IF I COULD, I SURELY WOULD

What would you change about your job?

Ioften ask salespeople: “What one thing would you change about your job if you could?” The answers tend to fall within two categories, internal and external. The internal changes tend to focus on one particular area – speed. “I need to get quotes faster. I need to get answers faster. I need to get my jobs through the system faster.”

I’m sympathetic to these complaints – to a point.

And that’s the point where the customer’s expectations are met. I’ve observed, though, that many salespeople want quotes/answers/orders faster than their customers need them, which only serves to put unnecessary pressure on the entire system.

I remember a conversation with a salesperson who put a three-day deadline on a complex project that the customer didn’t actually need for five days.

“We’ll probably be a day late,” he told me, “but I’ll still be a day early.”

As it turned out, they were right on time against the artificial deadline and two days early against the real need. The customer was happy. The salesperson was happy. Everyone else in the company went crazy for three days to get the project completed, and numerous other orders were impacted. Other customers whose deadlines or expectations weren’t met were unhappy, and other salespeople who had to deal with those customers weren’t happy either.

My point here is not just about could or would.

It’s actually more about woulda, coulda, shoulda. The salesperson could lie about the deadline, and he did.

But would you agree that he should not have? Sadly, this happens a lot in the printing industry.

The external changes tend to focus on two areas.

One is for customers to be more reasonable in their expectations. The second is for them to be more responsive in their communications.

I hope you see the connection between these internal and external “I wish/I need” complaints. And I fully agree that many print buyers do have unreasonable expectations. But the solution to that problem is not to lie to the system. That just makes meeting the expectations even more unreasonable.

It is a much better strategy to manage customer expectations. That takes a certain amount of skill, and also a certain amount of courage. The skill involved is a very specific communication skill – the ability to convey bad news. (That, of course, is where courage comes in. Nobody wants to be the bearer of bad news.)

The key to survival as a bearer of bad news is to bring a “yes” as well as a “no.” “I can’t do that, but I can do this. Will this work for you?” I can’t guarantee that every buyer will agree, but it’s been my experience that most buyers will at least consider an option. It’s also been my experience that buyers aren’t always truthful about their expectations in the first place. In other words, they’re trying to manage your expectations.

How do you get people to be more responsive in their communications? That’s really pretty simple. You give them a good reason to respond. Want a prospect to call you back? “Please call” is probably not enough. But acknowledging the situation and providing a good reason may well be. “I’m sure you get a lot of phone calls from salespeople. Let me tell you why this one is worth returning.”

If I had to complete that message, I’d say, “I have 40 years of experience in the printing industry. I’m hoping for the opportunity to put some of that experience to work for you.” Obviously, that may not be your value proposition, but please give thought to what is. I promise you, you’ll at least increase your chances of a response. ● Read More… Find article at PrintingNews. com/21149451

Dave Fellman is the president of David Fellman & Associates, a sales and marketing consulting firm serving numerous segments of the graphic arts industry. Contact him at dmf@davefellman.com.

STICKING AROUND

Exploring the emerging trends in labeling

By David Zwang

According CONVENTIONAL DIGITAL to Mordor Inventory costs (on call-off $750 (4%/year cost of captial) x inven$7 1 month x 4%/year cost of capital Intelligence, order, in transit, inventory, WIP tory value (1,500,000 labels x x inventory value (125,000 lables the print $25/1000) x $35/1000) $3,750 $263 label market Cost for label stock 5-20% are common figures. Almost zero. Assume 0,5%: is expected to grow at a obsolescence Assume 10%: (1,500,000 lables @ $25/1000 @ 10%) (1,500,000 labels @ $35/1000 @ 0,5%) CAGR of 4.2% over the forecast period (2021 - 2026). Rush order fees $500 Assume 1 rusorder/year / Last year had a significant Reprint or additional print costs $3,750 Assume 5% reprints = 60,000 / impact on consumer purchas- labels x $50/1,000 labels ing habits, so as a result it also Total cost of ownership of labels $8,750 or $270 or had an impact on labels and (TCOL) 23,3% of COLS 0,5% of COLS packaging in general. These As you can see from a recent Xeikon presentation, the cost of obsolescence combined with changes and more importhe more competitive costs now available with digital label production make a compelling case for on-demand label procurement. tantly trends, many of which were already beginning to evolve, started shifting at seeing more direct-to-object printing in place of an increased rate, facilitated by new technologies. conventional labels and even the testing of paper bottles from brands including Absolut, Carlsberg Procurement Trends and even Coca-Cola. While they are using an inner

