Color Label Solutions

Color Label Solutions
www.colorlabelsolutions.com

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Flipping For Productivity

Flipping Fun (http://www.flippingfun.com/) describes itself as the “ultimate party favor”.  This company produces 60 page “flip books” at parties and events providing guests with a valuable take-home memento.  




To learn more about this company and process, take a look at this video:  


Before using the Epson TM-3400, Flipping Fun created flipbooks on-site at events using a four step process - printing, cutting, collating and binding.  To print the books, the company used consumer printers and business card cutters.  After collating, they bound the books using custom covers that had been preprinted prior to the event.  Although able to produce a book, Flipping Fun decided to look for a different process for several reasons.

First, standard office/consumer printers are discontinued or fundamentally changed on a regular basis.  Therefore, finding printers that meet Flipping Fun’s requirements became problematic.  According to Meredith Barrett, owner of Flipping Fun, “No sooner would we find a printer that was light enough for transport, and substantial enough for our workload, and it would be discontinued.”

Second, business card cutters demand skill to control, making it challenging for the production assistants to perfect.  Meredith says, “cutters created the opportunity for mistakes; making unusable books inevitable. Also, having to cut twelve flipbook pages out of 8.5 x 11” cardstock produced huge amounts of paper cuttings that were both messy and wasteful.”

Third and most important, Flipping Fun decided to develop a new process to produce a flip book more efficiently.  This goal led Flipping Fun to contact me.

After some initial test prints, it was clear that moving to an on-demand label & tag printer like the TM-C3400 with the built-in cutter would improve the process to produce a flip book.  But to provide the total solution, we needed to help Flipping Fun with two key development steps; software integration and media selection.  The Epson Technical Support Engineer for the TM-C3400, Ernie Villarreal, worked with the company to make sure the software operated with the TM-C3400.

At the same time, Doug von Dollen, the Epson Media Expert, working with Aaron Heller, Account Manager for General Data (www.general-data.com) begin providing different type of tag samples to enable the production of the 60-page, 2” x 3” books.  According to Aaron, “we provided several types of tags as well as difficult-to-peel glossy labels.  After extended testing of different media, Flipping Fun selected a photograde tag stock on a continuous roll that provided the flipping characteristics they required.”

By using the Epson TM-3400, Flipping Fun now utilizes a two-step process to manufacture flipbooks.  After a performance is captured in a seven second video, Flipping Fun’s licensed software extracts 60 frames that are sent to print.  According to Meredith, “We are now able to print and cut a flipbook simultaneously, streamlining our process, saving significant labor, while creating photo mementos for customers.” 

Flip-books

At their first event using the Epson TM-C3400, Flipping Fun produced mementos for the Fashion’s Night Out party for fashion icon, Diane von Furstenburg.  Here are some images and video captured from the books they created:






http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZYbIcHyDDc 

After the first event using the TM-C3400, Meredith provided me a very enthusiastic testimonial.  Meredith says, “The Epson TM-C3400 is a tiny printer that packs a punch!  It has the ability to cut our photo-book frames flawlessly from tag stock that works perfectly with Epson inks.  Also, the custom-size rolls provided by General Data eliminate paper waste, important at our events. In addition, the printer requires little skill to operate and control, thus simplifying our training regimen.  Next, our clients find the glossy finish and print quality impressive; a very important part of our offering.  But most importantly, we have been able to substantially improve our production process while realizing all of these other benefits.” 

Although producing flip books is different from the manufacturing, healthcare, logistic, retail, identification or the markets you or your customers operate, the key point is the same;  Moving to on-demand labels and tags will improve many different processes.  Contact me to discuss how you and/or your customers can capture these benefits.

Guy Mikel

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