Paper

As the paper supply shortage issue continues, PIA’s objective is to help our members and our industry.

Open Letter to the Paper Manufacturing and Distribution Community

PIA and our 12-sister regional print industry affiliates sent a joint letter to the Paper Manufacturing and Distribution Community to express our united strength (and that includes each of you!). And calling on our friends and business partners in the paper manufacturing and distribution community to help our members mitigate the impact of the challenging paper situation.

See further resources at right. While we weather this latest crisis, our best advice is the following:

Plan ahead and stay current on lead times.
Communicate with your suppliers . . . they are critical partners in your success.
Remain flexible . . . while easier said than done, flexibility is the nature of the times.

Other Resources:

Paper Supply Chain: A Deeper Look at our October PIPI Data, and the BIG Takeaway
“Paper Supply and Supply Chain Issues” is a topic to be covered at the PIA/GAA Senior Leadership Conference, to be held April 21, 2022 in Princeton, NJ. Plan to attend and here what our speaker, John Cumming, Executive Director of Sales, Case Paper Co., has to say on the subject.
A Commentary on the Paper Shortage from Lou Caron, President and CEO, PIA of Southern California
Article by Damien Bradley, Sr. VP for Keller Spicers, “We’re All in this Paper Scarcity Boat Together.”
Q&A from a webinar hosted by Visual Media Alliance which included ideas on how to handle the situation. Download Q & A notes here.
Download the slides from Visual Media Alliance’s webinar with Jeff Jarvis of Kelly Spicer here.
The Mailers Hub hosted a webinar with guest speaker Scott Hider, President of Clampitt Paper on “Paper Problems: The Paper Supply Chain.” Due to the popularity of the webinar, it will be rebroadcast on April 7th. Register here. Download the slides from Scott’s presentation here.

Contact

In summary, we are experiencing a severe domino effect from COVID, but also a host of other issues. It is expected things will start to improve in the third to fourth quarter of this year. In the interim, it is recommended to plan ahead, seek and use alternatives, stay in the know, and treat each other with professionalism and patience as we get through this, together.

We’ll continue to keep you updated.
As always, please feel free to reach out to:
Tim Freeman, President
Printing Industries Alliance
tfreeman@PIAlliance.org | (716) 691-3211