[5109] in APO Printshop
Re: Printshop pricing confusion
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Mitchell E Berger)
Fri Sep 14 05:47:32 2007
To: benazeer@alum.MIT.EDU
cc: "Mitchell E Berger" <mitchb@MIT.EDU>, tower@alum.MIT.EDU, jtu@MIT.EDU,
apo-printshop-journeyman@MIT.EDU, apo-printshop-operators@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 14 Sep 2007 00:45:43 EDT."
<d935ebbf0709132145h7d74d1bdp6eebf73c790a0b3c@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2007 05:47:25 -0400
From: Mitchell E Berger <mitchb@MIT.EDU>
I didn't really want to have this discussion (note that my original e-mail
was intentionally only sent to the journeyman list requesting a
clarification of vague wording on our price sheet in the binder), but
since it's happening anyway, to pretend that the printshop or the
Treasurer have any clue how well the shop is supporting itself is a joke.
We're in no position to determine that, because we have no clue what the
starting balance of the printshop's "account" was when the current
bookkeeping system came into being. We don't even know if we're in the
black or the red, so any arguments about anything that are predicated on
the shop supporting itself are invalid because we don't know how it's doing
financially.
Next, if you observe the listing in my mail of what they've been charged
for this identical job before, and consider that the answer I got will
result in me charging them more than we ever have before because nobody
ever did the math as prescribed by the replies I got from the journeymen,
and add in the fact that our rates haven't changed across the years the
previous instances of this job have been run, and ask if that makes me
feel like we're "taking them," the answer I'd have to give you is "you
bet it does."
It also seems awfully fishy that this system is capable of being gamed.
I certainly feel like it's "taking them" given that it occurred to me
that it'd be possible for me to lock up "part 1" of both of the Munchicard
and Multipass jobs in a single chase at the same time, put two cards on
the platen with each press cycle, and essentially charge them half price
because that would be *1* setup, and half as many impressions as cards
printed.
Now let's take your $0.02/impression claim - in the 21st century at MIT,
that *is* a lot of marginal money on the cost of a copy. CopyTech's
rates are $0.04 per copy. Their copiers will happily handle cardstock,
and if 8.5x11 cardstock is used, you can easily print what we do on
Jersey Cards and similar 6-up (possibly 8-up, depending on design). If
you have access to a paper cutter, which most people do, I assure you
that if you do the math, you'll find out that the cost per card at
CopyTech comes out to less than *one cent*. If you add the price of the
cardstock, then it becomes less than two cents instead. You were talking
of adding two cents per copy not being a big deal? It's actually adding
more than the price of doing it at CopyTech onto our already more
expensive price.
You don't have to take my word for it, though - actions speak louder than
words. They stopped using us to print membership cards years ago because
they realized it was cheaper for them to do it themselves and use their
paper cutter. Last year, they considered using us to print tickets to
the xkcd lecture, and again realized it was cheaper for them to do it
themselves. They did want to have serial numbers on the tickets, though,
for fear of forgery. I offered to run our numbering machine over the
tickets after they printed them. Because of what it would cost, they
chose to have tickets labelled "A1-A9, B1-B9, etc.", and printed "A", "B",
etc. on the n-up page they ran through their press, and then sharpied in
a different number for each page. I'm sort of surprised they're even
thinking about letting us print Munchicards and Multipasses, but maybe
they haven't noticed yet that the rates I quoted them will make their
usual order come out to just over $0.06 per card.
It's not a matter of whether $6.00 is a lot of money for a college student.
It's a matter of whether the price we end up with is better than the
semi-commercial alternatives. We're not competing with a professional
shop where each card might cost $1.00. If we're competing at all, it's
with CopyTech, and our prices aren't beating theirs. In this particular
case, we're also dealing with a group that has their own press, and
while it's true they can't print on tiny stock like we can, we lost our
edge when n-up printing and a paper cutter became an obvious solution to
them.