The most consequential driver is the increase in barrier for the bottle produced from a recycled on-demand label procurement. With the increase polyethylene terephthalate (PET) polymer film, it in market segmentation, and the need to keep up still limits unrecyclable waste. with regulatory label changes, label procurement There is also continued movement to flexible has been moving from an annual or semi-annual packaging, which don’t need labels, from rigid conproduction purchase and warehouse model to tainers in the form of stand-up pouches. Pouches, produce what is needed for current production or which are easier and less costly to ship actually on-demand model. use anywhere from 40-70% less plastic than rigidcontainer-and label combinations. However, while Labeling Trends they use considerably less plastic, the plastic that is

Pressure-sensitive labels still represent the used in pouches is generally not recyclable. Lately largest segment of growth in labeling, or about a there has been a lot of focus on Bioplastics as an 40% share, and is projected to grow at a CAGR of alternative. Bioplastics, manufactured by synover 4% through 2026. Glue-applied labels are in thesizing corn, soy, sugar cane and other crops, second place at about 35%. Plastics used in label- provide quicker biodegradability than plastics, ing, like shrink sleeves and in packaging in general and are sourced from renewable crops. One of are increasingly the target of sustainably conscious these, PLA (polymerized lactic acid) manufactured consumers. Even if a label that on its own can be by NatureWorks LLC, a Cargill company, is one recycled, once applied to a plastic bottle, it can play of the more widely used components of bioplashavoc on the recycling stream. As a result we are tic packaging in the U.S. PLA can also be recycled

into the same product repeatedly, while plastics can’t. However, currently PLA can’t be processed by mainstream recyclers, and they probably won’t create a new recycling stream until the use creates a critical mass and an economic incentive.

Technologies

Increased cost competition between digital and analog (primarily flexo) label production can be attributed to the explosion of inkjet label press solutions as well as hybrid solutions, and it is expected to continue. In the last year, there have been a significant amount of new press introductions in both toner and inkjet technology.

Toner

The digital printing of labels really started with and is still currently dominated by electrophotographic presses. HP Indigo and Xeikon offer the most widely used label press offerings, although others including Konica Minolta and Mark Andy entered the market with their own toner solutions as well. In the last year, HP Indigo and Xeikon introduced new models that increase productivity by about 30% over their previous models. Additionally, HP previewed their next generation V12, based on their LEPx inline architecture, which is expected to print at a speed in excess of 120 m/min, bringing it in line with inkjet and hybrid inkjet/flexo solutions, further increasing digital competitiveness compared to flexo.

Inkjet and Hybrid

Xeikon recently introduced their PX30000 to complement their PX2000 and PX3000 UV inkjet label presses, based on their Panther platform providing a higher level of productivity over their toner line. Mark Andy, historically a flexo press manufacturer, has continued to increase their digital offerings with the Digital Series iQ powered by the Domino N610i UV inkjet module in addition to their Digital Series HD, the configurable hybrid press. Canon, which is not new to inkjet but new to the packaging market has started placing their LabelStream 4000 hybrid label press as well.

Memjet OEMs like Colordyne, Konica Minolta and others are increasingly integrating their printheads into a variety of different inkjet and hybrid machines to support label print applications. And the list goes on…

Embellishment

Brand identity and shelf appeal are still the primary functions of a label. Digital embellishment technologies like those from JetFX, Actega, MGI and others are providing the solutions needed to support the needs of on-demand label printing. Increasingly they are integrated into complete inline label production with solution like the FEU offered by Xeikon and the HP GEM. Read More… Find article at PrintingNews. Summary com/21149607

The use of labels is going to continue to increase, especially pressure sensitive, however there are other alternative packaging methods that will put some limits on that growth. Digital label production will continue to increase as a result of the increase in available toner, inkjet and hybrid solutions. ●

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INNOVATE INCESSANTLY

From the printing press to a streamlined workflow, it’s all about agility.

