Revolutionary 3D Printing inspired by the movie Terminator 2

A TED Talk by Joseph DeSimone March 2015 - amazing.

Write it down. Document it. Now.

Production mistakes happen. It's part of the business. Hopefully they get corrected and the print shop moves on. What's frustrating is when the same mistake happens again. One good way to avoid making the same mistake twice is to document it in a journal. Two of my old "print experience journals" filled with technical production notes, test results, samples, and odds and sods of print-related information.
A "print experience" journal can be used to document mistakes and how they were corrected, prepress/press tests and results, samples of interesting print effects, and technical bits and pieces of information. Some print shops create a database, hosted on a server, of this type of information that CSRs, sales people, estimators, and production people can both access and add to.

Documenting production experience in an accessible form, like a journal or database, helps the shop learn from its past and reduce the chance of making the same mistake twice. They can preserve the knowledge inside the company even when key employees leave the business.

R.O.I.

Lack of productivity and high manufacturing costs are often attributed to a failure to install new technologies and the latest types of automation. Indeed, achieving a lean, efficient, and effective print-manufacturing process requires improvement of the process in every feasible way. However, technology, by itself, is rarely able to deliver a return on investment unless the printer also makes an equal investment in innovation. New tools used with old skills, old knowledge, and old attitudes will not extract value from new technologies.

When you think about "Return On Investment" you need to also think about "Return On Innovation."

Printer’s Profit

Unless there are chargeable customer alterations, the maximum profit the printer will ever see on a specific job will be when their customer awards the project to them based on the quote. As soon as the printer begins the manufacturing process they also begin to erode that profit with inefficient workflows, duplication of effort, technical mistakes, errors in communication, etc.
Bottom line – profits are not what the printer is able to make, they are what the printer manages not to lose.

The Rule of 10x

It costs $10 to fix color on the creative’s desktop – and it's their cost.
It costs $100 to fix color in prepress...the charge could go either way – back to creative or stay in prepress.
It costs $1000 to fix color on press – but now it’s the printer’s cost.