Apprintable has managed to accommodate two pieces of equipment from Duplo in an ever more crowded factory. The Wembley business has invested in a DC648 multi finisher and a PFi DiCut 310 rotary die cutter to cope with a growing volume of orders ahead of the seasonal peak period.
Apprintable’s existing set up of cutting table, guillotine and ageing creaser cutter had become a bottleneck says managing director Peter Haddad. “It was clear that to keep up with the influx of orders, we needed a more automated, efficient finishing solution.”
The growth has come from online orders for products that range from stickers through business cards to posters and greetings cards via its website. “we were looking for extra capacity for the annual rush. We can take three times as many orders in the October to December period than at any other time,” Haddad says. “We needed to upgrade the press and add the multifinisher and a couple of other pieces of equipment.”
The business is now ten years old, set up to service the print requirements of the the events industry. Three years ago it took the lease of a factory and began to print for itself. That lease was for five years and has two years left. When it does expire, Apprintable will be moving to a much larger factory/
In the meantime the business will be deploying automation to cope with the increase in work. The DC648 has enabled twice the output with just one additional employee.
He says: “Without the DC648’s efficiency, we would have had to have one or two more staff members just to keep up. Instead, the multi finisher absorbed the extra workload. It’s come at just the right time, allowing us to scale smoothly.”
The investment in a rotary die cutter has had a similar effect, keeping shape cutting work in house and processing work that might have taken a month on the cutting table in around for or five hours.
The company has a younger than normal customer profile thanks to its focus on printing for events and website that addresses the way that younger companies and individuals want to buy print. “We are trying to target smaller customers than the big online printers will work for, with a focus on more niche and shorter runs. It’s about start up businesses that tend to be run by younger people.
“We do a lot of stickers and business cards, though these are not really business cards, more the sort of thing that goes into an ecommerce pack,” says Haddad.
Work has gone into the customer journey on the website to minimise the number of clicks from deciding on a product to the check out to reduce the risk of abandoned baskets and losing the customer. “Someone buying print can be absorbed into 12-13 clicks before placing an order. That’s too much. We are below average in the number of clicks. It’s about convenience. People want convenience.”