Innovation has powered the advancement of people, civilizations, nations and businesses for ages. Easily one of the greatest innovations of all time gave rise to the print industry: the Gutenberg press. It not only improved an existing process, but expedited the process of print and democratization of information so remarkably that it is credited for ushering in the Age of

Enlightenment. For centuries the printing press had been so influential in business, politics, religion and science that Mark Twain would write, “What the world is today, good and bad, it owes to Gutenberg.”

In the modern age the impact of innovation, comparatively moving at light-speed, is measured in hours and days, not centuries. Digital transformation, or the Fourth Industrial Revolution, is advancing at a mind-numbing pace. In the print industry, technology advances bring promise of propelling new digital integration, seamless workstreams, marketplace convergence, down-market reach and extreme personalization.

While advances may be enlightening to some, the delta between the early adopters and the laggards continues to widen. Weighed down by the technical debt and disconnectedness of legacy systems, many print companies are investing precious capital and time in course-correction of their technology strategy. B2B customer expectations of user-experience is increasingly blurred with the

B2C ease of online shopping and near real-time availability of order information. Thus, the print service providers who can tightly align with emerging customer expectations will own the future.

The answer to this growing problem is to establish a new agility within your operation. For organizations to become more agile there must be a catalyst. That catalyst is innovation, which is the fuel that powers the engine of agility. Those who incessantly innovate at key tactical points within the organization, will cultivate a lasting and flourishing business agility.

Innovation is not an unreachable ideal reserved for the entrepreneurs and engineers. It is, in fact, something you are likely already doing. The easiest way to approach innovation is to holistically apply it both internally to your business systems, and externally to your market solutions.

Internal Innovation: Adopt Efficiencies

Efficiency in business can be simply defined as “doing things right.” As I have advocated through the entire agility series, our industry is in need of improved organizational efficiency. Whether assessing your organizational design, planning inclusively, bridging strategy to execution, or wielding the data sword, the focus has been on creating efficiencies that will stoke new agility.

Contemplate an optimal state business system

design: jobs flow seamlessly into your operating system with few preflight exceptions, are routed to the appropriate location, and then queued at the most efficient piece of equipment for production. All the while the customer is monitoring their dashboard progress chart and adjusting expectations and the latest distribution plan based on clear job visibility and trust borne of consistency and accuracy of information. There are hundreds (if not thousands) of variations of this optimal flow where innovative providers have leveraged people, processes, technology and structure to enable the operation to function with increasing automation. That is the efficiency of internal innovation.

Investing, planning and executing on systems improvements will take time. Manage within your resources but create stretch goals that reward your team at defined intervals for systems and process innovations. While the leaders (early adopters) pave the way beyond this optimal state, it is incumbent upon the early and late majority to lean into a plan to accelerate adoption of automation technologies. In doing so, be realistic with your current state and augment that realism with patience to create an attainable path forward.

External Innovation: Advocate Effectiveness

Where efficiency is “doing things right,” business effectiveness is defined as “doing the right things.” The commercialization of products and services requires a large percentage of annual budget. You are introducing change into the organization and customer relationships, which is accompanied by risk. It would be ideal to know that the solutions you bring to market have relevance and can solve customer problems, deliver an ROI, and help scale company growth. At times, innovation can be an inexact science (or art). However, you can mitigate much of the risk through a deliberative approach to external innovation. To minimize risk focus on these two things: First, know what your customers want. There are simple tools like customer surveys, written and conducted by professionals, that will divulge objective results. You want to know what customers think of your current products, new solution ideas, the overall customer experience, and how they rate you in comparison to others. These data points, and others, are easily discoverable and infinitely informative. Capture customer insight, formally and informally, to know how to anticipate the market and guide your innovation efforts. Second, find your creative high-potentials, that operationally-minded person who is always bringing the latest ideas from the marketplace, and build resources around them. Develop an operational plan for them to identify emerging products, technology and solutions and test them in the marketplace. Modify incentive income so that the customer-facing team will engage the innovation team in expanding current relationships and breathing new life into the dusty prospect list. Insure this effort is augmented with strategic guard rails where the innovation effort is aligned with the company’s vision and mission, the true-north. Few things will galvanize your customer base and intrigue prospective customers like the bleeding edge of innovation. Assume the risk of misfires, as there surely will be some, and adopt a cultural principle of tolerance for imperfection. Transparently create customer partnerships to forge into the new world of the evolving optimal state. The stakes can be high, but so are your goals and expectations. Read More… Find article at PrintingNews. com/21149614

1 2

Continued on page 63

Preston Herrin is a strategy, growth, and performance consultant. He has served in c-level and senior leadership roles at fast-growth companies like 4over LLC, Café Press, and Drummond. In his 30-year career Preston’s roles span strategy, business development and executive management providing e-commerce, software, logistics and service solutions for all vertical markets such as Manufacturing, Finance, Healthcare, Nonprofits and more.

