Qcm bought out by Rutland?

[DraginInk]

It's probably a good bet that the price of a gallon of QCM ink will be a bit more here soon... it having to come from NC now.

I had the pleasure of being toured around the QCM facility in Kent, a bunch of years ago.
I met Gary a few years before that at a show and EVERYTIME he saw me after he knew my name, company name, ex-wifes name.
I know he hasn't been with QCM for a while now but when ever I think of QCM I think of Gary... that guy put his heart and soul into every bucket of ink, it seemed to me.

Best of luck Colin, I assume you'll be going with the ink?

[Colin]

Thanks for the heads up about Wilflex Peter.  All those I got the info from treated it like gospel.  I hope I have not added further fire to those rumors.

Yes, all ink will be manufactured in N.C.  However, Rutland has greater warehousing and production capabilities than QCM.  So the ink should be more readily available than when QCM was producing it.

Doug: Gary always cared a lot about the products we made.  He put extra time and effort to make sure the ink was always the same and top quality. 

Homer: To add to what Peter said.  Too many raw materials companies over the last few years have raised their pricing on the world.  Many of them by declaring force majeure (act of god).  On top of that there are several raw material companies who have shut down, causing further price increases... I do not envy the job of the purchasing agents for major manufacturing companies right now, let alone what the small guys can get ahold of.

As for where I am right now... I've been unemployed since May 20th.  Hopefully that will get fixed soon...

If anyone has any questions about what's going on, I will answer them to the best of my knowledge.

[ZooCity]

Pass on this question if it's TMI of course but, is this raw materials issue part of what caused all the inconsistencies at QCM?  My pricing on QCM ink was always very low and I'd imagine it would be quite difficult to keep the price there and maintain that consistency with the raw materials all in turmoil. 

I've seen steady formulations from Wilflex so far but their buying power from their parent corp. is probably much greater and, just as I combined each new bucket with my existing ink when buying QCM to level out the inconsistency, they could surely do a similar thing but in such large quantities that you'd never notice a difference. And it costs about double so that certainly helps fund good q.c. I'm sure.   Just wondering how close to the mark that is?

Colin, best of luck man, from myself and everyone here at Zoo City Apparel.  Best tech help ever.  I've told ya before but you deliver  something like Richard Greaves levels of support for printers down here in the trenches. 

Whoever picks you up is going to be a lucky ink manufacturer with a bunch of happy printers buying up their ink .  You listening Wilflex? 

[inkbrigade]

Whoever picks you up is going to be a lucky ink manufacturer with a bunch of happy printers buying up their ink .  You listening Wilflex? 

Man Colin, i wish we could hire you to work in our shop... Please someone awesome hire this dude! We love him at Ink Brigade!

[inkbrigade]

You can take it for a fact that I know of at least one company that has an existing and very significant relationship with Wilflex (like being their biggest distributor in the world) that would be first in line to make an acquisition of Wilflex "IF" PolyOne ever decides to spin them off.

God I hope your not talking about midwest! Those guys can't find their own buttholes 

[DraginInk]

You can take it for a fact that I know of at least one company that has an existing and very significant relationship with Wilflex (like being their biggest distributor in the world) that would be first in line to make an acquisition of Wilflex "IF" PolyOne ever decides to spin them off.

God I hope your not talking about midwest! Those guys can't find their own buttholes 

Mr. Walsh's post leads me to believe he was referring to Naz-Dar... just a hunch

[inkbrigade]

Mr. Walsh's post leads me to believe he was referring to Naz-Dar... just a hunch

I know, i just like to bust Midwests chops when i can.

[MeLC]

Hi All,

My name is Melissa and I used to work in sales and customer service for QCM Company in Kent, I was Gary's assistant and supported the QCM distributors and end users. I have now been picked up by Rutland to continue supporting QCM Ink distributors and end users. So, QCM company no longer exist, luckily QCM inks does. I had a chance last week to go out to Pineville, NC and look at the manufacturing facility. Colin was right with the larger manufacturing capabilities! Raw materials are also a tough issue, that even QCM struggled with. However, Rutland being a bigger company, they have more purchasing power which helps in a world of rising cost. Just to clarify, they prices have not been changed and from what I see, a stocking distributor can still maintain competitive pricing. Although, let me know if you have some dramatic increase, I would like to look into these transition issues. The formulas are the same that QCM was using so the product should be the same, again, if there is any difference or inconsistencies, let me know and I will look into this also. As of now, all of my QCM distributors have been giving positive product feed back that the ink is indeed the same. I will also give a plug for Colin to the folks at Rutland, 'cause he is awesome! So, if anyone has any feedback on QCM inks or have any questions let me know!! Thanks! 

[alan802]

Thanks for joining and contributing Melissa.  We can always use more people with the inside knowledge of the inks we use.  I've used quite a few of the standard xolb colors from qcm with good results.  I'm sure we all look forward to more posts from you and the gang at Rutland/QCM/Union.