Based on the interview conducted with a sales representative (see transcript below), complete the following three deliverables:

1.A3/Charter:Using the template posted on Canvas, complete the following sections of the A3 document for Wholesale Large Format printing:Stakeholders/Team, Scope, Background/Current Condition, Problem Statement, and Goals & Objectives.

2.Value Stream Analysis: process map for the Wholesale Large Format Printing using BPMN notation.Perform analysis of each step/activity and label as:Value-Added (VA), Non-Value Added (NVA), Necessary-Non-Value Added (NNVA).

Process Analyst: Let's begin with you providing a description of the order fulfillment process. Sales Rep: For these large format wholesale orders, I typically receive the order and then we will put it back into production. In a perfect world, the Large Format Item gets produced on time and sent right out. One of the main challenges we identified is with receiving the order and then with producing it. All the time on these Wholesale orders, the end product isn't actually going to my client. It's going to my client's client. So, one of the challenges we have is managing expectations between our client and their end client, since we have no control over what the wholesaler tells their client. The end client is sometimes dissatisfied because they don't know what they are getting. Another challenge with our wholesale orders is that most of the products that these wholesalers are used to purchasing are things like shirts, pens, or hats with the company logo on them. They are not used to purchasing the type of large format items that we produce. And so their client will come to them and say, "I need a tent for an event in two weeks" and the wholesaler will find us and say "hey, I need a tent". Since they are not used to purchasing a tent (it may be something that they only buy once a year), they don't know our artwork specifications, turnaround times. They really don't know how the process works. So, we kinda get into a bind with getting poor artwork from them, which will then lead to a poor product with rushed turnaround times, because they don't know how long something will take and they assume it takes as long to make as 1,000 pens. This also leads to problems on the backend with material inventory and quality control. Since a lot of our products come in as rush orders, we may not have a lot of the material on hand to meet their order. For example, if a wholesaler comes to me today and wants 10 tents, I know I don't have material on hand to fill that order. Quality Control also suffers from these rush jobs. If I get poor artwork because the end customer doesn't understand our large format process, that poor artwork also appears on the finished product. Garbage in and garbage out. We have a few recently placed safeguards for quality control. We offer a free print sample to the end client for quality review. If the client has specific color or artwork that they are trying to match, we print a sample on the actual material that they will receive and we ship it off to the client for review. Unfortunately, since most orders are a rush, the end client does not have the time to get one of these printed samples. That safeguard gets overlooked. Process Analyst: Do you have sales reps who are dedicated just to wholesale large format orders? Sales Rep: We have two 100% dedicated sales reps to the wholesale division, but they get overwhelmed with orders, so we have a total of 5 sales reps who can cover the wholesale orders when necessary. Process Analyst: What is the longest part of the large format printing process? Sales Rep: Production. For a tent, we require 4 days for production. For most orders, its not the actual physical production that takes the longest amount of time. The tent itself, for example, will only take 6 hours to produce and print. Rush orders are possible. You can do same-day turn around, but it's not something that you want to do. Process Analyst: You mentioned earlier that you struggle with poor artwork. I assume that you have templates that you use? Sales Rep: Everything in our large format world runs off Adobe Illustrator. And we have templates for each type of order. These templates are available on our website. The main issue is that 99% of what a wholesaler does is with small items like a pen or a t-shirt. With these smaller items, it's not really necessary to have as quality high-resolution artwork, because it's such a small printing that no one will be able to tell if we use less than perfect artwork on small items. When you have a large format item like a tent that is 10 feet wide and if you give me a logo that is 1 inch by 1 inch, it just doesn't work. The image appears fuzzy and pixilated. These wholesalers are not graphic designers and logos taken from the client website are just too small to be used with large format items. Process Analyst: How does the order process get initiated? Sales Rep: A wholesaler contacts us via a website or via a phone call. We are members of three different marketing societies, called Promotional Advertising Societies. All we are is a bank of producers of different product that people can print on. Most of these producers deal exclusively with small items such as t-shirts, pens, etc. Wholesalers will contact their end clients and place an order for a large format item. As far as the order fulfillment goes, it is not important to us how the wholesaler came in contact with us. Process Analyst: In your initial discussion with the wholesaler, what are the types of information that you ask them to provide? Sales Rep: The way it works, wholesalers never call me with a finalized order. We first need to provide the marketing wholesaler with an estimate and then the wholesaler must sell this order to their end client. The first conversation is really about how much the large format items will cost, how much the wholesaler can resell the item and when they