INKJET INK ESTIMATING

Challenges and work-arounds

Estimating in any print business can be a challenge, but inkjet users face a level of variability that users of other print technology don’t. Ink costs represent a large percentage of job costs, and the level of ink use varies widely. Any time you change the media for a job, you also change the level of ink consumption – sometimes by a little but often by a lot. Savvy inkjet users also have the ability to control costs by limiting ink usage according to the minimum needed to hit particular color targets. This makes understanding ink costs on each job an important part of the estimating process.

In a recent Inkjet Insight survey of production inkjet users, 79% of respondents considered the ink estimating process to be important or very important to their overall estimating process. More than half (54%) of respondents indicated that they run more than half of new jobs through their estimating software, and 81% indicated that there were particular types of jobs where ink estimating has helped them compete more effectively. However, not everyone follows best practices with ink estimating. More than a quarter (28%) of respondents indicated that they perform ink estimating on fewer than 10% of jobs. We dug further to find the reasons why.

Survey responses included participants who reported working with a wide range of OEMs including Canon, Durst, EFI, Fujifilm, HP, Kodak, Konica Minolta, Kyocera, MCS, Monotech, Ricoh, RISO, Screen, Xerox and others. Many participants had presses from more than one inkjet OEM and some used more than one ink estimating tool. The survey also represented companies across application segments including direct mail, commercial marketing collateral, transaction print, books, catalogs, magazines, signage and display, packaging, labels and newspapers. The majority of respondents used inkjet for more than one type of work.

Figure 1. Use of Ink Estimating Software

Source: Inkjet Insight Production Inkjet Market Survey on Ink Estimating

Challenges with Estimating

There are multiple reasons for the discrepancy between the stated importance of ink estimating and the percentage of jobs actually estimated: ● Some companies don’t have an ink estimating solution installed, or the solution they have is linked to the press and can’t be used when a job is running. ● Some companies cite challenges with the ink estimating process, lack of time or lack of trained resources as reasons for not using their ink estimator. ● Transaction printing operations and those producing certain types of books have jobs that are relatively uniform in their formats and coverages. In these segments it is reasonable to create an estimating baseline using a representative sample of jobs (10% or fewer.) ● Other companies have extremely variable ink and paper usage and would prefer to run ink estimating, but they don’t receive a file to use for estimating prior to delivering a quote.

To generate a useful ink estimate, you need to have a

production-ready PDF, not just a designer’s concept file. It’s important to pre-flight the PDF for estimating the same way you would for production. For example, if black is specified as CMYK (rich black) instead of pure K you will lay down more ink than needed.

Once you have a tuned-up PDF, you need to make sure that you are setting the estimator to real-world conditions as well. Have you created a profile that limits inks? Will you be using primer? Will you run the file at full speed with a lower resolution? This may seem obvious, but we’ve seen many examples where companies estimate at full speed and end up producing a job at lower speed with the highest resolution to improve quality. However, that level of quality uses more ink and more press time, so it should be priced accordingly. If these scenarios exist in your shop, that means that the person doing the ink estimating needs to have the skill level to adjust for those settings and assumptions.

There can also be challenges with accuracy, particularly if you don’t look closely at what is being measured. OEMs take different approaches to their estimating process in a number of areas. First, the volume used to calculate the job. Some will measure based on 100 or 1,000 copies of the file and average the ink usage per page. Roll-fed estimates may be based on linear feet with the volume then averaged per image. In addition, some estimators measure the amount of precoat when used, while others don’t, or don’t show it clearly.

Another factor is the amount of ink used independent of image rendering for exercising printheads or flushing. Most importantly, remember that ink estimating is just that – an estimate. Several tools promise estimates with accuracy within +/- 5% while others might have a higher variation of 10% or more. Typically, the estimates are conservative to prevent customers from under estimating and losing money. However, how closely you set the parameters in the estimator to the reality of production will affect accuracy. If you own an ink estimating solution, take the time to check the accuracy of your estimator against your specific press and paper types.

