by Milt Vine
Ever seen a suitcase go bouncing down a street, lid flapping? Shoes tumble, sweaters fly. Books somersault. And that white thing that lands on Mrs. Thompson's rose bush? Yep, good ol' Fruit of the Looms.
Now, I won't come out and admit that such a suitcase was ever mine, but I will say that I've seen such a sight, followed by a familiar-looking young man dashing around and retrieving items that belonged to . . . oh, someone. In fact, I thought I'd repressed that memory until recently, when I remembered that there are always surprises in any move, especially when relocating an entire company.
But that's why we here at Seattle Bindery knew to plan carefully before our big move and that's why we're thrilled to announce that Seattle Bindery is in its new facility. And not a single thing was dropped along the way.
It's Decision Time. Our original space, in the center of Seattle, was never the best solution. We filled two buildings that consisted of five different elevations, and those multiple levels and the resulting two elevators just killed us. In addition, large posts ran floor to ceiling every 15 or so feet, and we had to wrap machines around them.
Not good. Not efficient.
Still, moving is not a possibility anyone takes lightly, and so we waited. Then, in 1997, Seattle Bindery acquired Blake Letterpress, expanding our capabilities. Since our lease was also up, we realized we had an opportunity. If we moved, we could create the most efficient, most usable company possible, with all capabilities incorporated in one shop, plus room to grow.
Location, Location, Location. But where should this expanded Seattle Bindery be?
As you can imagine, money was an issue. We sat down and looked at out-of-pocket rent and discovered that for what we were paying, we could afford a remodeled older building in the city or a new building in the suburbs. An older building would be cheaper, but we would require more space because of space inefficiencies. On the other hand, a new building would cost more per foot, but could be designed to our needs using less space.
We loved the idea of a space designed to our needs, but also worried whether a move from the center of the city would place us too far from our customers.
To find out, we bought a map of Seattle, glued it to corrugated (yes, very fancy) and stuck pins where our customers are located. The pins, we saw, were clustered toward the south end of town. Then we did the same test with potential customers, and again, south Seattle was the spot.
Finally, we looked for but couldn't find a single printer that had moved from the outskirts in. So, with market trend and existing and potential customers all suggesting a location, our decision was made. We found a space and prepped.
The Perfect Plan. Okay, maybe it wasn't perfect, but we gave it every effort. First, we sat down with a space planner, which might sound like a luxury. With years of experience, couldn't we plan the space ourselves? But a space planner proved critical.
Her initial step was to come into our existing space with a camera and a tape measure. Then she used those measurements and Computer Assisted Design (CAD) to create an "as-built" of our space complete with each machine as an individual icon. Next, she took a CAD file of our new space and showed us that what we had fit in 30,000 square feet could fit in 23,000 square feet, giving us room to grow.
Second, we interviewed a dozen key people in the company. We wanted people who use the machines daily to have their say.
And third, we took the icons our space planner had created and moved them around, fitting everyone's wish lists together as well as we could. The same dozen then did a second iteration which gave us our final layout.
There were a few surprises.
Actually, most of the surprises were good ones. Still, I hope that by relaying exactly what happened to us, you might be able to gain from our experience. Trust me: you can never be too prepared.
We're Waiting, Waiting. As I noted above, we moved from the center of Seattle to the south edge of the city only after some not fancy but very thorough research. We discovered that many of our current and prospective customers cluster in the south, and market trending supported that finding.
So we knew we'd made the right choice and couldn't wait to move.
But there was a hitch. When we chose a lease, it was in a building that hadn't been built. We would be the key tenant, the reason to launch construction.
In the meantime, however, we became very familiar with the city's permit process. Not that we were doing the filing. No, we were simply the ones waiting seven months because the permit wasn't immediately forthcoming.
It was, in a word, torture. We'd made our plans and now everything was out of our control. In the same situation, I think we'd have serious reservations about signing up for space prior to construction again, even though we love our building now. Definitely, there are pros and cons, and every possible scenario should be considered.
The Big Move. Thankfully, though, the seven months passed. It was-finally!-time to move.
The process went smoothly, I'm happy to repeat. Kudos to everyone here. We were out of production on Thursday and Friday and then we spent the weekend unpacking. By early Monday morning we were up and running.
That took a lot of work, of course, and a lot of money. From the very beginning, moving costs had always stood as the real barrier. But we realized, especially during the move itself when we could see what we were paying for, that the cost of moving was an investment-in us.
We were making ourselves a better company and giving ourselves future growth space. We were taking the opportunity to run our business as it should be run, and we could see it happening. We could also see the vital nature of all our planning.
One surprise was that packing and hauling went more quickly than expected. Unpacking and organizing, however, took longer. The reason? Well, we spent more time planning the packing than we did the unpacking.
All of our planning and work with a space planner paid off, too. With only a few minor changes, the equipment ended up where we'd planned. That's the big reason we were ready to go on Monday.
The Bigger Payoff. The payoff has already been enormous.
Our biggest gain is that we've consolidated the entire Seattle Bindery family. Blake Letterpress, a recent acquisition, is finally a part of the same line. Our new workflow makes us faster, more reliable and efficiency is optimized.
Also, with an open work area, production managers can look up and see the entire floor. Want to know where a job is? Just look. In terms of scheduling, this has already made us quicker and upped customer service.
Another plus is that our shipping and receiving department, with two grade level doors and four dock high doors, can efficiently accommodate any size truck.
The biggest surprise, though, has been the noise-or rather, the lack of it. We all know how noisy postpress equipment can be. In fact, I even bought a phone booth to put on the floor so people could make calls without screaming.
But a side benefit of insulating the building for temperature control has been that we can stand by any machine these days and talk at a normal level. That might sound like a small thing, but it's wonderful. Trust me.
Of course, if anyone needs a phone booth, let me know.
Milt Vine is president of Seattle Bindery, a postpress house specializing in custom tabs and presentation folders; folding and stitching; foil stamping, embossing and die-cutting; plastic spiral, Wire-Oš and perfect binding. You can reach Milt at 425.656.8210. For more information about Seattle Bindery, check out their web site at www.seattlebindery.com. ©1999, Seattle Bindery.