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Has anyone actually measured the rolls of vinyl we use??????
I now use Orical 751 series vinyl. Supplied by Paperco/Europoint.
Since swapping over, I`ve showed the customer the colour swatch book, safe in the knowledge that if they pick a colour I don`t regular use, it`ll only cost be £8 ish for 5 metres.
Knowing this, I`ve ordered quite a few “odd” colours, it goes down well with the customer, giving them a better choice of colours, instead of the usual “we only use 1 shade of red” line.
Anyway. Ordered a certain shade of blue, the other day. The job was 4.5 metres long. Cut the first section, went to cut the other section, but found it was too short. I had only been sent 4 metres, not 5.
Rang them up straight away, sorted it out, with no bother, credit to them.
I`m not saying that any supplier would do this. And just to state it in writing, I`m not saying Paper co, did it knowingly.
But if a “dodgy” supplier was to do it, I doubt anyone would know. I only found out, because it was a very short lenght.When you think about it. The 50 metre rolls we buy, could be short as well…They could save £`s. Nobody would notice. Does anyone actually messure the material they buy!
This sort of thing, goes on for real. We print alot of tees, every now and and again we find a “marked” reject, in with a box of perfects. It`s a way to cut losses, put a reject in to every box of perfects, you can get rid of alot of waste products like this.
Has anyone found that they have been short on the lenght of material ordered?
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5 Replies
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once again – absolutely!
some time ago I had a similar occurence – and more than once!
5 metres ordered would arrive as 3.8 metres and the like.
After complaining to Europoint and notifying Rob Lambie (don’t forget to do this via a PM message or by email – so he can keep abreast of the number of niggles happening) I had a call from Frank ‘the man’ at Europoint to apologise and to advise that they now had a stat-of-the-art measuring and slicing machine in Manchester. All someone has to do is load the vinyl into the machine, tap in the meterage required and hey presto! – it’s all done beautifully…???
So either someone tapped in the wrong number or there was only ‘so-much’ left on the roll anyway…?
At the end of the day I suppose it all comes down to human error.
Perhaps Heineken should sell vinyl? 😉
more soon
mikethesign
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Yes kev
I have too, not only with vinyls though. Panatrim, angle, sign channel. You name it.
(All from different suppliers too)
I don’t mean all at once or regularly. I just mean I have actually spotted this myself. “Sometimes when helping to off-load materials from a delivery truck.
What can you say or who can you blame? Yes I complained, but I don’t think we can blame the sales guy on the phone, although he does bear the blunt of it from us.
I was unloading panatrim a while back. It comes in a pack of 10no. 20-foot lengths
As I was lifting it onto the shelf I was weighting on the guy at the other ending lifting it. As I weighted I quickly counted them and spotted only 8 lengths. Not even 9? 2 missing!
Similar stories with the other materials. I never check these materials ever! I should do I know. But half the time I don’t actually do the unloading or im not there at all..
As for vinyl’s.. I think we should all check when we get short lengths.
I know for a fact that europoint invested good money in a measuring machine a while back.
The guys making the orders up simply load the vinyl, type in the length and the machine re-reels it onto a new card-core tube to box up. Great stuff, yes! But what if the guys only measuring 5 metres? Will he bother to load it on machine? Only the guy will know that. & Only we will know “if” we actually measure to find it short. What happens then? We go on and complain to the sales rep oblivious to the whole thing.
Human error gets passed to the next guy and the next. Safest thing to so is call and tell them, & get it swapped or the extra sent. I’m sure if it happens regularly. Management would catch on and would then have a case if it came to complaining to or sacking the guy reeling..
Having said that.. It can go further back..
Take the same problem. But this time 3 orders come in before yours!
The guy reeling lifts the standard 50metres from the imported roll from some place in Europe. He loads it on the reeling machine. The first order is 10 metres, the second is the same. The third is 20! Now your order comes in and it’s for 10 metres. The guy knows he’s just reeled off 40 metres previously so he “assumes” 10 metres left from the 50-metre standard. Boxes it and you receive it only to find 8.5 metres? Who’s to blame then? So now it’s going back to the people boxing up for the UK.
By the way. I’m not in anyway trying to say we accept it! We don’t.. We ask for it to be rectified. Its just one of those products that come down a long line before we actually get our hands on it and its us that sometimes end up short changed whether its vinyl, trim, channel or any other product from whatever company we deal with at the time. -
Good point Rob,
I will defenatly check all of my orders ( now that i’m 100% up and running and i’m now in the process of ordering 🙂 )
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I have thought in the past that a way of stocktaking vinyl could be to weigh the roll when it arrives and log how much you use on a log sheet come the end of the month you can tally up used vinyl and weigh what you have left this could make you aware any in house pilfering or excessive wastage by uncaring employees.
I have never put this into practice but it occurred that the same method could be used to check deliveries if you establish the weight of an empty core and divide the rest by 50 to give you a weight per meter. not sure what type of scales would be suitable and how sensitive they would have to be. you would also have to establish different bench marks for different vinyl ranges as 60 micron or cast would obviously weigh less than calendared. If any one here does this or knows if it works lets here about it.
Neil……..
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good idea neil.. first thing that comes to mind though..
the card core tube… i have seen very thin cores and then sometimes very thick heavy ones. i would guess this could effect accurate readings.. 🙄
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