The last stage of a print job is a logistics job

A run of 20,000 brochures is roughly a tonne of paper. How it is packed decides whether it arrives in usable condition, whether your storeroom can take it, and whether anyone can find the 500 copies they need for an event on Thursday. Packing gets specified last or not at all, and it is the stage that most often turns a good print job into an awkward delivery.

It is also the cheapest thing to get right, because the decisions cost nothing at the point they are made. They only cost money once the pallet is on a lorry.

How printed work is packed

Standard practice is cartons, stacked and shrink-wrapped on a pallet. Within that there is more variation than people expect.

• Bulk in cartons. Loose stacks in a lined box. Cheapest, and fine for anything that will be distributed from a single store
• Banded or shrink-wrapped bundles. Counted groups of 25, 50 or 100 inside the carton, so nobody has to count on arrival
• Interleaved with board. Stiff board between layers, used for anything that must stay flat, such as covers or heavy laminated work
• Individually poly-bagged. Slow and expensive per unit, worth it only for high value pieces or items going straight to a customer
• Kitted. Several different printed items packed together as a set, ready to hand out as one

Bundle counts are the detail worth thinking about hardest. If your distribution is 40 branches, ask for bundles of the branch quantity rather than round hundreds. The extra cost at the packing stage is small, and it removes an afternoon of counting at your end.

Pallets and what they need from you

A standard pallet is roughly 1200 x 1000mm and, loaded with paper, weighs several hundred kilograms. That number matters more than most people realise when a delivery arrives.

Before you confirm a pallet delivery, check three things about the destination. Whether there is a loading bay or the driver will need a tail lift. Whether the route from the kerb to the store passes through a doorway a pallet truck can clear. And whether the floor above ground level can take the weight, which is a genuine question in older buildings and shophouses.

If any of those is doubtful, ask for the run split into more, lighter pallets, or for carton delivery instead. Splitting a job across two half pallets costs a little more in freight and saves a driver leaving with an undelivered load, which costs considerably more.

Labelling that makes the delivery usable

Every carton should carry a label showing the job name, the item, the quantity in that carton, and its number in the sequence: box 3 of 40. Add a sample of the contents on the outside where a job has several similar items, since four brochures with the same trim size and different covers are indistinguishable through cardboard.

Where the delivery is going to a warehouse rather than an office, a pallet label with the purchase order number is worth asking for. Receiving teams file by PO, and a pallet without one can sit unbooked for days while somebody works out whose it is.

Storage, and the damage that happens after delivery

Paper takes on moisture from the air. In a humid climate, printed work left open in an unconditioned store will wave along its edges within a week, and laminated pieces will curl as the film and the paper move at different rates. Keep cartons closed and sealed until you need them, and keep the pallet off a concrete floor if the store is not climate controlled.

The other common loss is crushing. Cartons of paper are strong when stacked squarely and weak when stacked over an edge. Four cartons stacked neatly hold their shape. The same four stacked with a 100mm overhang will deform the bottom box and bend everything in it.

What to check on arrival

Check on the day, not the week after. Delivery claims have short windows, and a pallet signed for without comment is difficult to argue about later.

• Carton count against the delivery note, before the driver leaves
• Outer condition: crushed corners, water staining, a broken shrink wrap
• Open two cartons from different parts of the pallet and check the contents match the approved proof
• Count one bundle to confirm the bundle quantity is what was ordered
• If anything looks wrong, note it on the delivery paperwork and photograph the pallet before it is unwrapped

What counts as a defect rather than normal variation is a separate question, and one worth knowing before you raise it. We set out the usual tolerances in quality control on a print run.

Overs, unders and the extras in the last carton

A large run rarely delivers the exact number ordered. Presses are set up with waste sheets while colour is brought to target, and finishing equipment consumes a few more at each pass. Trade practice allows a tolerance around the ordered quantity, commonly a few percent either way on long runs, and the contract you signed almost certainly says so somewhere.

Most of the time the variance lands in your favour and the last carton holds a few hundred spare. Occasionally it lands short. If your quantity is genuinely fixed - one ticket per seat, one certificate per candidate - say that at the order stage and ask for a guaranteed minimum. It is an easy thing to plan for and an impossible thing to fix afterwards.

Where the number is not critical, the overs are useful. Keep a sealed carton back as a reference set, since having twenty untouched copies of last year's brochure makes the next reprint far easier to match. Store it away from the working stock so it does not quietly get distributed.

One habit worth adopting on repeat jobs: write the print date and the job number on the outside of the reference carton. Two years on, when someone asks which version is on the shelf, that pen mark answers the question in seconds instead of an afternoon.

Telling us what you need before the run

Packing is planned when the job is scheduled, so the time to specify it is with the order rather than after printing. Send the delivery address with any access limits, the bundle quantity that suits your distribution, and the dates you need it, including any staggered delivery where you want part of the run held.

We hold stock for scheduled release where a run is larger than your storage can take, which turns a single overwhelming pallet into monthly deliveries you can actually handle. For the production side of large quantities, planning a large print run covers how quantity affects cost per unit, and our printing services page lists what runs in house.

Tell us where it is going and how it will be used, and we will pack it to suit that rather than to suit the pallet.