When speaking with new print production people, one of the questions asked most often is how to handle visits to vendor facilities.

There are two distinct reasons to visit a vendor’s facility. The first is to make a visit to inspect the facility when deciding to add them to your vendor base, and the other is for project approval visits.

When speaking of vendors we can be discussing printers and/or letter shops.

When investigating a new vendor for addition to your database, you should begin with a meeting in your office between yourself and at least one representative of the company. This meeting is the initial contact. This is when you discuss the company's capabilities, look at samples of their work, and layout your needs.

If the sales representative has done their homework, this later issue should be easy. They should have an idea of what you do what types of projects you produce and have an idea of your yearly volume. Let’s say, that if you are approached and the first question you receive is "Well, what exactly does your company do?", it should end up being a very short meeting!

Once the vendor has attracted your attention, and if you are seriously considering them, you should arrange a trip to their plant.

What do you look for when visiting a vendor on an inspection trip? My wish list for this includes:

- A clean environment: If the plant is messy and if the equipment is not well maintained, how can you be assured that your projects will be handled correctly. A case history for this would be a printer for whom I once sold. The crews had no feeling of responsibility for the presses. They would wipe ink-covered hands along the sides causing ink to be smeared on the machines. Paper would be tossed aside, without an attempt at hitting the recycle barrels. This always made me cringe when I had clients in house.

- An organized workflow: This is an item I am not sure most people understand, or look for. Where are the receiving docks? Is the paper storage area right there, or on the other side of the plant? Where are the presses located in relationship to the storage? Where are the finishing machines (if applicable) located? The best layout (in my mind) is a horseshoe or "U" shaped layout. The material flows in an orderly manner without causing unnecessary movement.

- The equipment is kept up: The presses, bindery and letter shop equipment all look like they are maintained. Enough said.

- Lighting: I despise under-lit work environments. I once visited a letter shop and I truly felt as if I was in a cave. Cold, damp and dark…all things truly harmful for my materials. Needless to say, they did not make the cut.

- Comfortable customer lounges: I personally prefer to be press side when doing my press approvals, but things do happen, causing downtime. It may not be a long enough break for you to return to your office (or hotel if traveling), and sitting in a hard backed chair around a folding table in the company cafeteria, or in a sales representatives office is not an attractive prospect. Even worse I guess is sitting in a cramped room, on an old couch whose springs are poking me. I do not need a 60" TV, or reclining lounge chairs (sure they are nice!), but a nice comfortable couch, some chairs, at least two data ports and …ok…a TV will do.

Now that they have been added, and you are on-site for an approval, how should you be treated?

- Decide where you feel most comfortable; in the pressroom or in the customer lounge. As I stated above, I prefer to be press side. I once visited a new vendor and on day one was kept in the customer lounge. The sheets had to be run from the press using a golf cart! Total time to approve a sixty-four page double web form….five hours. On day two I insisted on being press side. Total time to approve the second sixty-four-page double web form…two hours! As you can guess, I was press side at this vendor from then on.

- Ask them to wait to get you into the plant until the foreman would sign HIS name to the sheet. You do not need to be there from the moment they start the cylinders turning. Especially on those middle of the night approvals. There is no need to lose sleep as they are making ready the equipment.

- Work with the press foreman. Don’t be afraid to state your opinion of the sheet. Let them guide you, but not push you to sign a sheet you are not truly comfortable with. If you are new or not sure what to do exactly, describe what you want the sheet to look like. "Gee, it looks a bit green to me, can we fix that?" The last thing you want to do is make a statement that will hurt your credibility. I was on press with an art director who had assured me they were a seasoned press approval person. I believed them until they asked the press person to "bring up the brown" on a four-color job.

- When traveling, I normally tell my sales reps they have one night of the trip that I wish to be entertained. After that, let me be on my own. I certainly am too old to need a baby sitter. So many times the sales rep lives in the city I am traveling to. They have a life and I let them live it.

Nothing earth shattering here. No secrets of the inner world revealed. But I hope I have given some insight into the world of plant visits. The most important thing to remember is that you are the client. If there is something you feel uncomfortable with, tell your rep, or the foreman, or the president of the company. You will be surprised at how accommodating they will be. You will not get them to change their entire company but they can tweak some things and also make exceptions.

What are your feelings? What fears have you conquered while on-site? I’d like to hear your stories of on-site visits, both good and bad.

The more we communicate, the better we will be at our careers.