2019 was a key year for Maudlin Merchandise. It was not only our best year ever, but also the year in which we worked hardest for the future of the company.
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Much of this work involved extensive construction work at our warehouse. We were able to add another 15 per cent to the space we already had (we're now very close to reaching 600m2) and thus create not only a new room with almost double the space for digital printing (direct printing, flexo printing and sublimation) but also significantly more space for screen printing.
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Why did we do that, you ask?
Over the last few years we have been able to grow at a very fast pace. Although we don't have external investment or venture capital, we have made the right decisions at the (almost) right times. This has allowed us to leverage the company extremely quickly and, as in any place that requires production, machines and space are a concern.
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After investing in making screen printing more digital, in 2020 we're going to launch screen printing production with two machines. This step will allow us to more than double our production speed. With a second machine that's bigger and more advanced than the current one, we'll be able to work faster and we're extremely excited about what's to come.
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We've also made significant changes to the fingerprints. With a direct printing machine that is faster than the two we had TOGETHER, we have now also more than doubled the installed production speed in 2019. By adding a new way of curing the ink and further increasing production capacity to make faster deliveries to our customers.
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In finishing we now have more capable equipment, which will allow us to increase the speed with which we work by around 50 per cent (in some cases even 100 per cent), always with less fatigue on the part of our employees. We've never applied personalised labels as quickly as we do today.
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The new space is also optimised for the first time for a workflow that makes sense. Everything has been planned over more than eight months so that we can work from point A to point Z in a straight line, without anyone interfering in other departments. Organisation has been a huge concern of ours during this phase of construction.
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Despite the huge victory that this development represents for us, it wasn't without losses.
2019 was an extremely difficult year. Working at the same time as building work is not easy. We had several moments when we were late with deliveries (we accepted this and apologised) or when we had to considerably increase production deadlines in order to manage everything that was going on in the company. We had days during the high season when we were unable to work due to various aspects of the renovation of the space, which caused us to lose a lot of time and several clients.
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We're betting on 2020 to be able to increase our production capacity and recover some of the customers we weren't able to help last year.
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2020, we're ready!
