Production speed choices

[Dottonedan]

I just wanted to get a feel for what people gravitate towards most when intending to increase speed. It can be one or all options but really, try to hone on in what you try to change or think about within the first few changes without going through every one of them. Add more if needed.

[californiadreamin]

I just wanted to get a feel for what people gravitate towards most when intending to increase speed. It can be one or all options but really, try to hone on in what you try to change or think about within the first few changes without going through every one of them. Add more if needed.

ok. I will add more!
Before Printing. All of the tools and information needed to run the job AT the press. Samples Included.
Ink Prepared and mixed on mixers to get ink reology correct and consistent. Correct amount needed for job.
Screens that DO NOT break down for any reasons one the job is ready to print. No Pinholes. If Job Is of Critical nature? Backup screens.
Correct Lighting Above The Press.  Music! What ever makes workers happy.
Having enough personal to Run the job.
Loader, Un loader, Ink Man( Makes sure ink is in the screen as needed, so press does not stop. also removes lint from screens. etc)
Stager Or Stagers (makes sure shirts are on carts, In lifts that the loader is comfortable with, and fed to the press)
Catcher at the the end of dryer.
If I want the see how production is in any shop I walk into, I count the shirts coming off the dryer. It is the Indicator!
I am often amazed how many people purchase the "so Called" fastest equipment, and find that the machinery is not working for
What ever Reason. The Logistics of running a screen print operation, are often overlooked, and are some how supposed to flow
with out proper planning.
Last but not least! Equipment that is in optimum, maintained condition, no matter how new or old it is!
Happy Printing
winston

[Dottonedan]

That's great feedback. Not that I've always been aware of it when I've walked into a shop but yes, staging, setting everyone up for success is a must.
For the one man show, it's all about organization. Just like the placement of your feet when loading, the single operator/owner still needs to plan his movements.

All of this you brought up is great info.

What has been the biggest thing you see most common in many shops.  We all overlook some things or never thought about it in ways other people have so it's great to get thing out on the table.

[Dottonedan]

How about dryer temp and belt speed?  Is it always to stay the same or can you increase belt speed and lower or raise temp for this or that?

[californiadreamin]

That's great feedback. Not that I've always been aware of it when I've walked into a shop but yes, staging, setting everyone up for success is a must.
For the one man show, it's all about organization. Just like the placement of your feet when loading, the single operator/owner still needs to plan his movements.

All of this you brought up is great info.

What has been the biggest thing you see most common in many shops.  We all overlook some things or never thought about it in ways other people have so it's great to get thing out on the table.

The Largest thing I see in Good Shops, And In my opinion the MOST important factor of ANY successful
shop is an Adequate, Constant, Stream Of Profitable Sales! The Lacking of this is in my opinion, is the reason
MOST screen print shops fail or struggle. IF you have this whipped, then you are 75% ahead of most.
To me Quality is a Given. The Market will dictate. As I have said in the past, the reason screen printing is where it is
today is Because of GREAT ARTWORK. I see a lack of "craftsmen" compared with the past times and this is for many reasons.
I guess my lens or the way I look is through production, which in order to be sane and profitable has to be organized. Period!
This in the past has been mostly in Medium to Larger Shops. No Longer. My model has to change also, which is easier said than done.
I struggle with everybody and there brother jumping in the T- Shirt Business with little or no commitment into "craftsmanship" Or
whoreing out the market with low stupid prices using the "silver press".  I know its my problem. Hard to teach the old Dog New Tricks!
Organization at any level is Critical. I am not talking about being An@l Retentive. But the most successful shops, have some type of vision
and plan. Balance is another Critical thing I see in Good Shops. Every Department/Process needs to be at the best efficient level that makes
Profitable sense. One Man Shops! That's a tough one. I would say go Digital and sub out to another printer in another town. Focus On Sales
and Grow the business. For Medium Shops In the USA which are now considered Large I say automate as long as you have the sales as stated
above. CTS of which M&R seems to have hit it out of the ballpark. I say go for it! LED as of now (yawn). I am in Al Buffingtons school of thought.
Dryers for the future. Look to the past. 20' was the minimum being sold then. And as in "Other" Industries Convection AND Infrared is what is
changing those problem coatings. Nothing new under the Sun. In Head Kornits? A GRAND SLAM OUT OF THE PARK HOME RUN! thats my take tonight.
winston

[brandon]

How about dryer temp and belt speed?  Is it always to stay the same or can you increase belt speed and lower or raise temp for this or that?