will be available. Process Analyst: Do you ever deal directly with the end customer of a wholesale reseller? Sales Rep: Not directly. The wholesale customers are completely separate. We don't want to cross over in the relationship with between end customer and wholesaler. Process Analyst: You also have a retail service where you do produce large format items directly for an end customer correct? That doesn't involve the wholesaler as a middle man? Is the production process for a retail client that same as for a wholesale order? Sales Rep: The production process is the same, it is just a question of how the order originated with us. With a retail client we are making significantly more money per item because our margin is greater. So, we are typically much more willing to help a retail client who has an artwork issue than we are with a wholesale client. Many of our retail clients are local to Salt Lake City, so we can actually bring the end client into our shop and have them physically inspect the sample before we go to full production. With a wholesale client who is out of state, we usually don't have the option of having a client onsite with us. Process Analyst: The biggest challenges that you face with large format printing, do they come from the retail clients or the wholesale clients? Sales Rep: Wholesale Process Analyst: For the purposes of this project, is it okay if we focus on the wholesale order process and keep the retail process out of scope? Sales Rep: Of course. Process Analyst: So, let's review the process so far. The wholesaler contacts you with a potential client. You give them a preliminary estimate of high-level cost and time. The wholesaler then reviews with their client and then gives you an approval to move forward. Is that right? What happens from there? Sales Rep: Yes, that's right. From there, the wholesaler give us a Purchase Order (PO) and the first thing we are looking for is artwork. So, I will send them out a template or they can grab a template from our website. The artwork works in two ways. If they want us to design the tent, we will do that. Or the client can put the artwork into the template themselves. They might save themselves a little money by doing the design themselves. Most tents and large items have a predefined design for where the logo goes. For tents, the primary logo always goes in a certain place and the secondary logo or marketing tagline goes in a certain place. So, tent design will only take my guys about 5 minutes to do. We price our design high enough that it is worth it for us to do it, instead of client, but I still generally prefer not to do the design work. Our time is better spent on larger retail orders than on designing for wholesale clients. We charge about $100-$125 to design each tent. Process Analyst: Why do you prefer not to do the design work? Is it just a cost and margin question? Sales Rep: It's not just a question of cost and margin. Most wholesale orders are Rush Orders, so I prefer not to distract my designers if I can avoid it by having the client perform design. We only have two designers and if they are busy working on a high-dollar retail project of $30,000, I am not really interested in doing a wholesale design project that brings us $125, even if it only takes them 5 minutes. The wholesale design project automatically goes to the bottom of the designer's priority list if they are working on a more profitable retail order. That could add days to production. Process Analyst: Seems like you struggle with workflow management and prioritization process. You said, for example, that if you have a bigger order, the smaller order moves to the bottom of the pile. Describe the prioritization process. How do you ensure that once you have received an order that it gets the right amount of priority? Sales Rep: Well, that's one of our big challenges. Out of the two designers, we have a senior designer and a junior designer. The senior is basically the manager of the two. He decides which project goes first, based on input from sales staff. I will tell him that I have a big job and ask him to help me. He will then move it up to the front. He will order the work how he wants. Process Analyst: There's no first-in-first-out type of prioritization? Sales Rep: Kind of. It's a potpourri of everything. There is no hard and fast rule about how prioritization is done. It's kind of a crapshoot of everything. It is an area that needs improvement. Process Analyst: Let's jump back. We are at the point in the process where you have told the wholesaler what you need like artwork, design, etc. Does the wholesaler then provide that to you? Sales Rep: Yes, the wholesaler gives us everything. We will either design it up for them or they will give us their design and it's ready for production. Process Analyst: At what point in the process do you start or require formal paperwork from the wholesaler about invoicing and payment terms? Sales Rep: Yes, I skipped over all that. They will send us a Purchase Order (PO). With established customers, we will give them payment terms of 30 days. For first time customers (first 3 or 4 orders) until we have a history with them, we require that they pay half of the order upfront. After they pay half and give us a PO, we give them a sales order. On those first or second time clients, nothing happens until we receive half payment. Which, will delay the production process and occasionally leads to a conflict. It can add 1-2 days to the process. But it comes with the territory. If they don't pay us, they shouldn't expect to get their product. Once payment is made, the paid sales order is attached to the order and sent onto design or production. Process Analyst: Do you have different locations and is everything done on-site? Sales Rep: 95% of our orders are fulfilled at our Salt Lake location. We have relationship with a company in China that will print for us. So, if we have a big order that we don't have