A recent New York Times story made the point that the “just-in-time” manufacturing strategy has been very good for companies since Toyota first pioneered the concept in the 1960s. It stopped being good when COVID stopped the flow of raw materials, which stopped the flow of component parts, which stopped the flow of finished products. In the printing industry, we had supply and demand issues with ink and paper and other substrates. Not to mention the difficulty in finding people to do our work, which is what I really want to talk about today.

Low cost is a contributor to high profit. That’s inarguable. But it’s not the only way to achieve high profit. Also inarguable is the old adage that you have to spend money to make money. Here’s an observation. Printers love to invest in equipment. But, on the other side of the coin, printers tend to be reluctant to invest in human resources. “Keep payroll down” is the mantra, and it too often results in unexceptional people, compounded by not enough of them to get the job done. The other side of that coin is to pay premium wages to attract and retain premium people.

Here’s a tale of two printing companies. Company A spends $30,000 per month on 10 unexceptional people. The work mostly gets done. Company B spends $35,000 per month on eight exceptional people. All of the work gets done, efficiently and effectively. Which company would you rather be?