eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)

[Socalfmf]

i still think you are wrong ALAN..but keep doing what you are doing!

sam

[mk162]

an roi calculator on M&R's website would be smart...or even one on any website for these things.

[DannyGruninger]

Since we run the new lawson express jet direct to screen if anyone has questions on that I should be able to help. David just did a new video with the unit that has 3 print heads so you guys can see the speed of the machine. I'm not a salesmen for these guys or anything like that but I know when I was in the market to buy a DTS I would have loved to talk to more people actually using them so just offering that. Here's the video so you guys can see that with 3 print heads on the machine it images pretty damn fast. Just the time savings on not having to use vacuum + the decrease in exposure time I would guess this would be just about as fast as using films..... The savings between on press setup, taping pin holes, vacuum draw down time, and decrease in exposure I bet this would be faster...... We really need someone to do a good back to back test but my opinion is this quicker.

The Lawson Express-Jet/CTS Computer To Screen Imaging Device

[Parker 1]

Forgive me for sounding like a complete dumb*ss, but is the ink dry when the screen is finished?  Will it smear when placed in the exposure unit. 

[alan802]

i still think you are wrong ALAN..but keep doing what you are doing!

sam

Ok Sam, I sure will.  In the meantime, instead of telling me you think I'm wrong, tell me why I'm wrong.  Unless you can find your art in the DTS files, proof it, load the screen, wait for DTS machine to get the message sent to print, rip & print two images per screen on your DTS in that time period then I guess you are right and I'm wrong.  I'm just going by the numbers the DTS people have given me, by all means, if there is a DTS that can do all that in 90 seconds or less then the two are at least equal.   I haven't watched the video Danny put in yet but I'm assuming it's way faster than 2 minutes or even 90 seconds just by reading what he said.  It's got to be around 1 minute (remember 2 regular sized images or one large one that fills up most of the print area of the screen) to be faster than libraried film in our shop.

Wait, I've got a better idea, why don't you and your production crew gather up your jobs and try to print out/develop 80 screens in 80 minutes and let's see how well you do.  If you can do that with a DTS, then I'll conceed that I'm wrong and the mighty business guru Sam is right.  And I just did the math and about 75% of our jobs are repeats.  Guess we do something right.

Look, I'm really glad you have a DTS, and others who have them and are getting them too like Mike, but if you really think you know how this shop operates and that I'm doing simple math wrong then at very least, prove me wrong.  There is a formula for getting an ROI in a year with a DTS, but at our efficiency rate it's well into the 60-70 screens per day, maybe more.  If you can get your ROI in a year with whatever your screen usage is, it's a no brainer.  But there isn't anyone on earth that can convince me that we will get it within even 3 years with our current screen usage and efficiency.  I'm pretty sure the title of this thread would be enough for people to stop and think about this a little deeper.  Hey, if I'm wrong about all this then so is Tony, I can live with that.  I understand I don't have Tony's clout, but I do know what the hell I'm doing compared to most who do this for a living.

We don't have any bottlenecks within our production right now.  The only thing that slows us down is everything, all the processes that go into it.  We have not yet maxed out production with 3 people, an artist and one auto, there is not one area that slows us down more than another.  We aren't standing around waiting on film, waiting on screen development, waiting on the dryer, double stroking the auto, running a revolver program every day, we don't have a glaring bottleneck.  When the press is stopped and another job is being setup, we are getting things ready for the next job and the next job.  The press op is NEVER waiting on any pre-press item, and our screen department somehow keeps up with the ever growing number of screens we go through every day.  We aren't spending tons of money on supplies to print out film.  Hell, if we still had the 4800 running then I'd suggest that we could be as fast as DTS even if we printed film for every job.  There aren't many shops out there that have truly maxed out their possible production capability and those that have should look into DTS.  I know at exactly what point in sales and jobs/year that we need to add another employee or tool, and we aren't there yet.  Those shops who have the money and simply want the process to be a lot easier and a little quicker should look at DTS.  Shops that do a lot of repeat jobs that have film already printed might want to hold off on a DTS.  Shops that can do what Tony does and perhaps what we do to a certain extent will have a much harder decision to make.

