Over the years, many trade finishers have had their bread and butter work taken away by their former customers. The situation used to be black and white: a printer's job was to print, the finisher turned that print into an actual product.
But as time has gone by, printers have slowly but surely chipped away at the trade finisher's lifeblood. Increased demand for quick turnaround jobs, coupled with the introduction of more cost-effective machinery, has seen printers take many processes in-house. It started with basic fold, stitch and trim, but lamination and die-cutting, among others, soon followed suit.
While this might be good for printers, who can incorporate the transport savings into the price of a job and feel safe in the knowledge that the whole job is under their control, things are very different for the finisher. Many trade houses have closed in recent years and the general consensus from those that remain is that, in order to survive you have to offer a service that a printer cannot easily, or cheaply, bring in-house.
As Peter Morris, managing director at finishing equipment supplier Friedheim, explains: "Old-school finishing has diminished at a rapid rate with finishers now looking to add value and add quality. They need to know that printers won't buy their kit. Printers may spend £50,000 on a binder to do small jobs, but for oddball contracts, the kind of thing they do twice a year, they are never going to bring that in-house."
So what options are there left for trade finishers to go at and how long will these options be around before printers start looking at them?
Counting the cost
One of the arguments printers use for not investing in a piece of kit is that it isn't worth splashing out on a machine that will only be used once a week. Areas that fit this bill include high-end lamination, specialist folding, such as miniature, miniature or shaped die-cutting, specialist bookbinding, card tipping, one-piece mailing and pick and place.
For many processes finishers have been able to keep the more difficult elements, while the simpler techniques have moved in-house. For instance, companies like Best Cover UV, Reflections and Alchemy handle very specialist lamination, coatings and varnishing, which has allowed them to offer a service printers are not willing or able to invest in, simply because the sub-£50,000 kit that a printer will often buy is just not up to the job.
It makes sense to buy a basic laminator, rather than send simple jobs out, but for lenticular finishing, for example, a job that a printer is only likely to see once in a blue moon, there is less incentive to buy a very specialised - and probably very expensive - piece of kit.
Another area that bears similar traits is bookbinding. As machine costs decrease, binding has become more of an in-house activity, but specialist bookbinding is still a highly skilled activity that involves a large amount of manpower. The number of specialist bookbinders in the UK has dwindled significantly over the years, but most of the companies offering those services have been doing so for more than 100 years - the skills involved in producing quality books are not something that can be learned overnight.
One such bookbinder is Riley Dunn & Wilson, which celebrated its centenary this year. The company's managing director Charles Dunn says that there are a number of post-press services his company provides that a printer cannot easily bring in-house, including book block sewing, casemaking and foil-blocking.
"Our short- to medium-run cased binding lines, both machine assisted and hand crafted, are the most unlikely areas of print finishing to be brought in-house due to the high entry cost, shortage of suitable and affordable equipment and lack of bookbinding knowledge and expertise within their own set of staff," explains Dunn.
Barriers to entry
"Our variety of book sewing machines which are hand-fed and designed especially for short runs would be very difficult to set-up in house due to their scarcity and need for skilled knowledge by operators. The cost of much of the equipment if available new is very expensive and suitable secondhand equipment is scarce."
Another book manufacturer, Bookbinders of London, concurs. Managing director Ian Bailey believes that printers shouldn't consider moving into bookbinding, because even though it is part of the same sector, it's a very different process.
"There have always been printers and there have always been binders, this is because the skill sets are so different," says Bailey. "Printers will buy bookletmakers and the odd perfect binder and creasing kit, but setting up a full working bindery with the skilled staff is a step too far for most to consider."
Another way of ensuring you provide something that won't come in-house is to sign up to something exclusively. If you're the only company that handles a specific product, that puts you in the driving seat as the key point of contact for a contract - it's guaranteed work that will have printers falling over themselves to work with you.
Alpha Media Solutions knows this feeling all too well. It has an exclusive contract to manufacture Z-Cards. The product has opened the door for further investment and expansion, according to sales director Simon Rose.
"We identified markets and demands where individually there is insufficient demand to justify the capital investment, but nationally it's a viable exercise," says Rose. "The Z-Card production is a classic example where there is a strong market for a range of bespoke products utilising specialist equipment and requisite skills. The installation of a Bobst gluing line has not only proven successful for carton and greetings card work but with retro fit additions it has opened up the market for wallets, folders and mailers with unique shapes not reliant on a side lay to register to product."
Another way that a finisher can ensure printers bringing work in-house doesn't affect it is to offer a wide range of different services - a tactic that Folio in Bristol has employed. The company offers an array of options and has invested heavily in areas such as remoist gumming, which allows it to do one piece mailers. While there are printers specialising in mailing, by providing services such as remoist gumming and card tipping, Folio allow other printers to compete for the work without investing in the service.
"We try to ensure that even if we lose a service, we don't lose a customer," explains managing director Andy Bird. "So a printer may bring wiro-binding, laminating or die-cutting in-house, but we will still be able to do business with them because they will be using our other services."
Printers and finishers appear destined to play a never ending game of cat and mouse, which neither side ever truly wins. Each time the printer invests in bringing more services in-house, the finisher will invest in increasingly niche services that are not economically viable for a printer to buy into, thus - hopefully - ensuring the finisher's survival.
CASE STUDY: FIRST 4 PRINT FINISHING
First 4 Print Finishing is a Blackburn-based company that offers miniature finishing among other post-press processes.
The company was formed in 2003 and has concentrated on basic fold, stitch and trim work for the past six years, but managing director David Nestor saw the need to move into more niche work.
Earlier this year the company installed two Herzog + Heymann KL112 folders, to produce multi-concertina products, and launched its own miniature arm, First 4 Miniature.
"Miniature folding is something very few printers offer as an in-house service," says Nestor. "Therefore we felt it would provide a more complete service to our customer base. Printers have traditionally looked to outsource miniature products often due to the complex nature of the item or lower levels of activity compared with their traditional finishing requirements.
"As a trade finisher we feel it is vital to diversify. It's counterproductive to fear that our customers will invest in areas that we operate in, however we feel it's vital to react to a changing market and position our business accordingly. While there is strong demand for our services we will continue to offer them, should the day come when this is not the case we will realign our business and move forward."
The company intends to expand its miniature finishing department, but it is also talking to its customers about other services the company could offer, specifically areas that the printer itself would not want to bring in-house.
