Embroidery Start Up

[Ross_S]

Well I've been debating on getting into the embroidery end of the business for a few years now but I'm starting to heavily consider it.  I have a ton on contracts I print for and each one of them has asked about embroidery.  I'm starting to wonder how much money I'm leaving on the table because a few clients could keep that end busy for us.

I don't know to much about embroidery but have been around it for 17 years.  If I had to chose equipment I would more than likely go with Tajima.  My question to you guys is what are things I should be looking at as far as accesorries or problems that will present them selves.  in other words if you had to start up again what would you do different. 

I know one of my biggest concerns was speed and I just don't see it working for us with less than 2 4 head machines (Minimum).  Any suggestions or advice would be appreciated.

[cclaud3]

Ross,
I recommend not to buy anything yet. Find a contract embroiderer and use them for a while. Outsource your digitizing. Then after a period of time, maybe 1-2 years you'll have enough data to establish how many heads you need vs just having interest with existing customers which is usually a false positive on number of actual jobs you might have booked. Of course you could have crazy results and be sourcing out thousands of pieces a week from the get-go, then throw this out the window.

By outsourcing both the embroidery & digitizing you have a better chance that the quality will be nicer. I think some people who go out and buy and try to digitize theirselves are probably going to output some rough work.

When the time comes to buy your own equipment, I would still outsource the digitizing for a while, if not indefinitely. The digitizing can make or break regardless of brand.

I used a lady with 5 heads of Barudan for 2.5yrs before I bought my machine. It was nice because she was in the next town over and there wasn't any fear of losing customers to her, she was really trustworthy. I still outsource my digitizing as I don't run it all day long.

I don't have any personal experience with Tajima. I have SWF and it can't run as fast or non-stop as the Barudan heads that my previous contract person did. Same files, same shirts-I sat in on numerous orders and saw it myself. If I were to do it again I would probably buy Barudan or Tajima, but the SWf gets the job done. I know you didn't mention SWF but just giving you a perspective on the overall situation.

Whatever you buy, check to see where the closest technicians are in proximity to you. I have a in-state and 1 out-of state (next state over) options and it's several hundred for general maintenance. If it's an emergency the distance can cost a fortune.

[whitewater]

yea..i sent mine out while building up the embroidery part. Then when i felt we had enough to pay for the machine, we brought  it in house.

this way i did not have to worry about the payment.

we have a tajima. I like it, but i have not used anything else.

[GraphicDisorder]

I have 22 heads now, a combination of Baurdan and SWF. If I was starting back over here is what I would do:

1. No Single Heads
2. Buy a Tajima or Barudan. 
3. Buy at least 2 machines and preferably both multi-head.

Reasons for above, unless your customer base is super short runs or one off items single heads are TOUGH to make money on.  If your trying to pump out 300pcs on a single head, hurry up and wait.  Tajima and Barudan are just another level of machines. Trim faster, index faster, stop less, sew cleaner.  Our SWF's we might have to run the same file at 750 as our Barudan will be running full tilt, and the SWF will stop more. When its trimming the SWF will slowly move the head back and forth to clear the thread, the Barudan does this way faster. If its got to move the table to a new part of the design that's not close, its crazy the difference in speed of the SWF vs Barudan. SWF will still get it done for you, but its slower and the quality will be something less. You will have to fight the machines more. Reason I would suggest 2 machines is you can then be a lot more flexible with what you are running.  2 jobs at once or double your speed on 1 job.

The only other thing most over look while getting into it myself included. Digitizing software. Be ready to spend for that.  Wilcom is the way to go hands down. Watch for sales on that software or look for used software that idiots don't know the value of.  I've seen people sell top level Wilcom before for hundreds of dollars when it costs 1000's of dollars.  But its not super common.  I would suggest sending out digitizing for awhile, learn what they are doing with your files then take it over yourself once you understand it.  Once you get good like Shelly is, she can digitize the complete days files (22 heads worth of work) before 9am.

[tonyt79]

I recently bought a single head ZSK. While I understand the premise of not making money on a single head machine, I have to disagree to a point. I am a very small 2 person shop. We contracted out embroidery for a few years. In my area it was very difficult to find quality embroiders. And a lot of times was not making a dime off of the jobs. Even more what drove me to getting one was because I was tired of handing off product that I was not 100% happy with. So far the machine has way more than paid for it self but it is a pain for doing large runs. I was wanting to go multi head but size of shop was a major factor.

