BE FLEXIBLE. It’s the new motto for 2022.
Every industry is currently feeling the effects of supply chain constraints and boy, can it be painful. The best advice I can offer to our customers is to be prepared, plan in advance, and be flexible.
Some industries have been feeling the pressure of the supply chain for many months, and while the shortages on paper are not new, our customers are starting to acutely feel the results. (see my last blog Printing Pandemic Challenges for more details)
Most of our customers already have a well-defined plan for upcoming projects. If you have a plan in place, now is the time to share it with your printer. Some paper stocks take a month or more to come in. Furthermore, paper suppliers are on allocation from the mills. Once they have used their allocated supply for the month, it is gone. It may seem silly to share a project that is months out, but it may mean the difference between having the paper you requested or not.
With a little planning and coordinating with your printer, we can work on sourcing stocks for your project in advance of files coming in or give you advanced notice when they are not available. It is much easier to adjust expectations in advance than on the fly.
Even reading this can help manage your expectations! Knowing is half the battle, right?
And as the motto says, “Be Flexible”. Fortunately, there are a lot of paper options. The one you selected may be hard to come by, but we should be able to find a comparable to that stock. Or you may have to be open to suggestions you hadn’t considered before. Paper availability changes by the day, we will always do our best to procure the stock that was quoted, but there is a possibility it won’t be available when you are ready to print. Prepare yourself and your team to be flexible in the event you must make some quick stock decisions.
To quote the 2020 motto ” We will get through this together”.
