Hallmark Symposium

I attended the gravure presentation on Thrusday. The speaker was Jill from Hallmark and she talked to us about the processes they go through at Hallmark. Hallmark is the largest card company in the world. They have 14,600 employees total and 3,900 of those are in Kansas City. They just celebrated their 101 year anniversary and are still family owned. Hallmark is ranked in the top 10 known businesses as well as crayola which is owned by Hallmark. Hallmark has the largest creative division in the world and they are there to strive for excellence and innovation.

Hallmark is divided into different divisions. They have a card division and a party division, which does all the paper plates, napkins, party favors etc. Between all the different division, Hallmark has over 400 different SKU's. The process from the start of design to reaching shelves is six to nine months. Hallmark is currently working on Christmas merchandise.

Hallmark has seen a lot of changes over the past 101 years. Currently some of the improvements they have seen in the company are that they have change to water based inks, they are using inferred dryers which improves the drying capabilities and they are using lean manufacturing.