But let us all know how fast you produce those 80 screens.

[alan802]

Well, I just watched the video, I like the Lawson unit, it's fast, but there wasn't much ink for that image.  Our little 1400 could do that in half the time of the normal stuff we have to output.

[DannyGruninger]

Forgive me for sounding like a complete dumb*ss, but is the ink dry when the screen is finished?  Will it smear when placed in the exposure unit.

The ink is still somewhat wet which WILL smear if you touch it with your fingers. Most people that have dts units remove the glass all together in their exposure unit. Our exposure times are already too fast for our current workflow so we kept out glass in the exposure and we just put small plastic spacer plates between the glass and the screen so the screen is slightly above the glass.

[DannyGruninger]

Well, I just watched the video, I like the Lawson unit, it's fast, but there wasn't much ink for that image.  Our little 1400 could do that in half the time of the normal stuff we have to output.

Alan, if that print was basically full coverage it would output at the same speed. The stroke length from side to side and overall height is what dictates the speed as you know. The speed of the machine is determined on how far of travel the head has to move, not how much ink actually goes down if that makes any sense.....

I won't speak for Lawson or M&R but our express jet is basically the exact same as the i image st..... Same software, same printhead, etc, using waterbased ink.

[alan802]

I guess our film output is different than DTS.  A solid block takes longer to print than something of the same size with broken up art like what was printed.  The rip may be different in that the density is achieved with one pass instead of the way our film is output.

[Socalfmf]

Alan

I have and noone listens...it is not only about the print time of the dts it is about your artist time, the set up time, the consumables ect....just like Gilligan laughing and saying why are you measuring tape used per year vs. not using tape...well if I save $40.00 bucks a year on scotch tape x 10 yrs...well tell that is some real money, then you take into account faster burn times, set up time ect...that is where you save money or should i say make more money...if you can set up 1 xtra job a day x 5 days to 52 weeks how much more would you make?  be honest what is the profit on your average job?  200 bucks?  if so you have 200x5 - 1000 x 52 that is 52k in a year...

plus the savings from your artist not having to print film, plus the savings of not paying someone to refile the films...plus the savings from the film cost, plus the list goes on and on....

so there you have it...only doing 1 xtra job a day you have more than paid for it in 1 yr...

BOOOOM!

[DannyGruninger]

I will be the first to say we are not an efficient shop YET, and we were even less efficient when we outputted films but the very first day we went DTS we were able to get 3 more jobs done then if we did not have this. I did not do an exact time on every process through the shop to find out where our time savings were but the very first day I figured we made $1,300 dollars that we would have not made without it. Now I do not have good stats on the throughput so it would be impossible for me to say we could do this everyday but I do know we are getting more done then we ever have and are working less. My opinion is you cannot really account for all the time savings until you have one of these in your shop. The first full week that we were using DTS I got really worried as it seemed like we had a lot less work then we had been having but when I looked at the numbers we actually did more volume that week. It just seemed like we were slow because we got so much more done. Like I said we were pretty in efficient and still am but I was absolutely blown away with the OVERALL amount of jobs we did compared to what we were normally doing. At first I was real scared on the ROI breakdown but once I saw how much more work we were able to complete in the same time I realized this was the best investment I ever made. My rough numbers are we can increase our throughput by almost 40% compared to what we were a year ago......The profit that we make doing 1-2-3 more jobs each day is far worth it for me, not to mention for the last month we have not spent a dime on film.....


It just all goes back to how efficient your shop is, how many repeat jobs you do, etc. The DTS has a place in every shop except Tony's and Alan's...... LOL!!!!

At least we have some good discussion on some technology that hasn't been talked about much which is nothing but good..... Is bimridder dave around by chance? I know he can add some valuable info to this discussion.

