Increasing efficiency and profitability in a small shop starts with knowing where to look for opportunities. That shop might only be a one person business, or it could be 10 people, but the methods will be the same.

Find the Major Opportunities Profit results from deducting the total cost from the selling price. We need to know the total cost. The cost of the garment is simple. Now we need to know the other costs per garment, which we will call overhead, without being certified public accountants.

There are lots of overhead costs. Rent, power, maybe gas, advertising, office supplies, ink, emulsion, taxes, payroll, insurance and more bills that we would prefer not to remember. If all these costs are added up at the end of the month, excluding only the garments, we will have a total overhead cost for the month. If that number is divided by the number of working days in the month, such as 20 or 21, then we know the cost per day.

Revenue comes from printing shirts, caps, jackets, fleece, etc. The hours people spend printing should be logged. If more than one person in a shop prints, what was the total for the month for each person? The total of all hours spent printing can be divided by the number of working days in the month to find out the average hours of printing per day. If we want to be profitable, we have to count.

The overhead per day divided by the average number of printing hours per day is the overhead per printing hour. Now we are really getting to valuable information. How many garments were printed during each hour? That number is divided into the overhead per hour so that we now know the overhead cost per garment. If the overhead cost per garment and purchase cost are deducted from the selling price, there is either a profit or loss.

An average screen printer should print manually 100 one color shirts per hour. If that number drops to 50, because printing has to stop to fix pin holes in the screen or some other reason, then the overhead cost per shirt doubles and a profitable job may become an unprofitable job.

A shop that will log its printing hours per month and add up all the costs other than the garments at the end of the month has some wonderful opportunities.

First, some jobs and products will be more profitable than others. Printing one color jobs might prove to be more profitable than multi-color, for example, even though the multi-color jobs sold for a higher price per shirt. This is a very common result. Printing on fronts and backs of shirts probably will be more profitable than sleeves. Shirts might be more profitable than higher priced jackets just because so many more shirts can be printed per hour compared to jackets. Low profit jobs like sleeves will warrant review for price increases in the future, or production method changes so that the level of profit meets the minimum objective for the business. Obviously the owner will also want to encourage sales in the more profitable areas of the business so that more money is made without increasing the total work hours.

Second, any shop owner who goes through this process will develop an immediate sense of which costs are the major costs of the business. The overhead cost per shirt depends on productivity, or efficiency. That is where an owner needs to look to improve the profitability of the business. By contrast, the ink cost per shirt is at most a few pennies. Emulsion is pennies also. The chemicals to prepare and clean screens are also minor amounts.

Success depends on focusing on major costs that can be reduced, and the savings becoming profit. By contrast, if the owner spends time shopping to save a dollar or two on a can of ink or any other supply item, the benefit per shirt is so small that there would be little or no improvement in the profitability of the business. In fact, profit might decline, because the owner is not devoting his or her time to the most profitable opportunity. Always devote your time to the highest and best use.

The artist should bill the time spent on a project at a standard hourly rate. If the customer does not bring camera ready art that can be quickly copied, then an art charge is appropriate. The typical rate should be three or more times the hourly rate paid to the artist which is similar to the method used by local service stations and other service businesses. This makes the artist a separate profit and loss center rather than part of overhead.

Systems Analysis There are hidden costs in your business that need to be identified and eliminated. If after a shirt is printed the person takes two steps to the dryer, those two steps need to be eliminated. If walk areas are so crowded that shirts have to be carried rather than transported on a table with wheels, then the furniture and equipment need to be rearranged. The purpose is work reduction so that more work gets done without increasing the number of work hours or by working harder.

The major work activities need to be identified and listed. They might be unpacking and counting garments, printing, folding, counting and packing. The work flow should be reviewed so that the sequence of operations is documented briefly. A dimensioned drawing of the shop should be prepared. Draw a line from the first activity, unpacking and counting, to the second, printing. From printing, the line goes to folding, and then counting and packing. If unpacking and counting are separate steps rather than being performed at the same time, for example, then these two activities should be merged to reduce work.

An examination of this drawing may reveal opportunities to reduce walking and handling of shirts. If receiving and shipping are the same location, then the work flow should be a "U" so that the garments end up where they started without having to be carried there, if at all possible. Maybe the location for receiving and shipping should be changed. Everything possible should be done to avoid being a trucker in your own shop.

During this analysis, any natural air flows in the shop should be identified. So if there are a door and window that are frequently open, then the conveyor should be placed perpendicular to the air flow so the dryer is not made inefficient by the air flow passing through the dryer. Any electrical lines, air lines or other obstacles should be removed from the floor for safety and work reduction. Electrical and air lines can be run over the ceiling and dropped down to their connection.

Look at all movements that are repeated frequently. Whenever someone is walking, bending over, reaching or otherwise moving, can that effort be reduced? So if the telephone rings and a person stops printing, install a remote phone that can be carried on a belt, or better, have a headset so that printing continues rather than gets interrupted like fixing a pin hole. In most circumstances, the work of printing should be so routine that the person can talk on the phone and still produce top quality work without sacrificing productivity.

Printing presses are made without knowing the height of the person who will be printing. Some people are 6’8" and others are 5’1", but the platen is the same height. The tall person wants the screen to have a steep angle to load a shirt, but the short person wants a lower angle to reduce the reach for the screen.

When a person places a squeegee at the far end of the image, the angle between the arms and body should not exceed 45 degrees. If the angle does, then more strain is placed on the arms, and joints, particularly the elbows, and carpal tunnel syndrome might result. This risk and the fatigue can be eliminated by making sure the short person is standing on a platform to put that person at the proper height so that 45 degrees is never exceeded.