capacity to fill, we will sub that order out to China. But we prefer to do everything in-house because it is cheaper for us than doing with China. Process Analyst: Does it take a lot longer to do an order with the company in China? Sales Rep: Not really. It only takes about a week for an order in China until it is landed at my door. The only downside with China is the cost of air shipping. The product itself might be cheaper with China, but shipping makes it more costly. If I have a client who is willing to wait two months for an order, I can slow-boat the order with China and it costs my less than doing it in-house. Process Analyst: You received the information, provided an invoice to customer and now secured payment with them. What happens from there? Sales Rep: After payment is received we will send work order to the back with the file and file location materials that are needed to the production manager. He decides what to do with it. He's the manager over the whole facility. He receives them for everything and will decide where they go and most of the time they will go to the print manager. The print manager will decide which press to send it to, what paper to use, find the file and press print. Process Analyst: Where is the file stored? Sales Rep: We have a central server so every file is on the main server. The work order will have the exact file location on it so he knows where to find it. Process Analyst: Is it separated by client or by type? Sales Rep: By client. So on the order it will say client name, sub folder and sometimes there will be three or four folders but he locates it. Process Analyst: One of the things that was mentioned is that sometimes there will be a manual problem where the wrong file is selected. How does that happen? Sales Rep: User error. Sometimes one of the issues is that the printer doesn't know what the client is ordering. All it knows is that you find a file and print it. If he finds a file called tent1 he prints the file and thinks that's what it's going to be. It doesn't happen very often, maybe 1 out of 100 projects, but he will either grab the wrong thing or two files will be named almost the same thing. Since the files originate with the client they might have naming conventions that make sense to them but to us they might be so similar the guy might grab the wrong one. Process Analyst: Do you have a standardized naming convention for the files and documents that you use? Sales Rep: No. We do for things we produce but the client doesn't and when we receive the file from the client we want to touch it and make as little to no change to it as possible. So whatever they call it coming to us is what we will call it in the system. Process Analyst: You upload those files to the shared location, then how does production manager sign that work out? Sales Rep: He deciphers what department is going to end up at. He sees it's a tent and it's going to end up in printing, then sewing and finishing and then shipped. So he will give it to all four of those departments. He'll decide what order it is going through, give them a copy of it, tell them what to do. Process Analyst: Does he notify them at the same time? Sales Rep: Yes, usually two times a day usually at the start of the day and then in the middle he will gather up all the orders and then distribute them out so they have a continuous flow of what they are working on. Process Analyst: If I'm a department manager in the sewing group, how do I know when the expectations are for timing and everything? Sales Rep: It's a Kanban system, because when something is printed, it just ends up on his table and he sews it. Luckily we a really good sewing and finishing department and they aren't the bottle neck. They usually finish before things come from the printer Process Analyst: Would you say that printing is the bottle neck? Sales Rep: I wouldn't say there is a bottle neck, but there has to be. Printing would be it, but the actual printing isn't causing printing delays. It's usually not having the material on hand that will cause a printing delay. But most products can be printed in a matter of hours. Process Analyst: Let's step back to the question of inventory. If I accept an order, I make a commitment to the customer that I deliver that by X date. How do I know I will have the materials that I need? How do I know that I have the tent or that material? Sales Rep: We don't. That's one of the challenges. If it's an order for one tent, I always have material for that. I know because I know. If it's for something for more than one I have to get up from me desk, go to the back and see, ok we have three rolls of material, that's enough to do 30 tents and I've got enough frames so we are good. Process Analyst: How did you know that somebody didn't walk through 5 minutes before you? Sales Rep: I don't. So that is a challenge. Usually it's an expensive challenge. Because if every sales rep gets one tent a day we have enough material for that but if someone gets an order for 10 then there might not be enough material to cover it. Then we have to bring in some extra rolls, they will be rush shipped and these rolls are a couple hundred pounds each so overnighting those is quite a bit of money Process Analyst: Do you have set suppliers for the material? Sales Rep: Yes, we have two suppliers. One is out of California; one is off the east coast. Obviously we prefer to bring it out of California but it's the same company working out of two warehouses and they are kind of like us and don't have great inventory control. Process Analyst: Do you keep any kind of forecast inventory? Sales Rep: Yes and no. We try to but you have no idea. Today you might get an order for 1000 tents. I get a call like that once every two months. Or I could get an order for 3 so it's really hard to forecast and I certainly don't think we would be able to forecast to produce 1000 tents. We don't have a good system but it's hard to forecast