60 Presses in Kentucky?

[jvanick]

how large of a foot print will that facility be?

I know of a local printer in chicago with 8 autos, and they're around 85,000 sq feet...  with most of it being job staging/warehousing space.

[tonypep]

No time to do the math and its none of my business but even 40 presses at 105K sq ft doesn't add up.

[royster13]

No time to do the math and its none of my business but even 40 presses at 105K sq ft doesn't add up.

DTG maybe....

[244]

No time to do the math and its none of my business but even 40 presses at 105K sq ft doesn't add up.

The numbers are wrong. They are starting with 25 and no they are not ours. Going to try and compete with people like Custom Ink.

[jsheridan]

I heard 25-30 presses myself all MHM's.

Wish em luck as stated, the logistics of this will be a nightmare.

[blue moon]

20 presses to start from what I heard. Also, some pretty talented guys are taking the lead on this (printing part). Venture capital is providing the funds and business help so they have about 90% chance of succeeding.

Pierre

[gtmfg]

If you saying 90% chance of success that's better odds than about 80% of all business out there

[tonyt79]

The way the site is, sure sounds like more money for them!

[GraphicDisorder]

Its getting easier and easier to get into printing. So all it takes now to create uber shops is a little money and some connections.  Next thing you know someone has a empire sucking millions outta the print market for the rest of us.  All it really takes is a few people with some knowledge and a couple investors and BOOM.

[MrBreeze]

I have been in this business since 1978.  It amazes me that anyone would want to get into the production end of the business.  The real money in this business is made in the sale and marketing of our products.  They already have a good business model working on the sales and marketing end without the costs and hassles of the production end.  With so many small to mid size printers already in the market it is relatively easy to negotiate contract printing. Custom Ink has already shown that. With so many printers cutting prices and battling over contract work why bother to spend millions to do it yourself.  Unfortunately my largest contract customers are pretty much able to dictate special favors any time they want because if I won't do it for them someone else will.  As a small shop (2 autos, 4 manuals) the hassles of employees is bad enough. Multiply that by 20 and the problems would be crazy. If I had it to do over again, I would forget the production end and concentrate on the sales end.

[Frog]

I think that the current abundance of cheap labor is the appeal that may be helping tip the scales on the decision to bring production in-house.

[tonypep]

The way its typically done is to assign Team Leaders to oversee 2-3 autos. Usually in charge of teardown/setup and keeping things running smoothly. The loaders/unloaders are often unskilled laborers. Huge staging areas for blanks and prepress; normally kept far apart. Setup carts and teardown carts assembled and maintained by Production Coordinators. There is a Scheduling Department keeping track of everything. Pre-Press is totally automated. Quality control people monitor product. Much more of course; just don't ask me how I know. It can be done but in my mind a much smaller plant with controlled outsourcing would be a better biz model

[jsheridan]

some pretty talented guys are taking the lead on this (printing part).

The printing is the easiest thing we do these days. They'll build it up and make a state of the art facility for sure, no doubt there.

The people is the hard part.. just look at how long you, heck any of us keep looking for good people to work in our shops and we're only looking for 1 or two people. 

[royster13]

Tony the one thing about keeping it all at one location is lower cost on blanks...Now it may not be more than 15 or 20 cents a shirt, but if you are doing millions of shirts, it adds up....

[tonypep]

No doubt however it would be wise to weigh that savings against down spikes in sales, layoffs, rehiring when upward spikes occur, etc. Think of the Nike model