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A Managed Print Solution for a High-Demand, Fashion-Production Business

[fa icon="calendar"] Mar 4, 2019 10:43:00 AM / by Karen Rafferty

Karen Rafferty

Interview with Brendan Carroll, Director, PCI Group, and Ray Lynch, GM, Styletex

Of all the businesses PCI works with, those that operate within the fashion design and production industry are amongst the most demanding from a print infrastructure stand point. Part of what we’d categorise as the Graphic Art and Design sector are these companies where the colour and resolution output requirements very much refute the notion of printing being a utility service.

At PCI, we appreciate that when our customers in the fashion production sector use printouts of a garment or fabric design, they need to be confident that it’s an accurate colour representation of what they are selling (or, more importantly, what their customers are about to order). As Ray Lynch, General Manager of Styletex, recently told us, “Back in the day, we had garments delivered to customers that looked different to what they thought they’d ordered and it cost us business. Blues came up looking more like green on paper, and the reds looked pink. It created expectation gaps and disputes once finished orders had actually landed.”

“I’m pleased to say that was an issue Styletex had experienced before we brought in a bespoke managed print service and it’s one they no longer encounter since we set about ensuring they had the optimal range of high end graphic art colour printers for their demanding working environment,” says Brendan Carroll, Director at PCI. “It’s the kind of customer relationship that keeps us on our toes and makes us raise our game.”

 

A Managed Print Service to Support a Seamless Operation

Styltex is one of those great-unsung Irish success stories. Employing around 70 people, the company has been designing and manufacturing ladies fashion since 1986, building a loyal customer base that includes major high street retailers in the UK, like Dorothy Perkins, George (Asada), and closer to home, Dunnes Stores.  

Over 100,000 garments a week are manufactured in its factory in Morocco, while the sales, design, logistics and finance are all run out of the Dublin HQ. Customer loyalty is hard earned, Ray told us when we first met. And I’m sure he was talking as much about the expectations he was placing on PCI to solve for their challenges, as much as he was referring to the standards his own customers demand from Styletex.  

 Ray had always recognised the importance of print in their business model. But he was growing frustrated at the poor print quality of machines and the slow service he was getting from their previous print providers. Not just the colour problem; it could take days to get an engineer out to fix a broken machine. “Every hour of every day we’ve got 20 people in our design team using the colour printers, so if one of those machines goes down we’re in trouble,” he said “it can slow our production process”.

 

Solving Pain Points  

“I think we earned the loyalty he was looking for because we’re still working with Styletex eight years later”, says Brendan. In that time, PCI have been very focussed on addressing the pain points that Ray talked about. This has been through the provision of a managed print service, where old printers were replaced with higher-spec, higher performance and more reliable print quality devices. Right now, Styletex operations are supported by two heavyweight graphics printers - an OKI Pro9431and OKI ES3640 - and a number of other supplementary printers. The graphic art printers live in their design rooms, where the team come up with their distinct fabric prints and designs and create look-book catalogues for the buyers they work with.

“The OKI Pro9431 is as good as it gets for producing sharp and vibrant colour ouputs with a print resolution of 1200x1200dp,” says Brendan. “We then supplement the printers with an Epson high-end ink device for more precise colour matching that aids presentations. For other office colour printers, distributed around the building, we advised they opt for the standard OKI executive series A4 colour printers.

The company has face-to-face client meetings on a weekly basis where printouts of the latest fabrics or silhouettes are what the buyers use to gauge what final garments are going to look like. “They depend on the accuracy of the images we present to them,” says Ray. While there are always going to be some minor inconsistencies between a print representation and the end product, particularly when it comes to metallic colours, Ray says he has been delighted at the quality leap since taking PCI’s advice onboard. “I’d say it’s a 90% improvement over what we had before,” he told us.

A Long-term Commercial Partnership

When it comes to printer downtime, a fundamental part of the PCI service is making sure we actively avoid that from happening. This is what our engineering service team pride themselves on. “At Styletex, the two mainstay printers are monitored remotely so we that can carry out pre-emptive maintenance to catch issues before they have a chance to impact production,” says Brendan. “And we keep their office stocked with consumables and basic parts so there’s no delay if something runs out or breaks. If it’s something bigger, we guarantee we’ll be there to fix it within a couple of hours. Uptime is everything to us.”

Perhaps the nicest thing to hear Ray say in our recent interview conversation was that he now considers PCI “part of the team”, so it’s clear the relationship is valued. “We’re lucky enough to have developed one of those customer relationships where Styletex has built its own business around our advice and ongoing support,” says Brendan, “so it’s crucial for us to consistently deliver on the service side to ensure their operations run as well as is possible.” For the team at PCI, trust and shared responsibilities are crucial to keep both clients and machine providers operating in close tandem.

“When we find people we like, we don’t change,” Ray told me. “We’ve been working with a lot of the same people in business for 20 to 30 years – where there’s a trust that you can’t put a price on. I feel like that about PCI.”

Get in touch if you’d like to find out more about how PCI supports high quality print production for graphic design businesses and architectural practices.  

Topics: MPS, Managed Print Services, High Volume Printers, Graphic Design Printers, Fashion Production Printers

Karen Rafferty

Written by Karen Rafferty

Karen is a HubSpot marketing consultant for PCI Group, advising on inbound marketing strategy and digital brand building.

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