In the immortal words of Ricky Bobby, “I wanna go fast!”
Speed is more than just a competitive advantage. It’s the difference between being a contender and being left in the dust. Yet, so many shops in the screen-printing industry are still chugging along with a 10- to 14-day turnaround, while others have mastered the three to five-day workflow.
Where is your shop on your production turnaround?
One common theme remains true for the entire industry: the shared challenge of accomplishing tasks faster. This isn’t just about boosting sales, increasing productivity or maximizing profits. It’s about gaining a competitive edge or being the shop that can deliver in record time. We’re all in this race together, constantly seeking ways to accelerate our progress.
First Gear: Your Orders
Let’s shift into first gear and get this article rolling by discussing the most critical ingredient for shop speed. Your customer and their order. Why is this important?
What you constantly say, yes to, matters in terms of how fast you turn that order around. What are you agreeing to daily and for what type of production method? As we can’t bend the laws of time and physics, your shop must add the necessary elements to increase the speed for your average order, no matter the type. What are you missing to put the pedal to the metal?
This may mean different things in different shops. Some focus on larger orders, which might mean adding equipment or shifts to reduce turn-time days. Others focus on many smaller orders, in which case the killer question will revolve around faster setups or getting the necessary inventory in the building to begin production.
Shifting into first gear here with speed means you need clarity of purpose for your business focus. Eliminate the junk getting in the way of building a faster way to turn jobs based on your typical customer order.
Solve the problem. The speedbumps getting in the way and the excuses you make can be mitigated.
For example, many shops stock inventory in black, white, gray and their local team color in full case quantities per size. There are also automatic quantity levels that trigger purchasing more stock. What happens, though, if someone requests something in a color that isn’t in stock. Maybe try replying, “Here’s the turn time for that. If you need it faster, here’s what we offer.”
You might also try simplifying your offer. If speed is the hallmark of your offering, what scenarios with your market get in the way of a faster turnaround? Your shop’s practices must align with the orders you accept. Audit the work you are saying yes to. Can you earmark the “best practice” orders you receive that allow you to jump up in speed?
Speed Checklist
- Is the order the kind you typically accept, or is it something weird? Weird things take longer.
- Is all of the order information accurate and entered correctly in the system?
- What is the ship date? This is the most important piece of information regarding the order. What will prevent you from shipping on this date? Mitigate that concern early.
- What guidelines have you set up for orders you are accepting?
Second Gear: Having the Right Equipment
Next, examine the type of equipment and software you have deployed in your shop. Older equipment may be paid off, but newer equipment and ideas can significantly increase production.
If you have been to a trade show in the last couple of years, you probably have noticed the upgrades in production equipment and other support machines for the industry. Are you taking advantage of these new industry upgrades?
Speed often comes in the form of automation, which in turn can allow you to take various steps out of a process and/or significantly improve the output.
For example, many shops still use film positives to prep transfer an image to a screen in screen-print production. However, while this is a tried and true method and foundational for smaller shops, companies with computer-to-screen or laser-to-screen systems enjoy a pronounced speed advantage. Moiré and emulsion pinholes are also virtually eliminated when taking this approach. How many minutes a year in your shop are you wasting trying to eliminate these two challenges alone?
Did you know you could have printed about 12 shirts every time you stop your auto press to tape up a pinhole? How many times a year do you think you are doing that? Multiply that scenario over 12 months and discover the time savings you will get by solving this one problem.
Most likely there are hundreds of instances like this floating around your business. Are you spending the necessary time to monitor these challenges and compare what you’re working with now to more modern technology, software and consumables to see if there is a better way of doing things moving forward?
Time savings comes in small increments. A second or two savings at any stage in your production processes will be cumulative. Everything stacks. Annualize the impact of improving something. Even a tiny improvement could save hours or even days over the course of a year. Honestly, it pays to rethink your work.
Speed Checklist
- Is all your company’s equipment functioning properly? What isn’t working as it should?
- Are multiple employees trained on the equipment? What happens if someone gets sick or goes on vacation?
- What parts of your process could you automate?
- If you change the type of work you accept to gain speed, do you have the equipment to produce this new work?
- What are you putting up with because “that machine is paid off?”
Third Gear: Quality, Quality, Quality!
Quality control. Yep, that tired old nugget. However, in the context of speed, it is crucial. How can you get faster if you are doing anything over a second time? In my experience, many shops don’t even track their errors. You absolutely need to comprehend the quantity, reasons and potential solutions for errors in every department.
And this isn’t just limited to production. It could be incorrectly ordered inventory, incorrect shipping information, or artwork or digitizing challenges.
These problems are an anchor for your business. They’re holding you back.
A great way to start solving these issues is with an exercise called “Root Cause Analysis.” Often, the real cause for a situation is farther upstream than where the error occurred. Keep asking “why” something happened and what led to it happening.
By the way, most errors are caused by two things: information or training.
Better information produces better results. Keep track of why your team makes mistakes. I’ll bet you many of those challenges are information related. This could be input from your customer or with order entry. Simply typing in 84 instead of 48 can greatly impact what happens in other departments.
