Laddawn.com : Color management stats

We know only 80% of customers tell us what the colors are  (via our "standard" colors or via PMS fields), but how often is it the case that customers/CE do not provide an accurate count, from the quoting stage through the ordering stage? How often is it that we have to correct the count after the order is placed? According to Caitlin it is more typical with jobs involving process colors for customers/CE to get the count wrong - typically CMYK (4 colors) + X number of spot colors. But what about jobs that just have > 1 spot color? How common are they, and how often are we fixing those after order is placed? If it's a lot.... 

One of the things I heard in a recent meeting with Caitlin and Dave is that the price of the job jumps when going from 1 to 2 colors, but that the price increase is not as dramatic with incremental color additions. (I'm talking about the price of the bags and the printing, not one time plate costs.) Is it worth considering a tiered structure - for example 1 color | 2-5 colors | 6-8 + colors  (the actual tiers might need to be different)-  and not even bother asking for PMS colors? I suppose the ability to provide PMS colors at quote/order stages gives some reassurance to the small number of customers who know what they are, but if we are filling in blanks or fixing them 80, 90% of the time, then perhaps we do not need such fussy color counting/color identification functionality, at least not now? If we used ranges like this, would it cut down on customers being wrong, or not? It could complicate plate charges I suppose. Or does the lack of better color count/ color ID functionality contribute to the current outcomes?  >

Plates (source: Judy)

Plates in DB that have  actual color counts > 5 registered colors.  The only way to get > 5 colors to the DB (currently) is when uploading multiple pieces of artwork.  The P/O# field signifies whether we actually purchased this plate (meaning a sales order was created).  Five of the 6 plates that we’ve ordered were for 6 colors.  One was for 10.  Not sure how CP7716 got 71 colors???  Below the list is what the 10color CP7433 looks like.

Plate#       Created    Colors Buy Date     P/O#

CP5702     01/03/18            6 01/12/18       90975

CP5796     01/12/18            6 01/19/18       91135

CP6308     02/26/18            6 03/26/18       93068

CP6334     02/26/18            6 03/07/18       92618

CP6335     02/26/18            6

CP6773     03/28/18            9

CP6967     04/11/18            7

CP7088     04/18/18            7

CP7244     04/27/18            7

CP7257     04/27/18            6 05/08/18       94370

CP7433     05/10/18           10 05/18/18       94649

CP7561     05/22/18           10

CP7645     05/29/18            7

CP7646     05/29/18           12

CP7716     06/04/18           71

CP7735     06/05/18            8

CP7749     06/06/18           10

CP7750     06/06/18           10

CP7888     06/14/18            9

CP7889     06/14/18           13

CP7925     06/18/18            7

CP7949     06/19/18           12

22 records listed

Color counts

Quotes since we launched enhanced PMS color capture (3/8/18). Note: in hindsight, I think I should have looked at this by MOD and not quotes. Jay is in process of converting for me.

Color specification

Again, in process of converting this to MODs.

Out of 2,623 registered print quotes done since we rolled the PMS color capture features on 3/8/18:

• 429 specified PMS colors (including our "standard" colors)
• 320 were just "BLACK" (one of our "standard" colors)
• 69 specified PMS colors other than our "standard" colors
• the rest were blank or "NULL" (no color specified)