since we don't know when something is going to be sold. Process Analyst: So it sounds like what is happening in today's environment that the inventory is handled largely by informal checks? Where when you get an order, the other sales guys will go out and visually check to see if you have the correct material, is that accurate? Sales Rep: Yes, correct. Process Analyst: Is there any amount of dialog among the sales people about the orders coming in? Sales Rep: Yes, we police ourselves pretty well. We are all in the same room so someone will say that they've got a big project coming up. Even to the point that we will work out scheduling issues since we are the one who will speak to the client if there will be any scheduling issues, we work it out among ourselves then we would contact production to have them give priority to correct jobs. Process Analyst: I've always been amazed when I've gone to a fast food restaurant and I've placed an order for something and the person will say "large fries" and yell it over their shoulder and how do they know that person even heard them? How is he keeping track of if that person wanted large fries or small fries? But it sounds like you are in an environment similar to that where you talk amongst yourselves. Review again the different departments that all play a role in this. You talked about the design department. The printing department, how does their process work? Sales Rep: He will receive a file, decide what material will it go on, we have different size rolls for the different projects so he will decide what is most efficient use of space and the also group it together with any other jobs that are on the same material on the same roll. So he'll make a batch, load it into one of the printers, basically push print and then the printer will print, sometimes it will take a couple of hours. Then printed goods will be ready to head to next department. Process Analyst: Just so we are clear, when you talk about printed material are you talking about a sticker you apply to a tent material or are you talking about tent material that has stuff printed on it? Sales Rep: In the case of tents, it's actually printed on the material Process Analyst: So you feed actual fabric into the printer? Sales Rep: Yes, giant rolls of it and then it rolls itself up and giant rolls come off. Process Analyst: Any challenges that arise through the printing process? Sales Rep: There are but they are far and few between. Somethings would be that you could get a material jam and it will cause the press to go down. He will have to clean it out. That's maybe a once a month thing but it can happen. That's pretty much it. The printers are really really good. High end, top of the line, they pretty much take care of themselves. There is some regular maintenance that happens, we have a maintenance guy that services them once a week and takes care of all our printers to make sure they are in top shape so there are not really issues that come from that. Process Analyst: I did take pictures of it, pretty high level, not step by step but if you'd like to look you can. The printer produces that material, what happens from there? Sales Rep: It's left on the roll, then brought over to the sewing department. They have tables that are like 20 feet by 40 feet and they will unroll the big rolls and cut them out. Since most of the products are standardized, they are usually doing a tent or flag, they know how to put it together, so they will cut it out, sew it, fold it, put in carrying case then it's ready to be boxed up to be shipped. Process Analyst: How do you know how many there are or what it is that they are sewing or their unique specifications that they look at or orders that they consult? Sales Rep: They have a copy of the order so they know the quantity. They don't consult the order too much because they will roll out the material and see okay there is 2 tents here so they will put them together. Process Analyst: Has it ever happened that they cut it to be a tent but it was really intended to be a flag? Sales Rep: It can't happen because of the way it's laid out, a tent is going to be 10 feet wide and a flag is going to be 3 feet wide. Process Analyst: So you said that the steps that they go through are to first lay it out , then what? Sales Rep: They lay it out, cut out the pieces, and then they sew it. I don't know all the intermediate steps for that since it's nothing that I've ever done. There might be other steps in their process but from my point of view that's what they do. Process Analyst: Are you aware of any quality check or review that they do? Sales Rep: Yes, of all the people that the product passes through they are the most critical to find any errors. Printing errors, or if they think a color doesn't look right it's not their assigned job but if anyone would be deemed QC they would probably be it, if they see anything that doesn't look right to them, if they think a color looks ugly, If it's a tent for Coca Cola they will know it's supposed to be red but if the tent looks pink they are going to say something about it. Process Analyst: Why is that? Is that just based on the types of personalities of the people who work in that department? Or have they been formally tasked with it? Sales Rep: They are perfectionists. Their personalities if something doesn't look right to them, and sometimes you can tell if something just doesn't look right, they'll say something about it. They catch a lot of things. Process Analyst: Is that largely welcomed? Sales Rep: Yes, of course. The only down side is that they will catch something but it's already been printed and so a lot of time and material has been wasted up to that step but luckily the product never got to the client. Process Analyst: How often would you say that they directionally find some kind of quality concern? Sales Rep: Once or twice a week and since they are so exact they will come to the sales rep to see if that