A day in the life of a growing print shop
Making the print shop grow
The most successful print shop owners are making the move towards a broader marketing service provider model.
In recent years, advanced technology has transformed printing, making high-end features available for the first time to print shops of all sizes. This means that print shops can now handle more work than ever before, reduce costs, increase productivity, and gain an advantage over competitors. Those who’ve upgraded to the latest technology now have a scalable solution that helps them take on the most demanding jobs and deliver quality output every time.
If you haven’t yet made the move and you’re wondering what difference it would make, read on. Our print shop may be fictional, but the benefits we’ve described are based on the real-life experiences of print shop owners and operators.
Ready for expansion and open to business
Mike and Sarah are opening the doors of their print shop at eight in the morning. It has been in Mike’s family for generations; it started as an offset business in the 1960s, was taken over by his father, and is now managed by him and Sarah. It was converted to digital in the 1990s. They’ve recently decided to make the move to next-generation print technology. So why did they invest?
For the business to survive and prosper, they need to become a full-service marketing provider.
Print is still central, but there are lots of other high-margin possibilities around that: direct mail fulfilment, new types of media and applications, and personalisation.
They have an advantage over their rivals thanks to cutting-edge print technology, and they can demonstrate to customers how much value they can provide. Although it was a significant decision, it became much simpler when they considered the alternative, which consisted of falling behind, performing more of the same low-value work, and being overtaken by their rivals. The investment future-proofs the business, so they can hand it on to their children when the time comes.
Getting the simple things right: Colour consistency
It’s 9 am, and the business day is in full swing. They’re working on a big job for one of their recently acquired customers, a building society with branches up and down the country. Pantone 2347 XCG, a very distinctive shade of red, is used for the logo. With their old technology, getting colours exactly right was often a challenge. As it was for their competitor, who lost this account after hit-and-miss results.
However, with their new press’s advanced color technology, it is now simple, repeatable, and predictable. Mike and Sarah hit the right colour first time, every time. resulting in time savings, increased throughput, and increased job output. Colour management wasn’t the only challenge they had faced in the past. Front-to-back registration was a recurring issue, taking up an inordinate amount of valuable time. It resulted in significant amounts of waste and skyrocketing costs. The new press makes it automated and push-button simple. The way it should be: Sarah needs to worry about more important things.
The need for speed: An urgent job comes in
Mike is taking a call from a customer with an urgent job just after 11 a.m. The tech company has a big trade fair coming up next week, and they need a datasheet for a new version of their small-business accounting software that’s being released ahead of schedule.
So timelines are tight, and there’s an added complication: they want to print on heavy, gloss stock.
With old technology, that would have meant running more slowly to avoid misfeeds and paper jams. Not so with their new press, which handles all stock and substrates with ease and consistently high speeds. Detailed stock profiles control temperature to ensure maximum, hassle-free throughput.
New print media: Taking it to the next level
It’s now 2 pm, and Mike and Sarah have returned from separate lunches with prospective clients. Both meetings were very successful. The prospects were impressed by the range and quality of their sample output and the confidence of their pitch.
The pair can afford to be confident, thanks to the cutting-edge technology that gives them the productivity, flexibility, and scalability they need. Knowing that they can rise to the occasion and tackle any job means they’re winning significantly more business.
The sheer variety they can offer means they’re quickly becoming the partner of choice, not just another printing shop. So they start with business cards and end up printing complex brochures, reports, and marketing materials for a client.
From booklets to window clings, from coil bind to flat spine and printing on plastic, they can handle it all. And increasingly they are, since more and more clients want a one-stop solution. Back to top ^
Crisis management: Fixing problems faster
Mike and Sarah may be dreaming of a bright new future at 3 p.m., but when it comes to the print business, their feet are firmly planted. They know it doesn’t matter how good the technology is — things can always go wrong.
Which is what happens when their press jams.
As we all know, every press jam, and the pair know that the most important thing is how quickly you can unjam it. Before the upgrade, traffic jams were quite frequent and extremely disruptive. Most jams they could eventually clear themselves, but occasionally they needed to make a service call — and both scenarios meant delays, frustration, and lost revenue.
