|
 |
|
|
Making the Most of Value-Added
|
|
Two Florida printers know the meaning of service
|
|
Jan. 2003—For many of you that read this publication each month, a print shop and its inner workings is second in familiarity only to your own home. It is the place where you go every day, where you sweat, laugh, and maybe some days even shed a tear or two. In an effort to learn more about this passion that you, the readers of D.O. indulge in every day, I spent several days in sunny South Florida visiting with two printers – 21st Century Printing Corp. and Viacom Outdoor Print Division. Both are large format printers, each with a slightly different focus.
The first thing that struck me was the camaraderie between the two shops. They knew each other, spoke highly of each other and even shared supplies or helped to fix a machine that was down in the middle of a critical job. In most industries, competition is fierce and the idea of helping another guy finish a job (instead of going to the customer and offering to do it themselves) is almost unheard of. This is apparently not the case in the graphic arts industry. There are so many shops with so many different specialties, that even though there might be the occasional overlap, especially in larger markets, printers often times help one another in a pinch.
21st Century Printing
The first stop on my two-stop tour was 21st Century Printing. I sat down with Guillermo Torres, vice president, managing director, and Cosme Hernandez, production manager. The company originally started in Venezuela, as the U.S. subsidiary. For certain jobs and certain clients, the company needed to have an office in the South Florida area. For the first year, they operated solely as a support for their Venezuelan parent. As year two rolled along they started doing additional work for clients in the Caribbean Islands and Central America. Today, about 80 percent of their work is done for clients in the Miami/Ft. Lauderdale area. They still work with their sister company in Venezuela, printing most of the international jobs here and shipping them out. There are seven employees in Miami, with around 100 people total in both of the sister sites.
The company has grown 34 percent in the last year, with special events making up the bulk of their work. According to Torres, business slowed down a bit this summer, but started picking back up again in the fall.
"Summer is terrible for us. In the Miami market we do a lot of printing for trade graphics, a lot of point-of-purchase and a lot of events," said Torres. "In Miami, in the summertime, they stop. There are no events at all. So in September everything is rush. We were very concerned about the summer, checking it against last year, but we have no complaints over the whole year."
21st Century recently moved to a larger location, as they had outgrown their previous shop and wanted a location more convenient for their client base. They are renovating slowly, taking advantage of any slower periods to do the major work. They worked with the original installer to dismantle their Vutek UltraVu 3300 printer, and had no trouble setting it back up at the new facility.
In addition to the 3300, 21st Century is planning on adding a Vutek UltraVu 5300 to allow them to take on larger jobs, such as billboards. Their design department uses all Macs, while the administration uses PCs. Most of the work they receive is already designed, although they do offer design as a value-added service. They accept all native files – they give their clients the prepress requirements ahead of time, and have the software in-house to read most files. They upgrade their software as often as possible to stay ahead of the technology curve. They are already running Adobe Photoshop 7, for example.
"Every time something comes out, we update," said Hernandez. "We try to keep it current. That is our business. We give [our clients] the prepress requirements, so they know what we need. We have almost all the software out on the market, so we can receive everything."
The bulk of the work that 21st Century does today is vehicle wraps, POP displays and event graphics, as well as large banners. Their largest client is Logan Corp, which owns a facility on the beach. They were installing some graphics and the owner, BIll Logan, was having trouble with the crew and needed help. He felt he couldn’t leave them alone and was worried that it would not get done. Torres called him, got the address and sent his men out the help, free of charge. Now Logan Corp. is one of their best customers.
Torres likes to recall a particular job for Texaco with, what you might call, a tricky deadline. "I couldn't even send it by Fedex," he said. "I had to send one of my guys on an airplane with the banner as his luggage. It was an event that was going on the next day and they needed the main banner. They were waiting for him at the airport. He gave it to them then hopped on another plane and came back. When you are willing to go that extra mile, you become their solution."
21st Century replenishes their supplies 2-3 times per week via several trusted distributors. They keep a wide variety of material on-hand to accommodate any POP request. Most of their supplies are brand-name instead of third-party, for quality and security reasons – they know that there is a guarantee backing up their name-brand materials, but there is not always that same guarantee for the third-party materials.
Viacom Outdoor
Stop two took me to Viacom Outdoor, the printing division of media-monolith Viacom, which owns HBO, CBS and Paramount to name a few. Viacom Outdoor is strictly a print production facility, producing such materials as billboards, bus shelters and phone kiosks on their two Vutek UltraVu 5300s. They have clients all along the East Coast, with 90 percent of their work being the billboards. They also own some of the billboard structures, which they rent out.
"Viacom is one of the largest companies, not just in the U.S.A., but worldwide," said George Jara, general sales manager. "We’ve got a presence in Europe and around the globe. We are always looking at different avenues – how can we make the outdoor industry more effective. As far as our side, which is intended to be production – strictly printing – what we’ve done is create one-stop shopping – one place to go, one place to deposit that envelope. It goes from point A to point B and saves them a significant amount of money. The middle guy has been deleted."
Most of their jobs come in ready-to-print, with turn-around for these usually taking 3-5 business days. In cases where they do the design work as well, they add 10 days on to the process, to allow for all the necessary approvals. They will either work with a design agency or do everything in-house, depending on the client’s needs.
The shop runs 24 hours a day, six days a week, with Sundays off. There are three shifts, each with three main employees, one print operator/supervisor and 2 finishers. There are 20 total employees in the shop.
"We have a team that specializes in meeting everyone’s needs. Our policy is very unique – the word ‘no’ doesn’t exist," said Jara. "So we have layouts here that come in on a napkin. I have seen a 14x48-foot layout on the back of a business card. The capabilities are endless when it comes to accommodating anyone with whatever they want to have on a billboard. There is always something new to be learned, and we learn most from our clients. There is no such thing as a dumb question. That is when the magic takes place."
The company is Mac-based running OS 9, along with the stable of Adobe products. They have purchased OS X, but are in the final stages of testing before they implement it across the company. They try to upgrade all of their software at least once per year to stay efficient and current.
The company has expanded their printing market from three when they first opened – Pompano, Orlando and Tampa, Florida – to nine markets along the East coast today. Eventually they plan to have shops across the country, everywhere that they own structures.
Viacom Outdoor is also in the process of remodeling their office to create more space. They currently have a three-year lease on their building, and already have plans to move to a bigger facility at that time. When that happens, they plan to add more printers and climate control, in addition to the extra space.
The most important thing both shops shared was the high premium they place on servicing their customers. No job was too big or too small and the term "value-added" was paramount to both.
It was definitely an interesting experience for me, one that I enjoyed enormously. Both shops were very gracious, allowing me to poke my nose into just about every aspect of their businesses. I came away with a better appreciation for what the readers of this publication do every day. I can read press releases and attend all the trade shows in the world, but actually seeing your business, how you work, was invaluable. I will never drive past a billboard or pass a banner in the mall without a new appreciation of all the hard work it took to create them.
|
|
|
|
