Vistaprint - Printing Process

Printing Process

Vistaprint applies the principles of mass production to printing, using uses presses and processes of industrial printing for short-run commercial printing, while achieving unit costs close to that of industrial printing. Using proprietary technologies, relatively short runs are still relatively inexpensive.

Vistaprint uses self-service design, proofing and ordering at the front-end through the web, and controlled printing, cutting, packing and dispatching at the back-end through printing plants. The process utilizes system integration, aggregation, standardization and automation.

Vistaprint's proprietary process involves multiple software components, and the management of multiple production components, in an end-to-end production workflow from "click to ship". Vistaprint is vertically integrated with production facilities for North America in Windsor, Ontario and for Europe in Venlo, Netherlands. The company uses presses such as the manroland 700 as part of its printing assembly line.

The company processes orders from customers through their web site, within which there is significant homogeneity. Jobs can be gang printed using a formula based on type of job, paper stock type, print run quantity, finishing (if any) and ship-by dates, among other factors.

Vistaprint minimizes user selectable options typical in the low volume commercial printing world. They print standard types of printed materials, such as business cards or postcards. Within each category, it supports a specific size, paper stock and ink colors. This results in higher numbers of similar jobs which can be ganged together. Changeover time is reduced because there's less need to change paper or inks between jobs.

Vistaprint uses computer-integrated manufacturing techniques to minimize human intervention and labor costs. Using browser-based desktop publishing environment, customers designer and proofread the job. Jobs are routed for printing without intervention. The printing is done in a single pass on automated, high-volume, large format professional quality presses. Once printed, the products are cut down to size using a computerized robotic cutter, assembled, packaged and addressed using proprietary software driven processes, and shipped to the customer.

In a form of mass customization using as little as 60 seconds of production labor per order versus an hour or more for traditional printers, Vistaprint is able to print orders faster and at lower costs than traditional printers. Their strategy is to target small-run orders usually excluded from conventional large printers.

The process also reduces marginal cost for both incremental quantities (500 business cards instead of 250) and incremental orders (another business card order, or a set of address labels). The company has run a free business cards offer as a viral marketing campaign, as the unit cost of any one free business cards order is very small. It also means the process becomes more profitable when a customer upgrades quantities, or adds another product.