With Discharge and HSA (95% of what we do) in my opinion it's like baking a cake - sure, you can do it fast, but the longer in the oven at the correct temp you are good to go. ( That comes from Rick  ). Again, we are 95% a type of ink that requires a slower cure so other shops will be different. But at the end of the day we can hold our own. Thousands no problem. I don't want to do more than that right now anyway. I have my clients and a newborn at home.

[jvieira]

How about flash on the last head to speed up unloading the garment?



(only a few responses and I've already learned so much from this topic!)

[abchung]

Manual printer here.
Good tension screens allow us to just push stroke and not worry inconsistent force.

Has anyone tried ultra high tension?
http://www.stretchdevices.com/sites/default/files/Stone_Age_Article.pdf

[tonypep]

What Winston said. X dozen per hour has less impact  if you lack proper planning, staging and steady workflow. Sure, that's more of a big picture thing and may not always apply to smaller shops.

[jvanick]

we are 2 fulltime +1 part timer, and do 'production' about 3-4 hours per day here...

the part of the day is spent staging everything:
Person 1: (getting all the inks ready and set out), screens taped, prepped, garments pulled and put onto carts, etc. 
Person 2: reclaim, burning, coating.

when our part timer comes in, 90% of the printing gets done... (depending on the jobs -- we'll even have multiple jobs set up on press so we can go from one to the next).

Having everything staged and ready to go helps tremendously.

[Screen Dan]

On press, the last possible place to increase production speed, minimizing stroke length, increasing stroke speed and minimizing pressure are pretty much the only options (unless you've got one of these here fancy schmancy presses with variable index speed...that is a whole world of awesome, btw). Going 1-stroke whenever possible.  Et cetera.

Aside from that, pretty much every single thing my warehouse does and my screen department does is an effort to increase production speed.  Be it the speed of the press, the speed of the set up, the speed of checking in goods, et cetera.

High/evenly tensioned screens, wise mesh choices, a RIP linearization that is a match to our art, mesh counts and heavy handed printers, etc.  Cropping unnecessary dead area out of the final separations.  A dip tank for developing.  Reducing the variety of mesh counts to a flexible but manageable level.  Keeping enough read-to-go work on the racks to ensure there is never any press down time that isn't setup/breakdown time.  Using 150-S to (severely) reduce the amount of times revolver programs need to be used.  Reducing the amount of variables as much as can be reasonably done.  Et cetera.

So much et cetera. 

[jvanick]

something else overlooked is keeping the press warm/up to temp.. if your pallets are hot, your flash times are lower.

our time suck here is that we just can't flash fast enough when running fast (or cool down)...

we were running hoodies last year at 800+ an hour, and our limiting factor was that they weren't cooling enough 3 stations later...

we don't do that every day, but when we can get the press cruising at those speeds and feel like we can push it a BIT more, we like to do it.

[Dottonedan]

I took a minute to review the resultant so far.
Mi don't think you all are recognizing the benefits of this one.

"Decrease number of colors/screens and blend more together?".
I realize that the basic or flat color jobs won't always be good candidates for blending but I know that most of you (when sending the job to me to separate), are using 1-3 colors less than if you had separated it yourself. I've also noticed print samples that I didn't sep that could have been reduced another 1-3 colors.

Think about that. If you have a job for 500 tees and don't need to print 3 more colors. How much is that?
Well, now that I think about it, saving the customer 3 colors only makes the job cost less. The positive is that maybe another shop quoted 9 colors and you did it in 6 and it still looked great. In many cases, it can look as good as if using 9 colors. If they didn't get a quite on that before yours, they may never know how much you saved them. Still tho, if you get a repeat customer, they will eventually start to catch on that you can do more with less than most. so you look good and get more jobs.

The negative is that in some cases, you must be a little more skilled on press and adjust the various things on press to dial it in. Maybe that takes 10-20 min. More than 9 solid spit colors. I'm not sure. I guess it's a give and take.

[Dottonedan]

Another is tighter tension. Roller frames do produce better prints because of a more consistant tight tension and its possible to bring that tension up higher than what you get from the static frames. Especially over time. So what does tighter tension do?  Less resistance, faster image release, tighter registration, closer off contact. All in all, a faster print.