Hand or Auto?

[CSPGarrett]

At what point do you really say this goes on the auto or manual?

For example, 24 cardinal units with a white print front and a white and color print back (1/2)? 

I tend to think some of the shops with more man power would be throwing these jobs on the manual?  Is there a better way to calculate not just labor cost but overall material, opportunity, and scheduling costs in this?  Shops running at peak performance have a somewhat standard guideline (but this would change shop to shop).  I thought about it today doing with another order of 38 shirts with just black ink, it is almost a throw up for either or.

[dirkdiggler]

1 shirt and it goes on the auto!  And I will beat the manual EVERYTIME in speed, quality, everything.  Our manual holds my drink and my phone while I work on the auto, thats about it.

[Get Shirts]

It depends on the current work load, but we'll throw a 24 piece / 1 color job on the auto.  It's not too much faster but I appreciate the consistency. 

[prozyan]

Everything goes on the auto here as well.  Our manual has been moved to storage.

[beanie357]

Qty, fabric, location, pallets change, number of colors, number of flashes, all go into the selection.
Some obviously are no-brainers.
 But if you have long runs on your autos, manual takes up the short runs.

[jvanick]

we only run complex stuff on the manual... pants, pockets and around pockets (although we're doing those more on the auto now after getting Bink's lasers)

one of the major reasons we bought a 10c press was to be able to put up a small job without tearing down a larger job still on press....

for registration, print consistency, ease, and lack of back/shoulder soreness at the end of the day, nothing beats tha auto.

[Inkworks]

Ever since we built the FPU and jig for the auto, almost everything goes on there, it's just faster for set-ups, even on 1 colour, Much like Jvanick the manual sees the weird stuff.

[Gilligan]

Just rub it in!

[GraphicDisorder]

We print pretty much only Koozies and super small infant items on the manual.  Its a table basically.  If I bought some pallets there would be no need for our Manual, at all.  In fact maybe this year ill do that, not a bad idea really. 

[Inkworks]

Just rub it in!

That was one of the biggest, yet most unanticipated benefits of the system, 1 color set-ups are incredible fast.

Don't forget to take some pictures when you e-mail measurements.

[bimmridder]

Also, you may be able to set up more than one job on the auto. If you can set up 2 or three jobs, that's three set ups for the price of one.

[3Deep]

I use our manual do reprint jobs for customers who need an extra shirt or two when it's simple 1 or 2 color job...and baseball stuff.  Some of you might can toss out your manual but I'm keeping mine around still gets work, but to answer the poster's question it's all up to you on what you like to do...me if I don't have enough shirt's to fill all my pallets on the auto manual press get's it.


darryl

[Hey Monkey]

Manual! Because it's all I have and will ever have. Heh.

[mk162]

auto...all the way, unless it's say a 1 color print above pockets or on a sleeve and we don't want to change the platens out...

we use our manual maybe twice a month if that.

we did print our hangers on it though...

[Sbrem]

the auto is faster for sure, even a single piece. And our MHM sets up very fast. But, we print a lot of odd items that simply won't work out on the press, like backpacks say, and our manual (Rototex 8/4) runs all day every day. We also don't want to spend a ton on specialty plates that probably wouldn't be used often enough. We have one employee who can print manually almost as fast a machine, pretty impressive. A lot of short specialty jobs a day come off that press.

Steve