Handling 3,000 orders a day

”In the end, it’s a pleasant profit”.

Local printing and delivery within 72 hours is Gelato’s promise to its clients. HG Media just outside of Oslo is handling almost 3,000 orders a day during peak season for Gelato, the print provider .

Norwegian news letter Media Monitor has been speaking to CEO Jørn Våraker in order to find out how the printing house works and wheter there is any profit in producing so many small orders.

“Automation and efficient logistics”, is Våraker’s answer when he gives some insight into the company’s Gelato production.

The main bulk of the orders consists of framing of family pictures, in different formats, typcially one picture per order.  Other products are calendars and thank you cards, everything produced with automated print and pack workflow at HG Media.

Våraker tells that all the pictures are printed on a Canon Colorado machine. After printing, the pictures are cut automatically and thereafter attached to a frame in a canvas stretching machine from the German manufacturer MH&P Technology. This machine is the only unit in the Nordics, according to CEO Våråker.

The feeding is done manually, but both the strecthing process and the binding is done automatically by the machine.

“In this kind of production storage and logistics are just as important as production. Everything must flow without any issues. The profit per order is not high, but when we do 3,000 orders a day, we make a pleasant profit. Furtermore, we have other productions for Gelato with a higher profit,” tells Våraker.

Logistics is done with Gelato’s own software which guarantees shipment of the right order to the right recipient.

“The handling of each order is double-checked, first with a barcode from the picture, and secondly the operator sees the picture on a screen and confirms that it is the right picture. This is a smart and efficient way of handling the orders and we have practically no complaints at all on our Gelato orders,” says Våraker.

Canon has also written an article about HG Media, their Gelato production and their investment in Canon equipment.