Printing company growing its headquarters
Think Patented will soon break ground on new fulfillment center.
A more than four-decade-old Dayton area company will construct a new fulfillment center next to its headquarters.
Think Patented will break ground on the 47,000-squarefoot Miamisburg facility within the next two weeks, according to David McNerney, a company partner and vice president of sales and marketing.
The printing and marketing execution company will open the fulfillment center no later than the end of the third quarter, immediately creating five new jobs, McNerney said, “but we would anticipate additional people being needed as business demands it.”
Those employees will be engaged in fulfillment and kit packing for client orders, as well as account management, he said. The company employs 125 people.
The new building will be a highbay, narrow-aisle facility allowing Think Patented to increase efficiency and maximize square footage, McNerney said.
“We’ve got a small second facility right now that we’re leasing and we’re bringing that, obviously, underneath this roof,” he said. “What it allows us to do is consolidate all of our warehouse and fulfillment, kit-packing, print-on-demand services under one roof ... for maximum efficiency and control and security, as well.”
McNerney said having all of those services in the facility will make Think Patented “one of a very few” companies that offer on-site print-on-demand mailing, point of service and other services under one roof.
The new facility also will be
climate- and humidity-controlled, which will help it better warehouse a wide array of products for its clients, he said. It will offer secure cages for highly secure and confidential items, McNerney said.
Once the new building is constructed, Think Patented will move warehousing and fulfillment operations out of its 75,000-square-foot headquarters, freeing up space there for the company to expand and grow additional capabilities in laminating and holding carton packing production, he said.
“Obviously it’s been a tough market out there for a lot of folks, especially in the print industry, but we’ve been fortunate that our value propositions seem to be making sense for our clients,” McNerney said. “So we’ve been able to continue to grow and, in the past year, we’ve added several large fulfillment contracts with several national accounts.”
Late last year, Think Patented added a new HP Indigo 100K Digital Press, a digital printer that was the first production HP 100K that was installed in the United States, he said. The device, touted as “the world’s most productive B2 digital solution with true digital nonstop print capabilities, at 6,000 sheets per hour,” gives Think Patented additional capacity and new capabilities, McNerney said.
Think Patented also is in the process of adding new laminating equipment and continues to see growth in both its fulfillment programs and its folding carton and packaging space, he said.
Founded in downtown Dayton in 1979 as Patented Printing, the company changed its name to Think Patented in 2006 and moved to Miamisburg in 2013.
“It’s been important to us to always stay in the Dayton region ... and that’s helping assist our growth and fulfillment as the central location of the Dayton region to the United States,” McNerney said.
Think Patented bills itself as a marketing execution company meeting the transformation for what a newage printing organization needs to look like, he said.
“Printing is the core of the business — always has, always will be — but today it’s not about ink on paper,” McNerney said. “It’s about how can we assist our clients with their marketing initiatives? How we can help them (boost) response rate or, whether it’s putting butts in seats, feet in stores, clicks online, how can we assist them with the most appropriate medium?”