ISS Atlantic City - MAJOR Take Aways

[printavo]

I recently spent the weekend at ISS Atlantic City. If you have not been to a show, put it on your to-do list! I was able to meet so many new shops, industry experts and had the opportunity to reconnect with several shops that I've talked to through the Facebook Groups and forums.

All I can say is that trade shows give you the opportunity to retreat away from your business and really think hard about the day-to-day. It is a humbling opportunity because you meet shops that may be 10x larger or smaller than you and more importantly, it gives you the opportunity to learn. The people you stumble upon and meet are connections that you will value immensely.

Each show I usually go with an agenda, to learn more about a specific sector of the industry.

For me, it was all about automation and efficiency.

Let me backtrack a second. I was reading an article recently that redefined our role as screen printers. It asked Are we really screen printers? Or screen makers?

Let's face it. Our shops may spend more time actually separating artwork, printing film, burning screens, and setting up jobs than we do the printing. The industry argues over which presses print more shirts per hour, but we should really think about that differently.

We should really zero in on the process before a job actually goes to press.

That starts when the customer emails, calls or walks through your doors.

I asked several shops what their turn-around was and most shops gave the typical "7-10 day turn around" answer.  I ask you reading this:

Why is that the going rate for turnarounds?

If we are able to get products within 24 hours given the current circumstances and ease of ordering from major vendors, why is it that we can't go to press 24-48 hours later and make our turn around even faster.

When I asked that question to other shops, you usually see a lot of moaning and groaning, but it comes down to a couple reasons.

"It's the customer, it takes forever to get the customer to approve the invoices and the artwork."

"Our artists would have to work around the clock to get artwork done"

"We would have to burn screens within 24 hours and that sounds outrageous"

But the underlying theme here is that it is possible. And if it truly is possible, then why aren't we building our screen printing infrastructure to do so.

What would happen if the infamous Custom Ink or Amazon came out with 2-day tees?

Would we panic? Envy them, more?

I would rather not think about it, and instead focus on how we can transform our industry to accommodate it.

Based on these conversations I had at the show, I spent the remainder of my time learning about different ways to become more automated and efficient in our industry.

Read the full article here: https://www.printavo.com/blog/iss-atlantic-city-major-take-aways

[ericheartsu]

These are all great points, but unless your shop (not only your art department), is finely tuned in your processes, and the way information is set up and passed from department to department, it's almost impossible to get there.

We are a shop of 24 people. In our shop 18 of these 24 work in the realm of production (including our artists), yet, we are constantly bottle necked because we have to type information in to so many different places.

This is what i've talked with you about constantly. This is what slows our production down, where instead of having one centralized place for information, information is scattered.

[ebscreen]

Double data entry is the devils work.

[trebor]

The reason it is 7-10 days for us is because we have 831 orders in house. If you want shirts in 2 days and are willing to pay the rush fee...no  problem.

[Prince Art]

Or: The shirts that were in stock nearby when we quoted the order have suddenly vanished, and will take 5 days to ship from the other side of the country.

[mk162]

I for one don't want to run a business with no backlog.  Scheduling becomes a nightmare when it's dock to press almost immediately.  I have contract customers that almost expect that, nevermind that they can't get their job details correctly and their vendors can't ship stuff right.  We tend to botch their jobs at a higher rate since the old saying rings true "Haste makes waste."

And that is the point.  The more you speed things up, the more that can go wrong.  I can drive my car at 130mph, but I don't.  You have zero reaction time and you have to focus so much on what you are doing that you miss the things around you. 

[blue moon]

I for one don't want to run a business with no backlog.  Scheduling becomes a nightmare when it's dock to press almost immediately.  I have contract customers that almost expect that, nevermind that they can't get their job details correctly and their vendors can't ship stuff right.  We tend to botch their jobs at a higher rate since the old saying rings true "Haste makes waste."

And that is the point.  The more you speed things up, the more that can go wrong.  I can drive my car at 130mph, but I don't.  You have zero reaction time and you have to focus so much on what you are doing that you miss the things around you.

all of this is true, but we still strive to get stuff out ASAP. We are on a standard 3-5 day, closer to 5 when busy and really about 1 day during the winter. There are complications and issues and loss of efficiency when turning around quicker, but ultimately, it's what the consumers are asking for/expecting these days; so we are looking to make those times as short as possible. If I am not mistaken, Greg Kitson is on 24 hour turnaround and he is the most organized shop I've seen so far.

pierre

[tonypep]

We go  from dock to press daily. Not every job but pretty much every day. Our excel based print schedule has been finessed to the point that every one can see what the other is doing in real time and thats what makes it go rather smoothly. Inter-communicating and pre-staging also makes this possible. Yes, some orders ship within hours after they arrive

[mk162]

It goes back to the old "if it works for you."

I have found in our case the customers that need that kind of service need it because they don't have their crap together and since sh!t flows downhill, we are the ones covered in it since we're last in the production line.  Again, this is what we've found, and not all shops are alike.

[Sbrem]

The reason it is 7-10 days for us is because we have 831 orders in house. If you want shirts in 2 days and are willing to pay the rush fee...no  problem.

We're a solid two weeks right now. A shop can print only so many shirts a day with the personnel and equipment they have. I haven't had a day off in about 8 weeks or so, but we moved in that time, so that does account for a lot...

Steve