Insider had the opportunity to meet with Rod Rackley, President of Circle Graphics OOH Division, for a tour of their Longmont, Colorado facility.  Circle Graphics maintains operations in Colorado, California, Ohio, Virginia and Missouri. The Colorado plant is their largest. They print and ship around 2,000 posters each day.

Since many of our readers use Circle Graphics as a vendor for printing their vinyls, I wanted to provide my impressions on their Longmont operation. I’ll provide some of the discussions I had with Rod Rackley in an article next week.

It’s a big Facility!

The Longmont facility is about 200,000 square feet and prints around the clock, over three shifts, to meet their daily customer demand.

What I saw and heard

When visiting a facility for the first time, I always start by focusing on what I can see and hear. It can tell you quite a bit about how a company functions.

My first impression is a sense of purpose and flow in the production facility at Circle Graphics OOH Division.  Sure, they are a high-volume operation, but as I enter the production facility, you immediately notice, from all the staff, that they know their responsibilities and they stay on task.

Other things I noticed included the tracking system used by way of bar coding on each vinyl.  The early part of the printing process is very streamlined and computerized, allowing for their high capacity printing.  And of the quality control process of consistently sampling and reviewing projects as they move through the facility.

How do you track everything?

To be able to effectively and accurately print and ship with a quick turnaround, you have to be able to track your work flow.  Those of you who use Circle Graphics know how much time and effort CG has put into their operating platform.  Circle Graphics is all about tracking workflow digitally.  This computer screen is one of the first things I saw coming into the office.  The display shows the day’s activity in real time.

You need strong leadership!

Circle Graphics made a great choice by bringing Rod Rackley back to the organization as President of the OOH Division.  He has a great sense of where Circle Graphics is headed and knows, to get there, you have to take care of your customers. More from Rod next week.

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