What is Ultra Short Run?
At V3Synergy, we define “ultra short run” as any run length
that makes you nervous.
If you feel nervous with run lengths of 500, then that is ultra
short run. If 500 is
okay, but 25 makes you nervous, then 25 is ultra short run.
V3Synergy is an expert at configuring printers
for ultra short run.
Craig Paxson led the manufacturing team in the beginning at
Lightning Source, the world’s largest one-off book publisher.
Under his direction, the production facility went from 500
books per day to over 50,000 per week in a few years.
The innovations and manufacturing techniques he developed are
still in use at Lightning today.
Craig has developed tips for printers wishing to
move into this market space.
Principles of Ultra
Short Run
Ultra Short Run Attitudes:
You are an IT company, not a printing
company.
Your attitude must be “A run of 100
different documents is the same as a run of 100 documents, the
contents are just different.”
Ultra Short Run Principles:
Keep content & manufacturing information
separate from order information.
Put manufacturing information (binding,
trim size, etc.) on the work itself.
Put order information (quantity, due
date, order number, etc.) on the work itself.
Determine the cost effectiveness of
saving scrap parts vs. disposing and rerunning all parts.
Use equipment that is either quick- or
auto-change – binders, trimmers, etc.
Make sure that the order parts (covers,
book blocks, inserts, etc.)
are manufactured to match up correctly at binding,
insertion, etc. This
may mean changing the order or rotation of work in the printing
phase, so that through subsequent manufacturing steps it regains
the proper order and orientation needed for finishing.
Manufacturing on demand must be equaled
by shipment on demand.
The order entry, shipping and invoicing systems must be
able to handle large volumes of Ultra Short Run orders.
Document all the workflows involved:
document setup/content creation; printing/manufacturing;
and order creation and fulfillment.
Determine if current workflows will produce the desired
results. Three types
of workflows must be used:
data, process and physical.
Use custom programming to replace or
supplement off the shelf or manufacturers software.
Automation of simple processes is key to quantity,
quality and repeatability.
Group document by as much commonality as
possible, for example:
Use standard size templates for
different size documents, so that the only operation that needs
to know the final size is trimming.
Determine if extra trim waste is cheaper than changing out paper stock
sizes.
