Urgent orders and the production workflow

However, slide production is a batch process – it isn’t like running off a copy or two on a photocopier! To keep prices anything like affordable many jobs are processed together and it simply isn’t possible to produce just one or two slides for an urgent order. Our stated schedule is four days turnaround for most products plus delivery time (although 80% of 35mm slide orders are sent well within that time, often same-day).

We run an efficient and well practised production schedule. Orders are taken and images received at any time of the day or night (we send slides all over the world) but our working hours are 9am to 4pm (UK time) Monday to Friday. We visually check orders and images, then run the images through a pre-production process which then passes the images to the film recorders that run throughout the day. Once a day the films are processed, usually around lunchtime, but on busy days three or more processes might be run. When the processed films are dry they are separated into the separate orders and mounted, packed and paperwork completed. Finally, they are despatched by first class post or taken to the courier and the cycle is complete.

Note that View-Master reels are a much more involved process and have a ten working day lead time, and film formats other than 35mm slide also have longer schedules too.