Time the Leveler

For all the “gee whiz” aspects of technology, one of its great benefits is its propensity to level the playing field for small businesses in a landscape dominated by larger companies.  Take sign manufacturing, for instance.  It used to be that creating a channel letter sign was beyond the budget for most small companies.  It was so expensive, in fact, that we couldn’t even afford to do it ourselves — we used to subcontract this fabrication process to folks who specialized in it.

To give you an idea of just how labor intensive the creation of a channel letter sign can be, a single 18-24 inch letter used to take around twenty minutes or more just to drill and rivet — and this was after being shaped through a protracted process of notching and bending.  Now, thanks to a recent round of capital investment that included the purchase of our Accu-Clinch and Accu-Bend equipment, the drill and rivet part of the fabrication process that used to take twenty minutes has been replaced by a machine that takes around two minutes to perform, while the actual formation of the metal letters themselves is almost entirely automated (see the video of our Accu-Bend machine in action).

Pictured above are the Accu-Bend and Accu-Clinch machines used in channel letter fabrication

Thanks to these technology innovations, we are able to bring the cost of a high quality channel letter sign down to a level that is more affordable for smaller businesses who want to stand out (no pun intended).  As one of our customers noted in a recent blog, the level of professionalism their sign communicates has resulted in people assuming they are a corporate chain — and being even more delighted when they discover that they are, in fact, a family owned operation.

After watching our YouTube video of the Accu-Bend in action, imagine notching and bending a channel letter by hand — you’ll appreciate how technology advances make this kind of sign a more affordable option.

As in every other aspect of business, time is money — and the money saved in creating memorable signage that compellingly reflects our customers’ brands is money they can spend in other areas of their business.  Of course, the historic counter argument to automaton is that it replaces human labor, and therefore cost jobs.  If you think about it in the case of our company, however, the fact is that thanks to technology improvements, we are able to bring capabilities in-house that we used to subcontract — and in doing so, we not only provide employment, but ensure that every hour of an employee’s time results in a greater benefit to the customers we serve.