Turnaround Time

Turnaround time. So, just how patient are you?

From the time of monks putting quill pens to parchment, the issue of "how long will it take to finish?" has been in the minds of both producers and customers. Once movable type came along then things moved faster. It only took days to get printed pages.

By the time computers made the scene as regular parts of the process in the 1980s, it got to the point that we were impatient. Waiting minutes for a desktop printer to spew out type when just a few years before we didn't mind waiting more than a day for the same output.

Technology does move the hands of time, so it seems.

So much so that one industry source has forecast that by the end of 2010, 30 percent of all printing done by professional printers and providers will take 1 day or less.

Wow, Gutenberg would be astonished.

Seriously, this is something we all have to consider when we place an order. How long something takes to be designed, printed, packaged and delivered varies by the product (simple brochure or catalog) and the complexity of the content. And the time sensitivity of the content.

Think about all of those things before you ask your printer to deliver something sooner than is practical.

The Executive