So, has someone on LSC exec told me that our printshop is too expensive?
Yes, effectively, when they wouldn't let me number their xkcd tickets and
chose to use sharpie instead. Have they told us this collectively before?
Yes, when they started printing membership cards themselves (we have a
cut for that whole card, you know). We don't get to claim that our price
is ridiculously low when CopyTech can undercut us and will get perfect
alignment on every print.
Our rates are in fact fantastic as they scale to jobs where we print huge
quantities of things, but for "small" 500-1000 copy jobs, technology has
caught up and passed us, I'm sorry to say.
Mitch
> If a crusty alum can throw in her $0.02, I don't think were "taking them"
> for anything here. Operating a press costs money, and while the pressops are
> somewhat shielded from that, since the APO treasurer keeps the books, that
> doesn't change the fact that ink, solvents, parts, etc are expensive.
>
> And just to make sure I understand, we're talking about a difference of $6
> between the correct fee structure and one in which the numbering machine
> doesn't count as another setup, right? That's less than two cents/impression
> (or three hundred emails from crusty alums!). That is a very small amount of
> money, even for poor starving college students.
>
> Has someone on LSC exec told you that our printshop is too expensive?
> Because honestly, for the quality we produce, the amount we charge is
> ridiculously low, and I'm having a hard time seeing our setup fees being a
> total dealbreaker. I mean, I've seen things come off our press that are just
> as good as samples from professional shops, where a five hundred card run
> can cost $500.
>
> YiLFS
>
> Benazeer
>
> On 9/14/07, Mitchell E Berger <mitchb@mit.edu> wrote:
> >
> > My feelings about how reasonable the number of setups we count for this
> > job is aside, we're not going to change the prices between now and when
> > LSC needs cards, and this does answer my questions, so I've explained
> > the pricing structure to the relevant LSC folks.
> >
> > As to Len's question about LSC membership cards, I don't remember the
> > last time we printed them, and I forgot to look again when I was in the
> > office, but it was years ago, and as I said in my original e-mail here,
> > they've been printing those cards themselves on their own press or on
> > a laser printer and copier, 6-up, for years, and it's probably cheaper
> > for them to continue doing it. The one real thing we have going for us
> > if we're going to take them for 6 setup fees for that small number of
> > cards is that we can print on Jersey cards instead of the thinner flimsy
> > stock they use for membership cards these days.
> >
> > Mitch
> >
> > > Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2007 15:35:42 -0400 (EDT)
> > > From: Leonard H. Tower Jr. <tower@alum.MIT.EDU>
> > >
> > > Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2007 15:17:09 -0400 (EDT)
> > > From: Jennifer Tu <jtu@MIT.EDU>
> > >
> > > Len -- out of curiosity, what *is* the correct charge for this job?
> > >
> > > > Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2007 01:21:17 -0400
> > > > From: Mitchell E Berger <mitchb@MIT.EDU>
> > > >
> > > > The binder claims:
> > > >
> > > > Press use: $3.00 setup* + $0.10 per 100 impressions
> > > > * Each color ink, each numbering run, and each perforator run is
> > a
> > > > setup and an impression.
> > >
> > > jtu et al:
> > >
> > > With these current rates, and assuming 500 Multipasses, 2 colors, 1
> > > numbering machine used**.
> > >
> > > 3 setups @ $3.00 = $ 9.00
> > > 1500 impressions @ $0.10/100 impression = 1.50
> > >
> > > for a total of $ 11.50 plus the cost of the card stock, if AX provides
> > > the card stock, which is what's happened in the past. I don't
> > > remember what the shop is charging for cards stock right now.
> > >
> > > Double that, if there are also 500 Munchicards, 2 colors, 1 numbering
> > > machine used.
> >
> > > yiLFS -len
> > >
> > > **i don't rmember a job where two numbering machines were used, but it
> > > did get discussed, and the consensue at the time, was that it would
> > > be an additional setup/impresssions charge for each machine used.
> > >
