Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1914-04-23
EDITOR

many problems among thoughtleSs printers and
IL thoughtless public but it represents stand
ard of efficiency, and fair return on labor,
material and capital invested. Consequently it
cannot fail to succeed.
In the city of Los Angeles the standard costing
system is very generally in use. This is partly
due to the excellence of the system and much
more to the fact that the printers are thorough
business men, and therefore refuse to be used as
community footballs. A typical demonstration
IF how il works is furnished in a recent Los An
eeles journal which publishes the following let.
ter. We commend its perusal to the men of this
town who spend money like drunken sailor;
when engaged in some merchandising or com
mission house enterprise, but pay fve-dOllar-
:l-day man to run about town getting fifteen
cent quotations on dolIar-and-:haf printing
obs: .-- -...
Dear SIR We wish to compliment you on your
ability to determine the correct price of piece of
printing. Your ability must have been gained by
great many years Of experience In the printing
20 years and freely admit that cannot
recty Judge the price OF any job until executed in
our plant. Our cost system gives the accurate
cost Of every job that goes through Office, and
depend absolutely on it.
"The printers Of Los Angeles meet once month
be pleased 10 extend an invitation to You to address
them at one of our regular meetings. as am con-
Z fdent you could enlighten us all 49, ~
I'VE showed you cost sheet, and every
toner is gladly shown the cost sheet on any of his
work. II you prove that 1t cost us cent less.
win gladly receipt our invoice, by such proof
would be able to learn something that would be
worth much more to us than the amount of the bill
rendered. E$azzr 9Es& ~ Es.4.# Is H..
You say our cost sheet means nothing whatever
to you, and that you consider 1t poor argument
part to try to impress you with the fact that
even dropped our profit ON the job. We would hate
to think that you guess at the selling price Of your
as for showing customers the cost of goods, we
note that YOU we'll as other merchants, always
mark cost with characters that your customers
can have no idea OF the profits YOU make.
1T would be interesting to the writer to know
just what the $4,000 suit his wife recently purchased
from your store cost you. In this connection
might say that we have spent $500 with you for
every dollar that you have paid us for printing We
hesitate to make further purchases from your
store, for selling price is figured according to
the way you estimated printing we know
you must be losing money each article sold, and
would dislike to be party to such transaction.
Referring to yonr cost calculation on the job in
question. you overlooked one Important operation, *
that OF folding Perhaps In your printing experience
folding costs nothing. This would be good point
to bring out In your talk at the printers meeting.
.In conclusion we wish to state that as long as
we continue to- do printing. will invoice accord
ing to. our cost determined by a system that has
been proven correct not only here, but all the
United States Some printers In Los Angeles may
perhaps do your printing at any price you wish to
dictate simply because they don't know what their
product is costing them" Sc