We’re about to dive into a short story that’s part passion, part determination, and a whole lot of “we’re going to make it happen” spirit. It’s not a grand epic 😀 but a simple story of how we, at Pinnacle, go the extra mile even though it may be for a single memento.
It’s a story we often share internally with our team members (especially the new ones) for them to understand the Pinnacle brand and our DNA. To understand how we actually deliver great service, not just say that we deliver great service, how we put our words into action.
Our Project
It all began in 2017 when the tourism board of Arunachal Pradesh approached us with a special request—to design a single memento as a token of appreciation for His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Time was super short, as always! Just few days and the piece had to look grand and beautiful, fit for the Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh to hand over to His Holiness. Needless to say, we were deeply honored to create something for the occasion.
Our design team was quick to sketch and create an elegant crystal memento – a 4” thick crystal column with direct UV digital printing, deeply engraved lotus flowers on either side of the column, and a wooden base with real 24 karat gold gilding. The layout looked beautiful and once the lotus were carved deeply on crystal it looked even prettier. But just a day before dispatch we hit a big, unexpected roadblock.
The Big Challenge
Honestly when you do custom design, even after decades you do get surprises during different stages in production but as a team with over two decades of experience we are able to find a solution for it. Some challenges are small, some are big but this was huge.
Since the piece was for his holiness and we wanted to make it grand, we used the biggest and the thickest crystal we had, a 4” column. We have made many awards before in the 4” column, but beautiful as they were, they were all engraved. What we did not realise is that we had never put the 4” crystal column inside the UV digital printer.
The maximum depth it could take was 3”. Even while I am writing this I have time traveled to that moment when that tall crystal piece was staring at me and I really didn’t know what to do! The gold gilded base was just waiting for its printed crystal to be fitted inside and had their been no roadblock, everything would have been ready before time. Ready for the grand occasion. The moments were intense.
We couldn’t change the machine, we couldn’t change the piece. There was not enough time to redo the piece as 24 karat gold gilding takes time plus its just not ok for us to commit for one size and then down grade it just because we did not remember that our vendor partner’s machine cannot take 4” thickness of material.
Commitment to Solution
At Pinnacle we are big believers of backward integration. We do everything in house. We maintain our own stocks, have almost 30-40 plus machines all in house to carry out production as per our quality standards. We outsource only 2-3 processes in our production cycle and at that time UV digital printing was one of them. Our partner was amazing.
They understood our problem and our commitment and in turn they took it as their own. This is what a great vendor partner does. At Pinnacle we are really happy that we enjoy such relationship with our vendor partners.
The final solution came that our partner will open their expensive direct UV digital printing machine and lower the platform height just to print one single piece. This was an extensive 7-8 hours of work. Once the job was done they would removed the platform and readjust the height, which would entail another 7-8 hours. It was not an easy task, but they did it anyway for us and our project.
Celebrate for the Memento is done in time
Yes, finally it was done and it looked beautiful! When you looked at the piece, no one could really tell what all went behind making this one piece. We learned our lesson well – how one small slip can create a big roadblock at the end of the production cycle. We also learned that when you are determined, everything is possible.
Passion and Commitment: One of Pinnacle’s Core Value
When we say we’re committed, we mean it. We will not let you down. We’re not just about crafting stuff; we’re about crafting stories, moments, and memories that last a lifetime. The Dalai Lama Memento taught us that when you’re passionate, determined, and fuelled by a purpose, you can move mountains – or in our case, move the platform of machine like pro!
Update 2023
We are happy to share that now we have a Roland UV digital printing machine in house – one of the best UV digital printing machines, which can take thickness up to 100mm or 4”. 😀