[Parker 1]

Our single heads are used for names and sew outs (sampling) so we do not tie up are larger machines. 

[lrsbranding]

If I could start over I wouldn't mix machine brands. We have a Barudan single head and a Tajima 6 head. The different hoops are a pain.   I don't think we would go with a single head. More heads are better. However, a good running single head can make money. The Barudan will run all day by itself so we will run jobs on it in the background while working on the Tajima.
If you are going to purchase used equipment spend the money and have a reputable service tech tune it up. There are many things that can cause a bad sewout and knowing that the machine is in proper working order will help with the learning curve.
Get a good digitizing software. Even if you outsource it is much easier to edit in house and make the file work for your machine. The Barudan sews differently than the Tajima. Especially on caps.
Get a 15 needle machine. Most of our jobs are 5 or less colors but there are those that aren't.  We are working on a 15 color job now. It would really suck if we had to stop and rethread.   

[GraphicDisorder]

I recently bought a single head ZSK. While I understand the premise of not making money on a single head machine, I have to disagree to a point. I am a very small 2 person shop. We contracted out embroidery for a few years. In my area it was very difficult to find quality embroiders. And a lot of times was not making a dime off of the jobs. Even more what drove me to getting one was because I was tired of handing off product that I was not 100% happy with. So far the machine has way more than paid for it self but it is a pain for doing large runs. I was wanting to go multi head but size of shop was a major factor.

Single heads have their place.  But if you are paying yourself at all decent and you have high stitch count files to sew on a regular basis a single head you will not make any real money.  So it depends on your market and what you want to do with it.  If you intend on long runs I see no reason for a single head.

Let's say you have a 15 minute sew time per garment on an order. Lets pretend you never stop and the machine never stops, its always running.  So you get 4 garments per hour, you are only going to make 32pcs that day if you work full 8hrs.  Lets say profit after thread, bobbins, backing, etc is $5 per garment.  So your going to make $20 profit an hour on it.  What are you paying yourself a hour to run this thing?  I am going to guess more than $20 a hour, so now you are negative already. Keep in mind this is optimistic, as 15 minute run if your machine stops, needs thread/bobbin, thread break, you stop for a phone call etc this goes down from $20 a hour. Never mind digitizing time, machine set up, testing first garment maybe having to change the file, this time all counts on that job. Don't forget other costs like electric/machine payment if you have one/etc. Now if your paying someone say $10 a hour to run your machine, now your putting $10 in your pocket per hour, but don't forget all the costs with an employee over and above the hourly cost.  Plus all those other things I mentioned like electric/payment/rent/taxes/so on.

Now just double your machine, now its a 2 head...

Some will argue different and that's fine.  This is my experience in my shop and we do one off stuff to production stuff and ive not found a negative to having multi heads over singles other than space they take up.  I started with a single head, then a 2 head, added 2- 4 heads, and then 2 - 6 Heads.  I gave away my single head.  I never made any real money on embroidery until we got our first 4 head. 

[tonyt79]

I recently bought a single head ZSK. While I understand the premise of not making money on a single head machine, I have to disagree to a point. I am a very small 2 person shop. We contracted out embroidery for a few years. In my area it was very difficult to find quality embroiders. And a lot of times was not making a dime off of the jobs. Even more what drove me to getting one was because I was tired of handing off product that I was not 100% happy with. So far the machine has way more than paid for it self but it is a pain for doing large runs. I was wanting to go multi head but size of shop was a major factor.

Single heads have their place.  But if you are paying yourself at all decent and you have high stitch count files to sew on a regular basis a single head you will not make any real money.  So it depends on your market and what you want to do with it.  If you intend on long runs I see no reason for a single head.

