May 31, 2020
Custom printing of 4 double-sided flags + stitching + fabrication of four 15-foot flag poles + on-site installation, all completed overnight for a one-off rush job.
Sometimes a good friend can also become a hard taskmaster and give you more grief than an enemy. Here is a story where a friend of mine just would not take ‘no’ for an answer. And ended up keeping me awake through the night.
Makarand Shaha worked in the purchase department at Fujitsu Consulting, an IT company based in Talawade, Pune. When we first met, we had a pretty formal client – vendor relationship. But as time passed, we also became good friends. Apart from my friendship with Makarand, Fujitsu also became a high-value client for Orchid. They regularly sourced a lot of sunboard prints, posters, hoardings, brochures, and wall prints from us.
Working with Fujitsu was always a breeze. Makarand’s office was pretty systematic. They always gave us a heads-up, well in advance of any print job. This gave us enough time to process and deliver our material. Which makes the next part of my story all the more surprising.
On a late afternoon in May 2015, I received a call from Ms. Deepali Sangamnekar. Now, Deepaliji was one of the top executives at Fujitsu. There really was no precedent for a high-level manager to directly get in touch with a vendor like me. So even before she explained her requirement, I knew that there was a ‘fire’ somewhere that urgently needed to be contained.
And my intuition proved to be correct.
It turned out that Fujitsu was receiving high level dignitaries from the UK. And the guests were coming in the following morning, about 16 hours from then. My mission (should I choose to accept it 🙂) was to –
01
Print 4 custom flags bearing the company logo and design.
02
Fabricate four 15-foot-tall flag poles, complete with pulleys and hoisting ropes.
03
Assemble everything through the night.
04
Install them at Talawade, 32 kilometres away from our office in Pune.
And oh yeah, I had to do all of this in 12 hours (not 16) because the artwork for the custom flags had yet to come in from the UK. While I kept mum then, I knew in my mind, that the timelines were just too tight.
Deepaliji’s call was quickly followed by another one from Makarand. With him I was more comfortable. I told him that this was a ‘Mission Impossible’ job for me. There was absolutely no way I could meet their deadline. But Makarand was in no mood to hear me out. He quickly disabused me of my notions by saying the following three things.
01
This was not a fanciful Hollywood movie.
02
I was definitely no Tom Cruise. Not even my loving mother would have called me one.
03
There was no element of ‘Should you choose to accept…’ in this mission. In fact, ‘No’ was just not an acceptable answer. I had to bloody well deliver.
Now this situation put me in a spot. Makarand always vouched for me, in front of his top management. I could not let him down. On the other hand, another past experience had taught me that it is always better to refuse a job than to over commit and risk losing credibility in the eyes of a customer. But in this case, all my protests fell on deaf ears. I had to execute this custom flag printing & installation job, no matter what.
And the clock was ticking.
With the Fujitsu job fait accompli, I quickly realised that there was no point wringing my hands over it. We had to do our level best to deliver and leave the rest in the hands of fate. So I sat down and made a list of all the things that actually had to be done, to see the job through. The material and job requirements were typical of how they are for promotional flag printing, as follows:
01
Print four two-sided satin flags 3 feet high x 4 feet wide. Double stitch the flags (essentially, double-sided flag printing).
02
Fabricate 4 flag poles, each having a height of 15 feet and a diameter of 2 inches.
03
Weld 2 feet square base plates at the bottom of each of the poles.
04
Fix 4 foundation rods to each of the above plates. These metal rods are 18″ long and would be pushed into the ground to ensure that the poles do not topple.
05
Weld a pulley on the top of each flag pole.
06
Hoist up the customized flags with silk rope.
Now, printing the actual double-sided flags was the easy part. We have ready stocks of flag materials. Also, printing four flags is quick work on our wide-format inkjet printers. But fabricating the flag poles would take time. And installing the same would take even more.
So we broke up the entire project between multiple teams. Here is what we did –
01
One team was dispatched to Talawade to dig four 3-foot-deep holes. The flag poles (along with the base plates and foundation rods) would be lowered into these holes. Cement would be poured around the same, to hold the poles in place.
02
Another team got busy with fabricating the actual structure in my workshop. Here the poles were cut, welded and painted. We used a fast acting primer because there was very little time for the paint to dry.
03
I kept nagging Makarand for my custom flag artwork. When the mail finally came through, a third team took up the job of printing these custom flags using a thin silky cloth material.
04
05
Finally, everything was ready at around 1 o’clock in the morning. But we still had to ship the material to Talawade (32 kilometres away). Fujitsu is located in an IT park and we also had to obtain security clearances to enter the premises after office hours. Makarand took care of that.
06
The moment the tempo reached Fujitsu with the material, it was taken up for installation. We already had a team on standby there, remember. These were the guys who had dug up the holes in the ground earlier in the evening. They now quickly erected the poles and poured fast-drying concrete around the same.
As you can see from the early morning light in the images below, the entire custom flag printing & installation job was finished just after sunrise and a few hours before the guests from the UK came in.
And I got to say… Mission Accomplished.
The job specifications mentioned above are pretty straightforward. But what made this case memorable was its crazy timelines. Another memory I cherish is of the smiles on our clients’ faces when they saw that we met their deadline. The entire team had put their heart, soul and time into the job. And the happiness of the client made all of it worth the effort. 🙂
Please note: The flag poles were a one-off custom job for Fujitsu. We don’t supply flag poles, ropes or stands as a product, and an overnight turnaround like this one was an exception, not something we can promise. Our custom printed flags are a regular product: print jobs typically take 2-3 working days, plus a little time for stitching and delivery.
At the core, we’re a print shop in Pune that produces prints every day across different uses, materials and sizes. From 2-inch stickers to 200-foot hoardings and brilliant sign boards that adorn offices and shops, we create quite a few things.
But the source of our satisfaction and pride isn’t the wide variety of products or the printing services we’re selling. These are just tools and enablers for us to solve our customers’ problems and bring them delight and contentment. From printing & installing custom flags on a tight deadline, to printing invites that people wouldn’t throw away, even printing my family’s photos as the home decor — the pursuit is always of creating happiness in the lives we touch. 🙂
We at Orchid Digitals go the extra mile to make sure our clients are happy. Our rates are listed in our shop; what clients come back for is the quality of our work and service.
We print your logo or design on lightweight cotton-polyester fabric and deliver every flag finished: edges stitched against fraying and a pocket on one side for the hoisting rope. Choose single-sided, double-sided (two prints stitched back to back, so text reads correctly on both sides) or see-through mesh.
All prices + 18% GST. The smallest flag is 3 x 2 ft and the minimum order is ₹3,000 + GST; you can mix designs to reach it. Delivery is free in Pune and across India.
Products in this story: custom printed flags · sunboard prints · brochures and catalogues · custom wallpaper
We’d love to hear your views on this story. Share your thoughts through the contact form on this page. And if you’d like to see more projects like this one, take a look at our interesting projects in digital printing.
Cheers!
Drop us a line. Send us your query. And we’ll get back to you with solutions and answers.
Mitesh lives, mostly for Saturdays.
But when forced to work, you’ll find him heading Orchid Digitals – a printing press in Pune.
If it’s an emergency, try looking for him in the hills behind his house. You’ll almost certainly find him… lazing under a tree, with a book in hand.