Keeping track of your challenges is a great way to learn what is slowing you down. And I’ll say this again so everyone in the back row can hear me: This isn’t limited to production. In fact, the biggest culprit is generally the sales or customer service team and the order entry process. Wrong or incorrect information can lead to problems in many departments in the shop.
Speed Checklist
- Where do most of the mistakes happen in your shop?
- Start a spreadsheet and record the problems. Fix them so they don’t occur again.
- Be neutral when investigating problems. Yes, it could be Fred. But what if Fred wasn’t trained properly, or he’s trying to make things work with old machinery?
- Measure. Numbers don’t lie.
Fourth Gear: An Effective Workforce
Now, let’s examine one of a business’s most crucial parts: its people. Let’s face it, you are only going to go as fast and as well as the people on your team. What are you doing to train these folks to become print superheroes? This is an ongoing, constant effort to raise the bar in your shop.
In racing, the driver might be behind the wheel, but an entire team is needed to help the driver win. Drivers can’t do it alone. They rely on mechanics, engineers support staff, logistics people and layers of management. Believe it or not, about 100 people work for each car.
Here’s a cold, hard fact: Not all employees give the same effort or have the same attitude toward learning. This brings us to the magic phrase: “Change your people or change your people.” Your job as a leader is to help your team get better at what they do. However, some people don’t want to change, are complacent or have other soft-skill issues.
I know a shop that changed everyone in its 35-person workforce over the last couple of years, dialing in this concept. They can regularly turn jobs in three to five business days, but most jobs are out the door in about two days after they get everything they need to start (garments and art). They rely heavily on software, automation, processes and standard operating procedures to give them the lift they need. They have simple rules for running the business and guardrails to ensure everything happens properly.
The chaos is further minimized by ensuring it doesn’t make it onto the schedule. They say no to jobs that are not aligned with the work they want to produce. They also say no to employees who get in the way of this mission. You can too. This is where mission, vision and core values intersect.
Speed Checklist
Practice the “Rule of 3.” There should be three trained people for every core function in the shop.
Bring in outside help to train staff members in best practices.
Send staff to training sessions, conferences, trade shows and even friendly shops willing to share how they do things.
Give everyone clear expectations regarding what success looks like in the work they do. Support them so they can do it to the best of their ability.
Fifth Gear: Organization
I’ve been to a good number of shops. The ones that produce the most have one thing in common: clarity. Everyone knows what to do next. Jobs are lined up and ready to go early. Every department has a stringent production schedule. Systems are everywhere, and the people who do the work help build them.
Organization is important because it focuses on effectiveness. There is a difference between efficiency and effectiveness.
For example, you can print 500 full front prints at record speed. Super efficient! Then you realize you should have printed the image on the back of the shirt. (Insert car crash skidding and crashing sound here.)
I’ll take a crew that works effectively at a comfortable pace and doesn’t make a mistake over a team trying to go so fast misprinting becomes a serious liability any day of the week. Wouldn’t you?
Get clear on what should happen and set this up so people can instantly know how to succeed.
Speed Checklist
- All information is double-checked for accuracy early. Consider every field on the order mandatory.
- Work out when each step in your process is due. Work backward from the ship date. The ship date is the day on the calendar that the order has to leave the building. It should be ready to go one business day before. Every department is responsible for their piece of the order.
- If any employee is struggling, they should feel safe raising their hands and asking for help.
- Inventory must be checked in and counted on the day it is received. Find out where the time bomb is long before your production date, so you will have time to resolve it.
- Line up tomorrow’s work today. Print a schedule and arrange each job in the order it should be produced.
- It’s okay to say no to jobs that are not profitable or not in your wheelhouse.
What are you measuring? What are your current KPI’s, or key performance indicators? Are they what they should be? If not, what do you need to do to get them there?
Overdrive: Making it Happen
So, how do you put all of this together? First, let’s face facts. You aren’t going to get faster by reading this article. The only way that will happen is by putting in the work. Actions make things happen.
Something else I’ve learned having completed many of these kinds of improvement projects over the years: it can’t be top-down. You have to involve the whole team. They probably already know the reason why something is slow.
Get the team together and have a chat. What are their ideas on getting better? Can they name the things they hate or complain about at dinner every night? I’ll bet they can.
Fix those first.
Remember the old adage, “Man supports what he helps create.” More often than not, simply barking orders at people will only lead to resentment and little, if any, improvement. Knock out what your team already knows is broken, but has been too busy or too shy to say anything about.
This will create momentum and some early wins. When your crew sees positive change, they will be more willing to work on the next idea. A year from now, when you have made significant speed improvements all over the shop, you’ll wonder why you waited so long to begin. Time to start your engines!
Marshall Atkinson is a veteran designer, custom apparel decorator, business coach and principal of Atkinson Consulting, (atkinsontshirt.com). This past year he launched the online “Midjourney: Elevating Print Creativity” newsletter.