Figure 2. What Ink Estimating Software is Available for Your Use?

Source: Inkjet Insight Production Inkjet Market Survey on Ink Estimating

Overcoming Challenges

Most inkjet printing system manufacturers provide an ink cost estimator to help printers determine an accurate cost per page. The majority of survey respondents (67%) owned software provided for free by their OEM and another 10% paid for software from their OEM. Another 18% developed a solution internally, and some companies had access to more than one solution.

As noted earlier, if you don’t have files to run through it, even a perfectly accurate estimator won’t help. This is where work arounds come into play.

Elizabeth Gooding helps companies to streamline their business process, improve customer retention, and maximize new opportunities for document design, print and Internet technology.Contact her at Elizabeth@inkjetinsight.com. Alexandra Pekar is a consultant at Insight Forums and an analyst at Inkjet Insight.

Data Reproductions

Corporation in Auburn Hills,

Mich., is a book and catalog producer that recognizes the importance of ink estimating.

According to Dennis Kavanagh,

DRC’s EVP and COO, ink costs can run from 15% of the job cost for black-only jobs up to 50% of the job cost for heavy coverage, high-color jobs. Unfortunately, they rarely receive files to estimate in advance of quoting, so they created their own process by drawing on data from actual runs. Daily ink consumption by job and by page is harvested from their inkjet press and put into a Microsoft Access database/MIS. From this data, they developed conservative estimate ranges for three classifications of jobs: Read More… mono, light/ Find article at PrintingNews. com/21149797 low-color and heavy/highcolor. They also back-test jobs after production to verify that their estimates were in the target range of actuals. Kavanagh reported that between 2019 and 2020 fewer than 10 jobs out of 700 were costed incorrectly.

“We don’t constantly look at the ink usage now because of the fact that our methodology appears to work sufficiently,”

Kavanagh said. “We have the luxury of having relatively simple requirements based on our niche as a book manufacturer.” This data drives a selfdeveloped Excel-based estimator that is used by sales reps and estimating staff.

DRC is not alone. Even companies who have commercial estimating solutions often need to find work-arounds. Martin Aalsma, COO with AM Solutions, a customer-driven, multi-channel communications provider in Edgerton, Wis., reported that both a lack of files from customers and challenges with their OEM-provided estimating tool have forced them into a threetier estimating process for much of their business.

“Our press has an onboard estimator, but you have to stop the machine from printing or RIPing anything to do the estimate, then drop the results into a homemade Excel sheet to calculate rough cost yourself,” Aalsma said. “Besides the inefficiency of the process, the variance with that estimate and the final press report after printing was sometimes in excess of 5%, or even a 10% difference.”

Like DRC, AM Solutions uses data-driven work-arounds that involve measuring actual usage from jobs and creating baselines for estimating future work. This is less than optimal for the company because their work is highly variable. To safe-guard their profit margins, they follow best-practices with qualifying and profiling their media, including developing different profiles for varying color requirements to ensure that they are using the minimum ink necessary to deliver a quality result.

“A lot of shops are not taking advantage of really fingerprinting their stock library to maximize ink savings to best quality,” Aalsma said. “At one of the previous companies I worked at during the early days of inkjet, we had a consultant spend several days with us to optimize our color profiles to and teach us how to manage the ink. We saved about 20% on our ink costs.“

With or without estimating software, work-arounds are often needed to make sure that jobs are estimated profitably. If you don’t have estimating software, or don’t receive files to use with the system you have, create baselines using actual ink usage for typical jobs and generate guidelines for incorporating ink costs into the estimating process. It won’t be exact, but it will be as consistent and evidence-based as possible.

Make it a regular practice to compare a wide sample of actual jobs produced to their related estimates. You will likely find that the estimator diverges from actuals in certain areas by a consistent amount and you can factor this into the estimating process. Also, consider that there are areas that the estimator will not catch on an individual job basis, such as time and ink usage on certain devices to ramp-up to printing speed. Make sure to also account for differences by paper type and profile.

With estimating, you get out of it what you put into it.

Find more information on the Production Inkjet Market Survey on Ink Estimating Solutions at InkjetInsight.com. ●