|
|
Specialty
Print and Design
3. Market Background
With a turnover in 2001 of €3.8 million, SPD now operates
with a permanent staff of fifty. They are ranked in the top
thirty print services providers in Dublin. Their main competition
comes from within Ireland and the UK.
The
company's mission has been to provide a comprehensive printing
service to fulfil all their customers paper based printing requirements.
The ethos at SPD is to offer a high level of customer service
and remain on a personable level with all clients.
SPD's
customer base is currently wholly Irish, though they have been
looking to market themselves in Europe.
4.
Opportunity/Problem Definition and Objectives
An
integral part of the printing process involved the conversion
of artwork into film. This film contained the image for subsequent
plate making and printing. Machinery designed to perform this
function has always been extremely costly and cumbersome as
well as being time consuming to operate and maintain. Rather
than investing in film making equipment of their own, SPD outsourced
this portion of their work to specialised repro houses.
The
company's operations traditionally relied on the following process:
- a
specification arrived for a print
- an
estimate was calculated and returned to the customer
- once
the quote was accepted the artwork was sent to SPD normally
via a courier
-
SPD would, if necessary, send the job off to a repro house
for film making
-
once the film arrived back, a plate could be made and printing
would commence
In
an industry that relies on tight turn around times, outsourcing
work to repro houses often caused delays for SPD. Firstly, once
the artwork left for filmmaking, control of the process diminished.
The company often waited for up to three days for their film
to be return, and only then, could plate making commence. This
problem was compounded by the traffic situation in Dublin. As
there was no electronic means available at that time of transporting
artwork, the company relied heavily on couriers. Again control
was removed from SPD and endless delays ensued due to road congestion
and unreliable courier services.
SPD
looked at various ways of alleviating these time delays. One
possibility was to invest in their own filmmaking machine. Many
improvements had been made within the printing industry such
as faster Macintosh computers and higher quality, faster printing
machines. However, in the area of filmmaking there had been
little innovation in the previous ten years. The machines remained
costly, difficult to operate and extremely troublesome to maintain.
Some print houses however, choose to go down this road and make
a €78K investment in film making equipment.
Rather
than spend money on what they saw as a short-term solution to
the problem, SPD decided to wait. The company realised that
film making machines were the end of a particular technology
and would soon be obsolete. Steps were being made to create
electronic plate making machines. These new pieces of equipment
would bypass the need to create films in the plate making process.
As with any innovations, the first generation had teething problems.
SPD waited until the product had time to be tested and any problems
had been ironed out before looking to invest money.
Whilst
the company was looking to improve efficiencies with the plate
making process, the delays incurred with courier companies reached
a wholly unacceptable level. The company depended on physically
transporting both artwork to repro houses, and artwork between
SPD and customers. Traffic conditions in Dublin now meant turn
around times increased three fold and the company had no control
over these delays. Something needed to be done to alleviate
this problem or the company would eventually grind to a halt.
At
the time when SPD were suffering greatly due to these time delays,
they tendered for a contract with ACC bank. This customer was
looking for an interactive web site to provide electronic ordering.
This new tender required that any new print job would come through
a web interface and artwork would be automatically downloaded
directly to SPD. Clients used a very basic method to place orders;
via fax or phone with the artwork arriving on disc or hard copy.
Whilst
bidding for this lucrative contract, SPD embarked on a feasibility
study looking at the cost savings and efficiencies gained by
deploying such a system. After carefully looking at their problems,
SPD defined the following objectives:
- to
alleviate the problems with outsourced film making and look
to invest in up to date electronic print making equipment
-
to improve the time it took to receive artwork and specifications
from their customers
-
to provide a wide range of electronic services to improve
communications and efficiencies with their customers
|
|