is exactly how we want it and they will come every day with something but most of the time it's not anything of concern. But to them this is the end of the world but I will say it's not a big deal. Like it will be a little nick on the top of the tent that no one is going to see, it's ten feet up and only and inch wide so it's not really an issue. Process Analyst: Have you come rely on that quality control? In other words does the designer tor printer think it's ok because the people in the sewing group will catch it? Sales Rep: No I don't think so. I think it's just an added benefit but I don't think anyone relies on them as the go to guys. Process Analyst: They then raise any quality control concern questions, they sew it together and then what happens? Sales Rep: They sew it together, they have a table where they put all the finished goods and will take their copy of the order and put it on top of the pile of tents or flags or whatever makes up the order and that's how the shipping guy knows they are done. He will either grab it and read the order. It will either say ship to Texas or customer will pick up order and he will put it out on the shelf so he will do one or the other. Process Analyst: The sewing people, do they actually assemble it and prepare it for shipping? Sales Rep: Yes, if they know it's something that's going to be shipped and they have a little extra time they will put it in a box. It's kind of 50/50, sometimes they put it in the box, and the other half the shipping guy will put it in the box. I say the shipping guy but it's really an employee who has other responsibilities other than shipping, about half his day is spent shipping, so if he's doing something else they will box it up for him. Process Analyst: They don't actually assemble the tent pegs and poles do they? Sales Rep: No, the frames for tents or hardware for flags, we bring that in from our vendor, we don't manufacture any of it so it's already in a box. We just put a label on it and send it out. They might grab one of the frames but they don't do anything with it, it's ready to go. Process Analyst: Do you ever have any problems with the things not fitting? Sales Rep: No, if it's a tent they have 3 or 4 different styles of frames right there next to their table. And they fit every frame. If it's a flag they put it on every single pole so they police themselves and check every single thing. Again that's not an assignment we have given that department but that's how they are and that's what they want to do. So they have taken it upon themselves to make sure that everything fits and with the use of the templates there's never any concerns but they usually check it. We also use that for marketing purposes because when it's set up I will go take a picture of it so I can use them for different projects or catalog or whatever. Process Analyst: The sewing department puts that in a box, How does the shipping department comes along, how do they know where to ship it to? Sales Rep: He has a copy of the order as well and it will say in the middle of the ship-to area, either ship to the address or put on the shelf for customer pick up. He will make that decision then. It will always say the due date when it's due in hands to the client. So generally it's a ground shipment date so he'll ship ground and if it needs to get there any quicker he will ship it 3 day or whatever. And after he does the shipment, he will find out how much the shipment costs, he will go into the order and add that to the total of the bill to the client. When they come pack to pay the last half of it it will have the shipping cost there and they will pay it. Process Analyst: Does that shipper update any kind of record to show what action they took in shipping it? Sales Rep: Yes, when he is putting in the amount of money that the shipment cost, he will also put in to the invoice the tracking number and what he used to ship it, so he will say ground shipping tracking number 1234 so we will have it. Process Analyst: What system does he enter it in? Sales Rep: He enters it into the main accounting system so everyone can see it on the actual invoice to the client. A copy will get sent to the client, to me and he will have it. Process Analyst: What accounting system is it? Sales Rep: Quickbooks, but we are moving soon to new software for Sage Peach tree enterprise but I don't know what the difference is. Process Analyst: So right now you track billing in the invoice amount, shipping, you track that all in Quickbooks? Sales Rep: Yes Process Analyst: Is that the system that produces the order? Sales Rep: Yes Process Analyst: The order that gets distributed is that a paper copy or is it a system that people can look at? Sales Rep: It can be both, usually the production manager will just look at it electronically but he will distribute a paper copy to the different departments Process Analyst: After it gets shipped, is there any kind of confirmation loop? Sales Rep: Yes, when he does the shipment, there is a field where he can enter the email address of anyone who cares, so he will put in the sales reps email and the clients, so they get updates from UPS when the package is moving and when it's delivered and signed for. Process Analyst: If the customer receives the order and is pleased or is not pleased, is there a formal check point where they get back with you to say they received the order? Sales Rep: Yes and no, actually since our last conversation, we have brought on a new hire and her job is basically customer service. Her job is to call up a customer when an order is received to ask what they think of the order. The issue sometimes is that we will ship to the end user, we don't usually ship to our customer, we usually ship to their customer, so we will ship it to them but we can't call them up to ask if they like the tent because we don't know who they are or have contact for them. Any feedback has to go from the end user to their