A step-by-step analysis never fails to reveal opportunities to reduce work. The temptation is to also review insignificant or occasional activities like taking the garbage out. Don’t waste your time on the small stuff.

As the last step in the systems analysis, the location of lights, electrical outlets, and switches where you need access should be considered. Jobs can be set up faster when there is a nice, large bank of fluorescent lights right over the platen. The person who folds and packs needs excellent light to be inspecting for defects while working.

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Batching and Scheduling Counting is required to measure cost reduction and profits. The common denominator is the hour. Shirts should be counted out and stacked to be printed in groups expected to require one hour for each stack of shirts.

Registering screens is a regular, required activity. The time to set up a one color job should be recorded. The time for each additional color will extend the time required and allowed. If actual experience varies by more than 15% in either direction, then the reasons need to be revealed. A shorter time than standard is an opportunity to improve the expectation, and a longer time suggests an unacceptable problem with the equipment or screen being used.

Jobs will require whole and fractional hours. So the work can be scheduled for the whole hours. The time expected to remove screens and put them on a cart and to register the next job using screens in a cart is added to the fractional hour, plus the number of shirts required to complete the hour.

The screens to be cleaned are accumulated to equal the number that is required for an hour of cleaning. Screens are degreased, coated and exposed in one hour groups.

Like the athlete, each person should work to establish a "P.R." or personal record. Each person becomes their own tough task master. Post the P.R. numbers so the person feels the pride of accomplishment. People should not be rushing, because that can be the cause of mistakes or injury. They should be working smarter. Minimally, productivity will increase by 30%, and probably a lot more. People will achieve objectives they never had before, and that is achievement that will make them feel better about their job. The business will do better financially, and that provides the opportunity to pay out a periodic bonus or other rewards like a free lunch or gift certificate for dinner at a local restaurant.

Employees may at first object to the measurement process, but after about two weeks of grumbling they will get over it, especially if there is a reward for their contribution to the success of the program. Now, for a change, they actually have a way to control their paycheck. That motivates a lot of people. Achievement and recognition by associates makes the job become fun.

If an owner has employees, encourage the employees to start producing immediately after arriving at work rather than losing a half an hour or more chatting. Half way through the first hour, has the employee produced half of the first batch? If not, encourage the person to finish the batch in the half hour remaining. Typically people start out slowly. With the encouragement at the half hour mark, their work pace will be normal. At the end of the hour when one hour of work has not been completed, the employee should be encouraged that he or she can be on target by the end of the second hour. Negative comments about performance should be avoided. People will control their work pace to the size of the piles.

Shirts can be loaded in 3 seconds with proper training and set up. The shirts need to arrive on a cart with the shirts entirely spread out flat. The cart is positioned so that the tail of the shirts is so close that the person printing can pick up the tail of the shirt and slide it over the edges of the platen without moving his or her feet. As the shirt is drawn over the platen, the center line of the shirt should be drawn down the center line of the platen and arm supporting the platen. When the person sees the two center lines are lined up, the person should keep pulling the shirt until the neck of the shirt reaches a line marked on the platen representing where a shirt of that size should be located. So there will be a mark for each size shirt on the platen. Once that mark is reached, the shirt is laid down on the platen, and the screen brought down to print.

If a shirt is loaded properly, it should never have to be jockeyed around the platen. That wastes time. If the shirt has to be moved, it should only be handled from the 4 corners of the platen. First, pick the shirt up out of the adhesive, and then put the shirt down where it belongs. Picking up the shirt at any other location risks stretching the shirt and creating a distorted image.

Your Check List Here are some items to add to your list of cost reduction opportunities.

There should be a temperature control switch on every flash and conveyor dryer. Studies our Company has conducted in shops large and small revealed that 50% of all power consumed was by the flash dryer. The other 50% was the conveyor, embroidery machines, lights, and all other electrical appliances and equipment. With temperature control, you will be able to turn the temperature and electrical bill down and with more time exposed to the heat get a better cure.

Customers should be offered inks that are ready to use out of the can. If the customer wants a custom color, charge for the time to mix the color.

Retensionable screens cost a little more to buy compared to wood or welded aluminum, but they last forever and they only need new mesh when mesh occasionally breaks. After the initial period of tensioning, the mesh becomes work hardened at a substantially higher tension than any other screen. Registering screens and printing are faster and easier on tighter screens.

Work is also reduced by using a squeegee that is sharpened before each use just like a knife. Ink will also release easier from the screen when the mesh is more coarse. Capillary film can be used to control the amount of ink deposited rather than the mesh count being used to meter the flow of ink. Capillary film, then, helps to increase printing speed. Pin holes, and the production lost while fixing a pin hole, are avoided with capillary film, because it is applied to a wet screen that does not have an opportunity to attract dust like dry screens that are going to be coated with liquid emulsion.

The right combination of tight screens, thickness of capillary film, off-contact distance and ink that shears easily allows printing without flash curing on many jobs currently being flashed where the right conditions do not exist. Such a combination can lead to an increase in productivity of 300-400% (Printwear Magazine, September 2002, p. 74).

Each step the people in a shop take to improve the efficiency increases the profitability. A consistent and aggressive program of work reduction can produce substantial increases in profitability.

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This article appeared in the December 2002 issue of Printwear Magazine.  Printwear has great articles every month, and you can get your free copy on www.nbm.com/Printwear.  Allow about 5 weeks after registering to receive your first copy.

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