In May, I received a special treat. As a leader in Heritage Makers, they provide exceptional training and opportunities for us to help grow our business. I was able to attend the leadership training, held here in Provo, UT which also included a tour of the home office. I am including a "virtual tour" for you in this post.
As of May 1st, 2010 all of our products, except for one, are now produced IN HOUSE. This has huge significance to both you as a customer, and me as a consultant. This change will bring about many positive changes in quality, production time, and customer service. By having our publishing services done IN HOUSE, it will be much easier to monitor quality, and catch errors BEFORE shipping out to you, the customer.
(This is Justin standing next to our new State of the art Xerox G4 Printer. The first one to be installed in Utah)
When we were using a contracted company to publish, we were unable to catch and correct basic printing and trimming errors before sending items out to the customer. That will change now, with the use of some great new equipment as well as great staff to monitor it.
(Here is our new digital fully automatic cutting machine. It does page trimming for small projects like swatch books and Cards.)
I have to say too, as I toured the facility, that I was so impressed by the high caliber of people we have at home office as well. They are committed to the vision of Heritage, and want to make sure that you are getting great customer service and quality control.
Here is our new wire stitching machine. This is what gives our books a virtually indestructible binding. See below as one of the employees is trying to tear a binding that has just been stitched.
All in all, I could see that Heritage Makers has spared NO expense in acquiring the latest technology of printing and binding equipment. Plus the majority of these machines are still operated by hand, and best of all your books are printed, and assembled right here in the good ol' US of A. Now that MEANS SOMETHING TO ME!
The covers are set and glued by hand, then run through this machine to press, heat, and set the glue.
Some covers coming out of the heat set machine.
And finally, here is the end of the line, where projects are checked and sorted. So if you order several different kinds of products, they go here in a slot for you, while your other projects are being completed. There is also a large table here so employees can visually check things like print quality and alignment before shipping them off to you. Our shipping turnaround time should now more consistently be within the 3-4 day range at most during normal production times. Obviously longer during holiday rushes.
Hopefully you've enjoyed this little tour with me, and have a better understanding of how things work. Being able to see it all first hand has increased my love and respect for a company I already adored. We have a great staff of friendly helpful people ready to do all they can to help us preserve our heritage.
So what do YOU think of all this? Please post your thoughts in the comment section below!
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