Session Notes: Factory Floor Walkthrough

2026-06-01 · Briana leading tour · Nate observing · ~28 minutes

Overview

This was a walking tour of RCB Awards' production floor, led by Briana. Nate walked through each production area while Briana described the equipment, processes, and products being run that day. Several production staff were working during the tour and were briefly introduced. The session covered laser engraving, UV printing, dye sublimation, sand etching, custom jig setups, the puzzle production line, trophies and awards, and the warehouse/shipping area. The goal was primarily observational — getting Nate oriented to what the floor actually does before the deeper business conversation.

Main Print Room — Laser Engraving

The tour started in the main print room, where RCB has a large array of laser engravers. Briana explained that lasers can mark on a wide range of materials: metals, plastics, wood, leather, cork, crystal. The laser is a subtractive process — it burns into the material — so anything laser-etched is essentially a one-color (black and white) process.

The three variables that control laser output are speed, power, and focus. These have to be dialed in and calibrated for each job, depending on the material and the desired outcome. Vector cutting (cutting shapes out of material) and raster engraving (burning a design into the surface) are the two modes. The floor has a chart — described as a "living document" — that tracks these settings.

Before production runs, test pieces are made to verify that the artwork will render correctly at the settings being used. Briana noted that this involves not just checking the settings but also manipulating the artwork itself to ensure that fine details (small lettering, tight elements) will come out cleanly. This setup and testing step is part of every job.

Active work in this area included a large drinkware run for Milwaukee Tool: 1,500 tumblers being laser engraved with a logo for a company event. The Milwaukee Tool tumblers were supplied by the client and RCB is adding decoration.

High-Speed Drinkware Laser Engraver

A dedicated high-speed laser engraver handles cylindrical drinkware (tumblers, water bottles, etc.). This machine can engrave five pieces simultaneously in two to three minutes. The setup requires inputting product dimensions (diameters) and other parameters into the machine's software for each job. Like the other lasers, each run starts with dialing in settings and testing.

UV Printing — Flat Bed and Cylindrical

RCB has multiple UV printers. UV printing is a full-color process (CMYK plus white) that prints directly onto a substrate and cures with UV light. Briana described it as a relatively newer technology (roughly 15 years) that made short-run, full-color, direct-to-object printing economically viable — previously, screen printing required setting up one color at a time, which made small runs expensive.

There is a flat-bed UV printer and a separate cylindrical UV printer for drinkware. The cylindrical printer spins the item under the print heads while depositing ink, which is how it achieves wraparound printing on curved surfaces.

For sunglasses, a custom jig was designed by a staff member named Karen. She laid out the optimal arrangement of sunglasses in Illustrator, determined how many could fit per print cycle, and then physically cut alignment pieces (called "stompers") to hold each pair in place during printing. The jig ensures alignment with the digital template. Briana noted that Karen built this entirely by hand — it's a custom physical setup tied to that specific product on that specific machine.

Puzzle Production Line

One area of the floor is dedicated to puzzle production. RCB makes custom jigsaw puzzles for a marketplace called Fine Art America (accessed through a broker who provides technology linking the two businesses). Customers order a custom puzzle through the Fine Art America platform, and those orders come to RCB as a batch download — no manual order entry, no manual file handling. Files are downloaded and printed in bulk.

Briana described this workflow specifically as "highly automated" and "very streamlined." The comparison to other parts of the business was implicit but clear.

Production on the day of the tour: puzzles were being printed on a UV printer, box covers were being printed on a wide-format printer and cut individually, and finished puzzles were being hand-broken and boxed.

Puzzles represent less than 10% of RCB's annual sales volume, but the business is heavily seasonal — approximately 50% of annual puzzle volume runs in the five-week window between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Dye Sublimation / Name Badges / Heat Presses

Another work area handles sublimation printing, primarily for name badges. The process: a design is printed onto transfer paper, the transfer is taped to a piece of metal (aluminum or plastic), and the assembly goes into a heat press. After about a minute under heat and pressure, the design transfers permanently onto the metal surface. The result is a full-color image on a metal badge.

Briana noted that color calibration is an important part of this process. The badges are used for events, businesses, restaurants, and similar applications — not access control or technology-enabled badges, just printed identification.

Sand Etching (Crystal Awards)

RCB also does sand (abrasive) etching, primarily on crystal awards. The process is multi-step:

1. Laser a design through a masking tape-like material applied to the crystal surface
2. Apply compressed air and abrasive to blast into the exposed areas
3. Soak and clean the piece
4. Polish and box

The result is a deep, silky-textured etching rather than the flat surface mark of laser engraving alone. Briana described it as time-consuming — averaging two to three units per hour because of the masking, blasting, cleaning, and finishing steps. It produces a distinctive look: the etched area has a glowing, dimensional quality.

Trophies and Awards Work Cell — Farrell

Near the back, there is a work cell run primarily by a staff member named Farrell, who has the most experience of anyone on the production team. Farrell works across laser etching, sublimation, engraving, and other processes — often running several different job types simultaneously, nesting jobs together to keep all the machines running efficiently.

Briana described Farrell's approach as intuitive: she "just looks at it and knows" how to sequence and balance jobs. Briana was clear that this kind of judgment comes from decades of experience.

On the topic of awards and recurring orders: Briana noted that 80% of RCB's orders repeat every year. Each client's award program is unique to that client — different designs, different materials, different specs. Keeping those details consistent from year to year was described as a "note-taking challenge." When contacts change at a client organization, there's sometimes an appetite to update the design, but otherwise clients tend to keep things the same.

Some of the award inventory (particularly some older Lombardi-style trophies) was described as having designs that are dated — one was noted as "looking like the 80s." RCB had previously sold some of these on Amazon before COVID, but stopped when the platform became difficult to operate on. There's some dead inventory remaining.

Warehouse and Shipping

The back of the building is warehouse and shipping. RCB operates on a just-in-time inventory model for the vast majority of orders — when a customer places an order, RCB purchases the blanks, receives them, and then decorates or finishes them. There is a relatively small amount of pre-stocked inventory for high-velocity items.

The warehouse holds puzzle blanks, drinkware (water bottles, Yetis, tumblers), some customer-owned inventory being stored for clients, and some older inventory that needs to be cleared out.

Andrea, the assistant production manager, oversees purchasing as well as daily production scheduling. She determines machine and staff assignments for each day, usually the night before, based on what's coming in.

Follow-Ups

• Nate mentioned interest in the recurring order consistency challenge — specifically the note-taking piece Briana described for year-over-year clients.
• Nate noted the custom jig situation (Karen's hand-built sunglasses jig) as something to understand better in terms of how setup knowledge is currently documented or passed along.