Friday morning the phone rings at Precise.
“Hello, this is Sherry, I need to place an order for business cards for Mr. Smith.” Sue, the account manager, takes down the information and lets Sherry know the price and that she will receive a proof later that day. Sue thinks to herself… “that is the 3rd order this week, I wonder why she doesn’t send them all at one time.”
Later that day the phone rings again.
“Hi Sue, its Sherry again, I need to order business cards for more people. I will send you over the information. How much is…”
Sue interjected “not to cut you off Sherry, I noticed you have placed quite a few orders for business cards this week. Have you ever considered ganging the orders together?”
“Ganging? What’s that” replied Sherry.
“Ganging or gang runs, as they are called, consist of submitting two or more lots of a similar order (i.e. business cards) at the same time so that we can print them at the same time” Sue stated.
“Ok, but how does that help me. I send the orders over as soon as they are requested. Why would it matter if I sent you one order at a time versus three orders at once?” Sherry questioned.
“There are a lot of benefits to ganging. The most significant benefit is the reduction in unit price when ganging orders together. This could save you a substantial amount of money. During the printing process there are several processes that can be consolidated if orders are being processed together.” Sue proceeded to explain the benefits of ganging.
Plates and Dies: Whether your order is offset, engraved, foil stamped or letterpress you can reduce your cost by ganging orders together which reduces the number of plates/dies. Plates/dies contain the information that is to be printed and is what transfers the image onto the paper.
Example:
For discussion purposes let us say a plate costs $50
If you have one name we make one plate which is $50.
If you have two names we make one plate which is $50 which makes the cost per name $25.
If you have five names we make one plate which is $50 which makes the cost per name $10.
Make-Ready: The term “make-ready” refers to everything done on a press to prepare for running/printing the job. A make-ready includes setting up the plates, putting ink on the press, loading the paper, getting the image into position and up to color. Each time you setup the press you need to do a make-ready. When ganging items together, instead of doing this every time for every order, you consolidate your orders and do 1 make-ready for that job.
Example:
For discussion purposes let us say the make-ready production time cost is $50.
If you have 1 name on 1 plate there is one make ready which is $50.
If you have 2 names on 1 plate there is one make ready which is $50. This makes the cost $25 per name.
If you have 5 names on 1 plate there is one make ready which is $50. This makes the cost $10 per name.
Wash Up: Similar to make-ready there is time spent cleaning and breaking down a press. When you gang the orders together you save time and money because the pressman doesn’t have to breakdown and clean his press after every order.
“Wow,” Sherry exclaimed. “I never knew the economics behind it. I will definitely pass this information on to our team.” This could save us a substantial amount of money in our budget, Sherry thought. She promptly passed this information on and the company soon realized they were saving upwards of 50%+ because of ganging their orders together. This is one of the best ideas I ever thought of, she supposed. Well the best idea Sue ever thought of, she said to herself with a smile.
