Big Picture - September 2016 - 45

California-based PSP appears unfazed as millennials change shopping norms and retailers demand shrinking turnarounds. BY K IE R S TE N WONE S graphic. "We used to have two weeks; now we have three days," says Clark. "We can all print well, but if you're efficient, you can keep your price down, and you can meet the demand of the clients, you hold the keys." Sometimes this means making a sacrifice; Brueckner describes a recent situation where it made more sense to die-cut a job than to run it on one of the shop's two Zünd G3 cutters, but "you don't have time to get a die made. You have to do what's fastest ... you have to have the equipment on the floor." A Neatly Wrapped Package in the kitting and fulfillment process can destroy a business," he says. "By automating the workflow, we reduce the risk of kitting errors and increase the speed at which we can deliver orders to our nationwide customers." The system generates and organizes print files, grouping them by city and state so they can be shipped out in waves; clients don't care if the destination is 5 or 500 miles away. Every kit has to arrive on the same day. He adds that the biggest thing in P-O-P nowadays is the variable nature of each piece. "We don't print 500 of one thing anymore; it's 500 versions with one of each." A job for one national action sports retailer brought in 986 pieces of creative - half of them in PDF form, the other half in Adobe Illustrator. The artwork needed to be printed on nine different kinds of Direct Edge Media's work for Vans is among the most forward-thinking in the business; a Nintendo-themed campaign called for custom motors (top). BIGPICTURE.NET The biggest secret in P-O-P is kitting. Ask any retail-centered shop to describe the life of a graphic from design to shipping and you'll hear an orchestra of crickets or perhaps a polite chuckle. Companies who have mastered the art of shepherding prints from A to Z seem to be a head above the rest, and they'd like to keep it that way. "Equipment has gotten so good that anyone can become a printer," says Clark, "so now that differentiator is going to be tying the package." Brueckner adds that they've spent years examining every step of the kitting process and are still searching for ways to improve efficiency - in part because their kitting operation currently takes place offsite, and because the task is simply that monumental. For one unnamed fast-food retailer, Direct Edge processes 19-piece kits for 2000 locations across the country. Practically every item in the kit requires variable data - including banners, coupons, and customizable menu pieces - and the job has to move seamlessly from the online interface, through prepress, onto four or five different branches of production, and then funnel back to the kitting team. In addition, the fulfillment crew - which on any given day numbers as many as 15, amounting to between 500 and 1000 man hours per week - needs a steady flow of work, not a hurry-up-and-wait situation. This puts pressure on the finishing department, where Clark says they'd add two more cutting tables if they only had the space. Jobs often have to be cut in small, piecemeal batches in order to send full kits to the warehouse for tedious handwork like applying tape, adding bolts, and folding. Clark estimates the life of a job is divided equally between printing, finishing, and kitting - which seems to make the term "print service provider" fall short. Brueckner attributes a large part of Direct Edge's success in fulfillment to its homegrown software platform. "Mistakes 45 http://www.BIGPICTURE.NET

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Big Picture - September 2016