All of that is now out of the question. Their new press has something called auto sheet clearing, which automatically clears jams and gets them back up to speed in record time.
So in just a couple of minutes,s they’re up and running again, with productivity and output barely affected at all.
How the technology has developed beneath the hood surprised Mike. The move toward customer-replaceable units has changed printing presses beyond recognition since his Dad’s time. The majority of items can now simply be removed and replaced without the need for a screwdriver.
Smarter workflow: Consistency and quality
It’s just past 4 pm, and while Geoff (the print shop’s go-to guy) is delivering the urgent datasheets, Mike is at the controls once again.
He wonders how they would have been able to keep up with such a high demand with their previous press,s given the shop’s increased traffic. Then again, this demand has actually been created by the capability the new press has given them, so he’ll never know the answer to that one.
At the moment, he’s just finished a business card run for an estate agent. Clearly, the property market is booming because it’s the third time in nine months the agent has ordered more cards.
Mike knows that a new print run is going to be pretty straightforward, thanks to the workflow the press has kept on file. Colour, alignment, front-to-back registration: everything on this press really is push-button simple. He can be confident that the quality is consistent and reliable — if he’s done it once, his press makes it easier to do it the next time.
Already, he’s seeing big cross-selling benefits. After the second business card print run, the estate agent was so pleased that he asked Mike if he could run a direct mail campaign to his client base. The shop is getting more and more of this value-added work, and they frequently pitch ideas to existing clients based on the new press’s capabilities.
Simplifying complexity: One of those jobs comes in
It’s 5.30 pm, and Geoff is back, now handling a complex job that came in this afternoon.
It’s a 200-page report for a local university on the viability of establishing a biomedical research department. They are looking for private funding, as well as UK and international investors and donors. The finished quality of the report will have to reflect the enormous effort and painstaking research that’s gone into preparing it.
Geoff wants to be ready to roll first thing in the morning, but there’s quite a bit of setup to do.
The report has a dozen sections, each with a tabbed divider. Numerous high-resolution graphics and pages fold out. The front and back cover stock are made of 250 gsm cover stock, with the section intro pages printed on gloss paper and the remainder printed on uncoated paper. And there’s one last complication: Geoff’s contact at the university says one of the appendices has to be created from a hard-copy document, as they can’t locate the soft copy.
With the old press, this job would have been hugely complicated, and Geoff would have arrived home late yet again.
He programs the page sizes, paper stock, tabs, and covers. He tweaks some of the graphics that aren’t displaying clearly before using the on-board scanner to read in the hard-copy appendix. He doesn’t need to worry about colour, fonts, or image quality: the press’s advanced technology will ensure the report is exactly as the designer intended. And thanks to Ultra HD technology, it will look absolutely stunning. Just one more thing to do before he packs up for the day: save the job into a hot folder, so it’s one of the many workflow processes he’s created since they got the new press.
The future of print starts here.e
It’s 6 pm, and we’ve come to the end of another busy day at the print shop.
Geoff’s job is all lined up for tomorrow morning. He’s glad to know that when he starts, he won’t have to hand-scan a calibration chart and take 20 minutes like he used to on his old press to calibrate. The new one does it in a fraction of the time, and the job will be underway before he’s finished his first cup of tea.
Mike and Sarah’s lunches seem to have paid off: they’ve heard back from both clients who are keen to proceed with a wide variety of projects. They were impressed by the print shop’s can-do attitude and are looking forward to working together.
As Mike locks up the shop for the night, Sarah is approached by a man asking if they can help. He’s been referred by a print shop at the other end of town, which said they couldn’t produce promotional magnets with matching printed envelopes, but thought Mike and Sarah could.
And they can – but it’ll have to wait until tomorrow. They will arrive promptly at 8 a.m. Just like Mike’s dad and his grandfather before him.
Talk to us today
The technology that’s helping Mike and Sarah grow their printing shop is set to revolutionise the world of print. The good news is that making the move costs less than you might think. And it pays for itself many times over in higher productivity, lower costs, and reduced waste. Not to mention more, higher-value businesses.
We’re Xerox. Talk to us today about upgrading your printer technology.