It’s not uncommon for people to think that it costs a lot to increase productivity, and a lot of time should be invested. Many print service owners claim they don’t have the time or the capital to afford such an investment.
What they don’t know is that there are a few simple (and not so expensive) ways to increase printing productivity.
Here are a few ways to get started:
Start with the least expensive solution – train your customers. What does it mean? It means being specific and explicit about the types of files they can submit, or submitting a complete file before finishing the order and sending it to print. This will reduce chance of errors and especially requests for editing and re-printing.
In relation to customers “training”, you should go over your procedures and maybe change some of them. Your printing procedures should be clear and simple, helping your customers prepare files in the easiest way, identify problems more quickly, and automatically repair files.
Another way that can help increasing productivity is to hire additional staff, either on a permanent basis, or just for specific times you know there will be more orders (seasonal holidays, sporting events, school/university events, etc.). More manpower will help dividing the workflow and ensure orders will be ready in time.
Finally, the most expensive way is also the most beneficial – invest in equipment. When you use the most advanced printers and technologies such as web to print solutions, your productivity will increase automatically, and the investment will prove itself tenfold.
Each of these ways has their own cost-benefit analysis. Educating your customers and adjusting procedural solutions would cost less than hiring more staff or investing in a print on demand technology, but in the long run, ongoing customer training or printing procedure adjustments might cost more than staffing solutions or new technologies. All 4 ways would increase printing productivity and reduce costs, so the best thing is to take all of those ideas into account.