How do you work out printing times?

[Maxie]

We have never planned production by writing down printing times before printing, we do write down how long it took after printing.
How do you work out production times before printing?    I thought of making tables, quantity X no of colours plus set up and tear down times.
I asume I'd need tables for one person printing or one with a remover.
Other option is to guess?
We have everything listed in Monday, just need to add a column with printing times.

[whitewater]

Im not sure there is a way to do that accurately. We do after printing like you. The. after a bit, we can see about how long it takes to do a job. And when the staff put in times on Monday, they would write a brief description if anything took longer than normal and why.

Only thing is, there are so many variables that can delay or make a print run take more time.

When I put the schedule out, its based on approx times from similar jobs in the past. And also from myself printing for years, I sort of know how long it SHOULD take to finish.

Left chest is faster than a full back.. Just a lot of variables to keep track of and in a spreadsheet.

But if you find something that works, please share..LOL!

[Homer]

Like Rob, based on previous orders. HOWEVER -  it's always those "quick easy fast jobs" that suck the life out of us. Black print on safety green Ts? -cool, rip it, turn n burn..... NOPE. screen pops. Ink goes everywhere, need new pallet tape, squeegie has a nick in it, someone miscounted....all the fun stuff, so just like everyone else - we guess. 

[farmboygraphics]

Like Rob, based on previous orders. HOWEVER -  it's always those "quick easy fast jobs" that suck the life out of us. Black print on safety green Ts? -cool, rip it, turn n burn..... NOPE. screen pops. Ink goes everywhere, need new pallet tape, squeegie has a nick in it, someone miscounted....all the fun stuff, so just like everyone else - we guess.

Or (at least for me) you have a job that refuses to register. I've had 4 or 5 colors design that line up fast and 2 or 3 colors that take waaaaay too long.

[mk162]

Like Rob, based on previous orders. HOWEVER -  it's always those "quick easy fast jobs" that suck the life out of us. Black print on safety green Ts? -cool, rip it, turn n burn..... NOPE. screen pops. Ink goes everywhere, need new pallet tape, squeegie has a nick in it, someone miscounted....all the fun stuff, so just like everyone else - we guess.

I feel seen.

[zanegun08]

You can estimate goal printing times easily, can't really calculate for issues but you can consider it in your formula.

I always followed this formula

(C)olor Count
(S)etup / Teardown Time Per Color = 10 mins
(Q)uantity
(R)ate per hour = .15 or 400 per hour goal  (60 / 400)

(C*S)+(Q*R)

So two color print, 100 pieces = 35 mins
(2*10)+(100*.15) = 35

20 minute setup and teardown, 15 minute runtime, job should be able to be completed in 35 minutes

That is considering everything is actually ready to go, and is the goal time.  You can adjust based off your real shop numbers to calculate your own goal, and then you can cross reference that with actual production rates to see where you should make improvements to get more work out the door.

[whitewater]

Does this count in the " Print Time"?

Finished a job like Homer says, back ink on safety green, and they fly through it.. and then I hear the spot gun on about 3/4 of the job..