[Mr Tees!!]

...Sam, your math is a bit of a false economy, dont you think? Your numbers make sense if you are turning away one job a day because you are bottlenecked, Otherwise, you cannot apply that fantasy-income toward a ROI. Now when you start growing and selling more jobs and can handle it in the same time-frame, THEN it makes sense.

...were you turning away a job a day? Or did you magically start getting an additional job a day? If not, then the ROI is not as fast as you claim.

...not saying that DTS isnt the BOMB, I am sure we would all love to have one. And I would go so far as to admit that, if it could be comfortably afforded, that its smart to bring it in sooner than later. But the way you are crunching the numbers, aside from the perfect-world scenario described above, is just not realistic.

[inkman996]

...Sam, your math is a bit of a false economy, dont you think? Your numbers make sense if you are turning away one job a day because you are bottlenecked, Otherwise, you cannot apply that fantasy-income toward a ROI. Now when you start growing and selling more jobs and can handle it in the same time-frame, THEN it makes sense.

...were you turning away a job a day? Or did you magically start getting an additional job a day? If not, then the ROI is not as fast as you claim.

...not saying that DTS isnt the BOMB, I am sure we would all love to have one. And I would go so far as to admit that, if it could be comfortably afforded, that its smart to bring it in sooner than later. But the way you are crunching the numbers, aside from the perfect-world scenario described above, is just not realistic.

Finally someone pointed out the obvious! Well done Mr Tee

That point right there is the biggest factor to us, we are not running full speed 8 hours a day five days a week. If we were and also running over time then yes a CTS if it did speed a part of the bottle neck up would be practical.

For every time saver Sam can point out I can explain how it either is canceled out one way or the other in our process. Like storing films, as I said earlier that is always done by the person in the expo room waiting to swap screens in to the exposure unit, so no time actually lost there. Scotch tape may be a consumable for some, we reuse almost every piece, when peeled off we place on mthe edge of the table and use again. Rarely do I ever have to bring a new roll in. Faster expo time is fantastic but what is the point if you have to wait on the DTS to print the next screen? Ah no one thought of that one did they lol. Obviously there will be some time savings with less electricity but not a ton. Imagine Tony's operation, he can shoot four up so what does he do while waiting for four screens to be printed by the DTS, me I would get impatient and grab films.

Still this is not nay saying the benefits of CTS I love the tech and the consistency, what we are all talking about is actual ROI, no one person can sit down and think of all the variables so this discussion is great because it gives some one interested in this tech all the different pieces to the puzzle. It's better than just being told it works buy it.

Here is a question, how does it handle print head height? Screens certainly are not all created equal and even EOM can effect height, does it automatically detect the optimal height to print at or do you have to adjust manually? I noticed in SAMs video that he had a piece of tape strapping one corner of his roller screen, I am assuming he had to hold that corner down, not saying its possible the great Sam could have a warped Newman but he had a piece of tape there for a reason.

[Mr Tees!!]

I noticed in SAMs video that he had a piece of tape strapping one corner of his roller screen, I am assuming he had to hold that corner down, not saying its possible the great Sam could have a warped Newman but he had a piece of tape there for a reason.

...hmmmm, some unaccounted-for tape cost? Gee, I thought we already covered tape-cost once before....

[RICK STEFANICK]

Forgive me for sounding like a complete dumb*ss, but is the ink dry when the screen is finished?  Will it smear when placed in the exposure unit.

The ink is still somewhat wet which WILL smear if you touch it with your fingers. Most people that have dts units remove the glass all together in their exposure unit. Our exposure times are already too fast for our current workflow so we kept out glass in the exposure and we just put small plastic spacer plates between the glass and the screen so the screen is slightly above the glass.

i HAVE A BUDDY WITH A COUPLE DTS MACHINES AND THEY HAVE A PIECE OF 1/2 INCH  WOOD STRIPS UNDER EACH SIDE OF THE FRAMES WHILE EXPOSING.. WORKS GREAT