The American Litho Advantage: Adapting to Industry Supply Chain Shortages

Today’s new normal, while heading toward a place of full recovery, has come with no short supply of challenges for many businesses, pun intended. Due to the unforeseen regulations and adjustments put in place over the pandemic, paper mills paused production. With fuel prices on the rise, tighter restrictions on drivers and labor shortages industry-wide, the trucking industry has been hard-hit, affecting delivery schedules nationwide. From this to freight physically stuck on both coasts and adjustments within paper mills to better meet the demands of e-commerce causing delays and an increased lead time, our industry is one of the many greatly impacted. Our resident supply chain expert and forward-thinking leader, Vice President Chris Joyaux, credits the team for their agility in pivoting for our clients in times of uncertainty. “Given the current state of the marketplace, pressure and external factors our team has had to navigate, we dedicated around-the-clock effort to circumventing these challenges creatively, to ensure we have the upper hand at every turn when it comes to providing for our customers. We’re proud to be able to say despite it all, we’ve adapted and leveraged our unique advantages to deliver a fluent stream of quality, consistent work on-time, and sometimes even ahead of schedule.” How have we been able to achieve this, you might be wondering? Our team of experts spent the time over the pandemic looking to the future and working to circumvent these challenges. We Put Our Decades-Strong Relationships to Work, For You  We’ve seen success in utilizing our excellent relationships with the major paper mills to ensure paper supply is available for our customers, whereas the new industry standard has increased drastically to 8-12 weeks out per job. A word to the wise, let’s start planning your next project now. We’re Prepared to Process the Project In-House, In Real-Time  With a large facility, we’ve been fortunate to have the advantage of planning for the future. We’ve increased our paper allocation program, and warehouse space, allowing for maximum inventory in-house to avoid shipping delays or product shortages. Through this system, we’re able to obtain many stocks that our competitors may find to be a challenge. We’re Adaptable, and See Challenges as an Opportunity  At American Litho, we focus on creating solutions for our customers, not relaying challenges as an end-stop. From a variety of fulfillment options and a diverse press room which affords us the ability to utilize a larger array of paper stocks, we can work with the issues our industry is facing and the needs of your brand to meet in the middle on a product that performs. Our Team of Experts Understand the Challenges, to Help you Find Solutions  Our dedicated team has the jump on what’s happening, where and when. We put this knowledge to work for you through advanced planning and strategic consultation to ensure we’re working to exceed your goals for every campaign. We’re well-versed in increasing efficacy and appeal of each project, and will guide you through what that might look like for your product. Are you maximizing your data points through personalization? Testing variable images and formats, alternative stocks, textures, specialty finishes? Leveraging digital marketing to prime the mailbox and drive response? We care about your budget like we’re spending from our own – we will always work to maximize your spend and make it count each and every time. We’ve Got a Plan to Power You Forward We’ve increased the versatility and diversity of our platform, helping you to eliminate outside vendors, ultimately streamlining the project from concept to delivery. We can explore a format redesign to both reduce paper usage and increase manufacturing efficiencies. We’ve also implemented methodology we like to call “just in time” to manage inventory, putting the planning on us and allowing you the time and freedom to trust it’s handled right. We’re all in the recovery effort together, and American Litho’s main mission is to make the process as seamless for you as possible. We’ve put in the work to address the challenges so that you won’t have to feel their effects. Learn more about our capabilities here. We recognize that our growth and success comes from you, our valued customers. Passing along a gracious note that we recently received. “I do appreciate you watching out for us.  That’s value you don’t get from everyone.  You and your team are doing a MAGNIFICENT job for us and we’re truly blessed to have a great business partner in American Litho. You’ve been great to work with and I can’t tell you how happy I am, but I am pleased beyond belief.  I really am.  Have a great night and thank you!” -Vice President, Business Operations, Major National Retail Bank