New In-plant Leaps Forward

Hobby Lobby's in-plant has gone from a one-man, one-press shop when it started five years ago, to 14 employees, four presses and a new HP Indigo digital color press.

By Bob Neubauer

Brad Smith can still remember the good old days.

"It started off small—one press, one person," recalls Smith, offset printing manager for Hobby Lobby's Oklahoma City-based in-plant.

But he doesn't have to think back very far to summon up this memory. It was the fall of 1999, five short years ago, when he was hired to run the new Hamada 234 the company had ordered to print its forms. Having spent 12 years operating machinery in another in-plant, Smith expected to continue doing pretty much the same thing at Hobby Lobby, a growing chain of stores selling supplies for arts, crafts and hobbies.

He didn't expect that, within a couple years, he would be manager of one of the fastest growing, most progressive in-plants in the country. In just five years his shop has expanded to include 14 employees, four offset presses—including a five-color perfector—two computer-to-plate systems and, most recently, a new HP Indigo WS4000 digital color press.

Smith credits his upper management for having the vision to support the shop's technology leaps.

"They give me a lot of freedom to move the shop the...direction that I feel it needs to go," he says.

He also praises company founder David Green for giving the in-plant the green light to begin with.

"The owner of the company...he's got the thinking process that if you can do it yourself, you have a tendency to save money," Smith says.

And save money the in-plant has. Smith estimates his shop saves Hobby Lobby between 45 and 50 percent over the cost of printing that work outside.

Bring It In-house

The idea for starting an in-plant, Smith says, began when Green encouraged Vice President of Advertising Bill Hane to bring more printing in-house. Though Hobby Lobby already had a small copy shop and a sign printing shop, all offset printing was being sent to local printers—not always in a coordinated and cost-effective manner. As this was costing the company a lot of money, particularly for forms printing, Hane ordered a press to print those forms in-house. Smith was hired in November 1999 to run that two-color Hamada 234. From forms he progressed to letterhead and business cards.

"As we took on more work, we realized we needed more space and more employees," remarks head press operator Michael Warden, who was hired a few months later.

The shop soon added a second press, an A.B.Dick 360. In 2002, the in-plant made a big jump in capabilities when it purchased a five-color Heidelberg Speedmaster 52 perfector. That press was added mostly to enable the in-plant to get into a new line of business: Printing "memory pages" for scrap book creators. This has become a huge business for Hobby Lobby, and thus for the in-plant.

The in-plant's fourth press, a two-color Hamada RS-34, was installed not long after the Heidelberg.

To get plates for its presses, the in-plant has always used computer-to-plate technology. It started with a Mitsubishi DPX Genesis platesetter, which generated polyester plates for the small presses. When the Heidelberg arrived, the in-plant added a Mitsubishi DotMate 7500 CTP with in-line punching. It also outputs poly plates—between 800 and 1,000 feet of them a month, Smith says.

Always Seeking New Work

One of the reasons Hobby Lobby's in-plant has expanded so quickly is that it is always looking for new work it can print.

"We're trying to find every possible opportunity to get all the printing under one roof," says Warden. This is what led to the purchase of the HP Indigo digital color press, he says.

Hobby Lobby's onsite candle factory had been ordering a great deal of labels from outside label printers.

"To get the cost down, we had to order so many labels, and we had to store them," explains Craig Stahl, manager of the sign shop and label shop.

So the in-plant looked into ways it could save money printing labels.

"The run lengths that they were ordering labels seemed to fit the Indigo pretty good," Smith says. "Print quality was better than flexo, which is the way they were currently getting them done, and cost-wise, it would save them a pretty good chunk doing them digital with smaller runs than they could get from flexo."

Though he looked at equipment from Xeikon and Mark Andy, he says, "we kind of felt the Indigo was a little bit better quality than the rest of them."

Stahl was trained to operate the seven-color, roll-fed HP Indigo WS 4000, and so far, despite some start-up maintenance problems, the process has been going well. He says click charges include blankets, plates, inks and imaging oil.

To finish the labels, the shop recently brought in a Rotacom semi-rotary diecutting machine. The roll of printed labels is spooled into this machine, which puts on a UV coating and diecuts them. Hobby Lobby reportedly has the first Rotacom equipment in the world.

Smith has high hopes for the HP Indigo press. In addition to labels—and the in-plant has barely scratched the surface of potential labels jobs within the company—he would like to start printing the in-store signs currently being printed on a Xerox DocuTech in the copy center. The HP Indigo could print them in two colors and faster, he says, and the Rotacom could sheet them.

Lots Of Offset Work

The in-plant's offset work continues to grow, as well. In addition to the memory pages, the shop prints catalogs, brochures, stationery, envelopes, packaging for the company's soap products, and "project sheets," which feature a picture of a craft and a list of what is needed to complete it. The work is so plentiful, Smith says, that he is considering adding another press, a half-size, six-color perfector with a coater.

Unlike most other in-plants, Hobby Lobby's three-employee copy center operates fairly independently from the rest of the in-plant, though both are part of the advertising department, along with a separate design department. The copy center is even located in a different building. Still, Smith says, the two work together on certain projects, as when an offset-printed cover is bound into a document printed on the DocuTech.

Two-sided Banners

The sign shop has closer ties with the main in-plant, as its manager, Stahl, also runs the HP Indigo. Located in an adjoining room, the sign shop features three Hewlett Packard wide-format printers, an HP 1050 and two 60˝ HP 5000s. Stahl's claim to fame is printing two-sided banners, using material from Intelicoat.

"It's not the easiest thing to do," he says. The banners hang in the 19 Mardel stores, a Christian bookstore and educational supply business that is a sister company to Hobby Lobby. Another Hobby Lobby company, Hemispheres, runs five high-end accent furniture stores.

Hobby Lobby itself has 335 stores, with the goal of reaching 400 stores by January 2007. That means a lot of new business for the in-plant. Smith is confident this will translate into more equipment and more employees.

"I don't have any doubt that we're going to grow more," he says.

He praises his "excellent upper management" for their support of his in-plant.

"They realize it's a definite asset to the company," he says. "Without upper management on board, you're not going to go anywhere."

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