Huge decal order. Outsource or In-house?

Up to you really. Could you do it? Sure. Would it be more profitable to just outsource it and keep doing work in house? Well, perhaps. You could find wholesale printers that do these kind of orders daily that could handle the job with ease, and you just mark up a buck or something per decal, and make good $ for minimal work. Every shop is different. We do 1000s upon 1000s of small full color decals. It's easy for us to handle an order like that, but if someone wanted a couple screen printed flags, I wouldn't know where to start...

where other shops, could whip those flags out in 3 days, but wouldn't ever want to tackle the long, daunting task of 5000 decals.

So, depends on how you're setup in your shop, and how bored/ busy you are.

 

What Flame said.
I have found on large volume orders there are more than a few shops that can produce and ship for less than my raw material costs.
Using the same quality level of material and ink.

wayne k
guam usa

 

My best guess with out Roland SP540V at high speed would be about 10 days worth of printing 8 hours a day. Laminating and cutting and processing and everything I would want at least 30 day lead time for in house.

 

Well is it just 1 color or full color? Black text on white is a lot less ink than full flood, so how's coverage?

How much time do you have to complete the job?

 

Artech Pro in Quebec....
Cowan in Edmonton....

 

+1

but oh how i hate that..... until the job's done and you've made a boat load of $$$$

haven't broken out the squeegee (the real one) in years.... hope never to be tempted to again...

 

screenprint decals?

We just did 20,000 Bumper stickers - 7x3 in a day.
Let the printer print them over night. We were able to fit all of them on 1 roll. So it worked out. Came in the next morning - Lam'd then plotted, weeded.. done.

it's easier than you think i promise you that.

 

get a price from Gill or Stouse and compare it with what it would cost you to do the job. once you get past a certain qty, screen printing most always will cost less. there also is the plus side that if something goes wrong, it isn't you that has to eat the wasted material cost.

 

i would do the job myself.....the roland can throw those out easy. we do jobs like that often. put the printer to work buddy, its all good fun!

 

Get a couple of quotes on subbing it out.

Figure up your cost to do it in-house, including labor.

Subtract the cost of doing it yourself from the cost of subbing it out and look at that figure. If you can double that figure in the time you'll save then sub it out. If you can't do it in house and get some use out of that printer.

 

I'd do it in house, it's a lot of volume for a low-production machine but if you're not slammed busy, keep your people and your equipment working. That's why you have them...

 

I would screen print it, but that's what I do. It would be faster and cheaper to produce than on my Seiko. Wouldn't need lam either if done with right ink on right material.