to the presses. The collators connect the forms, according to Brink, joining a blue, green and pink multipart form, for example.The building also includes warehouse space for storage and plenty of room for hundreds of large rolls of paper of all colors and sizes. A portion of the building is dedicated to office space for billing, customer service and order entry stations.A shipping area includes shrink wrap capabilities for all the forms, and the building includes four shipping and four receiving docks.
