I’ve worked with print shops across the midwest since 2014, and in high-volume contract shops for a decade before that.The primary struggles at every shop are similar, regardless of the size: how do we ensure we’re printing profitably so we can cover our bills and pay our staff?
Though sales and marketing are a big part of generating profit, the simplest way to improve your profitability is to look inside your organization. Where is your staff spending their valuable time? How are you spending your money internally? Which processes are costing you productivity?
"Don't look for minutes. Start looking for seconds."In my own struggles with managing screen printers, I’ve always struggled to find ways to squeeze more productivity out of my staff and find more time in my production schedule for printing. I tried to deconstruct the entire day of production from the top down with diagrams, charts, even complicated performance tracking metrics. This approach wasn’t right.
One of my mentors provided the best insight into improving productivity in a print shop:
Don’t look for minutes. Start looking for seconds.Instead of looking at my overall process and trying to wring more productivity out of it, I should have taken a deep dive into the foundation of each department’s tasks. Finding small ways to improve that don't take much effort or investment is higher value than rejiggering and rearranging every aspect of your overall workflow.
Here's the most lucrative question a great shop owner is always asking: where could I save the most time for the least money?
Top-down thinking leads to bottom-up problemsIn my experiences managing and consulting, I've found dozens of processes that needed to be altered, improved, or even eliminated. There were even processes that were completely undefined – the staff was “winging it.”
Boost productivity, throughput, and streamline tasks by working from the bottom-up. It seems simple: look at the actual tasks your employees do every day and cut down on waste.
Yet time and time again, the same 5 wasteful and profit-killing problems are commonplace in print shops of all sizes:
- Wasteful screen reclaim processes.
- Poor (or nonexistent) ink and platen temperature setup.
- Poor prep and setup support for press operators.
- Mismanaged job scheduling.
- Lack of instructions and processes.
Let’s dive in and dissect each one of these problems!
Read more:
https://www.printavo.com/blog/5-expensive-print-shop-mistakesAbout the author: Matt Marcotte works with T&J Supplies as a business advocate and sales leader. Matt managed a high-volume contract production print shop with national retail clients like Target and Threadless. Matt's experiences offer valuable insight into developing management skills under tremendous pressure. He writes, teaches, builds relationships, and shares knowledge with hundreds of print shops throughout the midwest. Matt is an advocate for systems-based solutions that resolve production problems before they start. You can learn more about him and visit his website at marcotte.ink.