Let's say you have a 15 minute sew time per garment on an order. Lets pretend you never stop and the machine never stops, its always running.  So you get 4 garments per hour, you are only going to make 32pcs that day if you work full 8hrs.  Lets say profit after thread, bobbins, backing, etc is $5 per garment.  So your going to make $20 profit an hour on it.  What are you paying yourself a hour to run this thing?  I am going to guess more than $20 a hour, so now you are negative already. Keep in mind this is optimistic, as 15 minute run if your machine stops, needs thread/bobbin, thread break, you stop for a phone call etc this goes down from $20 a hour. Never mind digitizing time, machine set up, testing first garment maybe having to change the file, this time all counts on that job. Don't forget other costs like electric/machine payment if you have one/etc. Now if your paying someone say $10 a hour to run your machine, now your putting $10 in your pocket per hour, but don't forget all the costs with an employee over and above the hourly cost.  Plus all those other things I mentioned like electric/payment/rent/taxes/so on.

Now just double your machine, now its a 2 head...

Some will argue different and that's fine.  This is my experience in my shop and we do one off stuff to production stuff and ive not found a negative to having multi heads over singles other than space they take up.  I started with a single head, then a 2 head, added 2- 4 heads, and then 2 - 6 Heads.  I gave away my single head.  I never made any real money on embroidery until we got our first 4 head.

I completely get what your saying. Making REAL money is not what we do at my shop. haha I'm kidding, but I do believe in my situation it is better to have it than to sub it out. But I did sub it out for years before deciding to bring it in.

[GraphicDisorder]

I recently bought a single head ZSK. While I understand the premise of not making money on a single head machine, I have to disagree to a point. I am a very small 2 person shop. We contracted out embroidery for a few years. In my area it was very difficult to find quality embroiders. And a lot of times was not making a dime off of the jobs. Even more what drove me to getting one was because I was tired of handing off product that I was not 100% happy with. So far the machine has way more than paid for it self but it is a pain for doing large runs. I was wanting to go multi head but size of shop was a major factor.

Single heads have their place.  But if you are paying yourself at all decent and you have high stitch count files to sew on a regular basis a single head you will not make any real money.  So it depends on your market and what you want to do with it.  If you intend on long runs I see no reason for a single head.

Let's say you have a 15 minute sew time per garment on an order. Lets pretend you never stop and the machine never stops, its always running.  So you get 4 garments per hour, you are only going to make 32pcs that day if you work full 8hrs.  Lets say profit after thread, bobbins, backing, etc is $5 per garment.  So your going to make $20 profit an hour on it.  What are you paying yourself a hour to run this thing?  I am going to guess more than $20 a hour, so now you are negative already. Keep in mind this is optimistic, as 15 minute run if your machine stops, needs thread/bobbin, thread break, you stop for a phone call etc this goes down from $20 a hour. Never mind digitizing time, machine set up, testing first garment maybe having to change the file, this time all counts on that job. Don't forget other costs like electric/machine payment if you have one/etc. Now if your paying someone say $10 a hour to run your machine, now your putting $10 in your pocket per hour, but don't forget all the costs with an employee over and above the hourly cost.  Plus all those other things I mentioned like electric/payment/rent/taxes/so on.

Now just double your machine, now its a 2 head...

Some will argue different and that's fine.  This is my experience in my shop and we do one off stuff to production stuff and ive not found a negative to having multi heads over singles other than space they take up.  I started with a single head, then a 2 head, added 2- 4 heads, and then 2 - 6 Heads.  I gave away my single head.  I never made any real money on embroidery until we got our first 4 head.

I completely get what your saying. Making REAL money is not what we do at my shop. haha I'm kidding, but I do believe in my situation it is better to have it than to sub it out. But I did sub it out for years before deciding to bring it in.

It probably is still better than subbing it out, BUT that's different than it being a profit maker. I think many like myself even thought it would be bigger profit (single head), but once you start seeing a lot of real world files are 10-15-20-30+ minute runs for 1 item, it hits you how slow it really is.  We have items that are 120k+ stitches for the back only, plus name/logo on front.  Start doing that math. 

[3Deep]

We have a single head, it has paid for itself already, but I will agree it's tough doing any kind of large production on it, if I had to do again I would have bought a two head machine.  Space is a problem for use with anything bigger but feel we can still run a decent amount of production with a two head and make some money, but you can say the same thing about a 8/6 press vs a 16/14 press.

[blue moon]

most of Ross's work is contract so I don't see him sending it out to somebody else. As with printing production, there is a learning curve and efficiency issues that are mandatory for contract work. Similar to printing, good employees are hard to find.

pierre