House of Print and Threads Calls Canon Equipment ‘Game Changing’
Watch how House of Print and Threads upgraded its digital toner production with Canon imagePRESS, varioPRINT, and PRISMA technology. Owner David Ridgeway shares how the equipment’s uptime, registration accuracy, and ease of use help enable his small team to meet big output demands as a fast, reliable production partner.
Overcoming Labor Constraints and Scaling Production: How House of Print and Thread Thrives with the Support of Canon Technology
In the modern commercial printing landscape, maintaining strict production schedules while navigating industry-wide labor shortages requires a highly strategic approach to technology. House of Print and Thread, a specialized commercial print shop located in Beltsville, Maryland, understands this delicate operational balance.
Originally rooted in data processing and the direct mail industry, the organization has consistently focused on variable data printing since its inception. Recently, the company expanded its operational scope to heavily support clients within the highly demanding insurance compliance sector. To help meet the intense turnaround times required by these specialized industries, the facility relies entirely on advanced digital printing infrastructure to keep their operations moving seamlessly.
The Challenge: Unreliable Equipment and a Strained Workforce
Despite experiencing strong market demand for their services, House of Print and Thread encountered significant operational bottlenecks caused by their previous technology. The primary issue impacting their business was a lack of consistent machine uptime. For a print provider managing massive page volumes, arriving at the facility to find production machines offline creates immediate scheduling crises and significant frustration for the management team.
These hardware reliability issues were further compounded by the company's incredibly lean workforce. The facility successfully manages its massive daily output with only one full-time employee and two part-time staff members. Because finding highly skilled, dependable printing professionals is an ongoing challenge across the entire commercial print industry, the organization cannot simply hire more operators to compensate for slow or broken machinery. The company needed equipment that was exceptionally reliable, heavily automated, and intuitive enough that individuals without extensive printing backgrounds could quickly learn to operate the systems.
A Comprehensive Digital Fleet Integration
To help eliminate their crippling downtime and build a more resilient production floor, House of Print and Thread made the decisive move to transition their entire infrastructure to Canon. Recognizing Canon as a leading player in technological innovation, the print shop integrated a robust fleet of production devices tailored to handle their specific volume requirements.
To manage their massive monochrome output, the facility installed two Canon varioPRINT 6000 Series TITAN black-and-white presses. To accommodate their rapidly expanding color printing needs, the organization added an imagePRESS V1350 alongside an imagePRESS V800 digital color press, the latter being specifically utilized for high-quality banner printing. To unify this powerful hardware ecosystem, the company relies on PRISMAsync workflow software, which serves as the central interface for preparing and routing their complex variable data jobs.
Expansive Growth, Excellent Registration, and Enhanced Workflow Efficiency
The implementation of Canon production printing technology has helped to fundamentally transform daily operations at House of Print and Thread, supporting the resolution of previous uptime issues and driving significant business growth.
The reliability of the Canon presses allows the lean staff to maintain strong production numbers. Last year, the facility successfully produced 28 million black-and-white pages, a volume they are on track to easily replicate. Furthermore, their color production has exploded following the installation of the imagePRESS V1350, surging from roughly 1.5 million pages last year to well over 2.2 million pages in just a fraction of the current year.
Beyond sheer volume, the Canon equipment helps deliver exceptional precision and ease of use. The advanced sensing unit on the imagePRESS V1350 automatically controls color and registration so that the production team rarely has to make manual adjustments. Operators can confidently print a job, move it to the cutter, and trust that all crop marks will align, helping to save valuable production time. Additionally, the paper feed decks across the fleet are incredibly reliable, experiencing almost zero jams during heavy daily operations.
The PRISMAsync workflow software has also helped to further maximize the facility's overall efficiency. The interface is incredibly intuitive, making it easy for staff to quickly queue and execute jobs. The processing speed of the software is remarkable; the system can successfully rip and begin printing a complex, 1,400-page PDF document in under a minute. This combination of software speed and hardware automation means that new employees without prior printing experience can be fully trained as functional machine operators in just a day or two, helping to mitigate the company's labor challenges.
Ultimately, this uptime and rapid processing speed enable House of Print and Thread to accept overflow and crisis work from other commercial print shops that cannot meet their own tight deadlines. The dedicated support the Canon team helps ensure that the equipment consistently remains in peak condition, allowing the print shop to continuously fulfill its promises to clients.
Interested in learning how Canon production printing technology can help your business grow? Contact us today.