wholesaler then to us. Even if we call up the wholesaler they might not have any information because they may not have feedback from their client, so we are trying to get better customer service on that end but that's one of the challenges on the wholesale side that we aren't talking to the end user. Process Analyst: Can you give an estimate of how much of your inventory is wasted, you said that there was maybe once a month a user error or the printer jams, or by having to do a last minute order, is there a big cost? Sales Rep: Yes, a dollar value I don't know if I can come up with off the top of my head, but it's certainly enough to warrant this conversation and enough to improve it. Process Analyst: Could you say in percentage how much of your material ends up in scrap or in waste? do you know? Sales Rep: It's tough to say, 10% is a guess but not accurate. Process Analyst: You mentioned 2 quality check points in sewing, the quality check and the sample print, are there any other quality check points? Sales Rep: Those would be the two, sample is the most formal, the sewing is a little bit more informal although it does take place regularly. I would call that it. We have tried to implement a few more but we are not very disciplined. It's an informal environment so sometimes formal processes are hard to follow. One of the checks we tried to do and failed miserably was with each order, we would print a 8x11 of what the product is going to look like so the printer could see this is going to be a blue banner with yellow writing and that in turn will help him eliminate any grabbing of the wrong file, so if he grabs a file and it's pink then he will know it's not the right thing. We tried to do that but we aren't disciplined so we stopped doing it. Process Analyst: If it's an informal environment then the focus is more not coming up with good ideas but changing that culture a little bit, correct? Sales Rep: Yes, definitely Process Analyst: You keep all the files organized by client, on the server. Do you keep those from multiple jobs and do you find that you have a client that over the course of 5 years is ordering things from you, do you find yourself reusing those files? Sales Rep: Yes, and if not some of the elements of the files. My brother who does production is the biggest computer nerd; he and his friend get joy out of these servers and having the most storage ever. So we have 20 terabytes of space and every file from the day we started and it gets backed up several times a day. We will pull elements from their files pretty regularly or reuse files regularly. Process Analyst: When it gets back to you, the production manager, from that file one, are the files locked? Sales Rep: No, all of his systems run off Linux system so he isn't running off of the same system that we have in the front of the shop. He doesn't have the programs to manipulate any of the files, nor the need. If something needs to be manipulated, I don't want my printer manipulating it, I want it to go to a designer or someone who knows what they are doing with it. He can't do anything to it. Process Analyst: More specifically is there just a need? Sales Rep: I guess he could but why would he want to? Process Analyst: The thought behind it would be just if there was a way to take jobs that had been completed and were done, to have them in a different color that jobs that were not done. Sales Rep: I don't think he has the capability to do that. Process Analyst: I think what you are talking about is more of a visual controller, how can I without being super in the weeds, visually be able to see what is going on, but we will talk more about that when we look at the improvements or solutions. On the material, once it is wasted, is there any ability to reuse it or once it is wasted it's done? Sales Rep: Yes, it can be reused but not for commercial purpose. We will use scrap for our own purpose, we will use it for lining a truck so other products don't get damaged but none of it can be resold. Process Analyst: Are there any timers in your process, like someone who places an order but doesn't pay and you call them back after a certain number of days,? Sales Rep: There are informal timers. There's one formal timer which is the due date, then there are informal timers that if someone places and order and hasn't paid within a day I will give them a call and ask for payment. It's not really formalized to wait three hours and call, it's more I want to get the job and get the money so I'll take the initiative to make the call and close the sale. Process Analyst: Visually it's a good question because we might illustrate it as if I receive the order then after one day I receive payment but if not then I will call the customer but if I have then I will continue down this other path. With your inventory or supplier, what is the reason that you are with that supplier, is it a price thing? Sales Rep: Anything you could think of. What we do is a pretty unique process and there aren't that many suppliers. They have the best product and even though they have their own set of issues on their end but they are better than the other people we have tried. Our whole industry, especially with printing on fabric is a relatively new process, around 5 years for the exact process I'm talking about. There are not many suppliers in in, not a lot of people doing exactly what we do so that's what drove our hand for that supplier. Process Analyst: What did you say the bulk of your business was in what? Sales Rep: Most of it is in tents, flags, and banners. Process Analyst: You said inventory is the bottle neck, is there a certain area like, tents that causes that most? Sales Rep: Probably tents Process Analyst: Why is that? Sales Rep: Well the banner can be purchased locally , I have 6 suppliers I can buy from locally. So fabrics, specifically the fabric that the tents are made from are the product we make the most of and has the most inventory issue