whats your biggest "time suck" in your shop?

[mooseman]

our biggest time issue is customer management.
mooseman

[Homer]

now wait a minute...why do you have to micro so much after set up? are you using the pin system wrong? i would investigate that first. I made my own reg system similar to the MHM system, screw carrier sheets, that's room for error and a huge pita. How far are you off on reg after set up? what type of micros does this press have? something is terribly wrong here...

[Inkworks]

Our biggest time waster depends. For the "front end" it is dealing with clueless customers. For the production end of things I would say it is mixing specific discharge colors and like Kitson said "100% ship polices". We try to put individual packing slips in each box, that takes time. But I think I got a "system" almost set up. I'm trying to use our UPS printer to print packing slips from a template. Then we just fill in the blank on the computer and print.
MY personal time suck is the damn phone!!!!!! When I started out I never thought I would say it, but I hate to hear the phone ring!

Ditto, we're so busy the phone is really bugging me, as are walk-ins but it's all pretty good money. Sometimes I really miss the old days of just being able to print un-interupted .

[JBLUE]

Our biggest time waster depends. For the "front end" it is dealing with clueless customers. For the production end of things I would say it is mixing specific discharge colors and like Kitson said "100% ship polices". We try to put individual packing slips in each box, that takes time. But I think I got a "system" almost set up. I'm trying to use our UPS printer to print packing slips from a template. Then we just fill in the blank on the computer and print.
MY personal time suck is the damn phone!!!!!! When I started out I never thought I would say it, but I hate to hear the phone ring!

Ditto, we're so busy the phone is really bugging me, as are walk-ins but it's all pretty good money. Sometimes I really miss the old days of just being able to print un-interupted .

Time to hire someone to deal with that for you. 10.00 per hour receptionist is the best money ever spent.

[TCT]

Our biggest time waster depends. For the "front end" it is dealing with clueless customers. For the production end of things I would say it is mixing specific discharge colors and like Kitson said "100% ship polices". We try to put individual packing slips in each box, that takes time. But I think I got a "system" almost set up. I'm trying to use our UPS printer to print packing slips from a template. Then we just fill in the blank on the computer and print.
MY personal time suck is the damn phone!!!!!! When I started out I never thought I would say it, but I hate to hear the phone ring!

Ditto, we're so busy the phone is really bugging me, as are walk-ins but it's all pretty good money. Sometimes I really miss the old days of just being able to print un-interupted .

I didn't want to say that because I'm kinda superstitious, but it seems every other time the phone rings now it is some "artist" or digitizer from India wanting to "give me great deal". Actually typing this makes me realize I can just turn off the ringers in back! Weird how I didn't think of that, the forum is like therapy that helps me with basic problems

 Eric- why did you just have the press rebuilt last month? Was something wrong? Did you get the press used or new? Sorry for all the questions, but if the press was new there should of been no reason to have it rebuilt.
Now I don't have a Newman pin system, but from my understanding they are similar to the M&R one with a carrier sheet right? Is it possible there may be a issue with the registration/placement when burning screens?

[IntegrityShirts]

If your pin registration system isn't exact, and it sounds like it isn't, here's a suggestion to maybe shorten things up.  You may already do this, but it's sort of a step backward in the whole pre-registration process.

• Don't block out your registration marks!
• Lock all the frames down with the pin reg
• Print the base plate on a high contrast garment to ink color and flash it
• Use that pallet/shirt to check all the other screens and micro to those printed registration marks BEFORE adding ink, squeegees or floodbars
• Add ink to each screen and print ONE screen over the base until registration marks stack.
• Tblock out/tape reg marks and run one final print

I'm off my kick for using my registration pallet until I build a reverse backlit registration board.  No job under 5 colors should take more than 20 minutes to register.  If it does, you're either not paying attention (moving micros in wrong direction, forgetting to lock down one side of the screen, etc) or there's a problem with the film/screen/tension/exposure process.

[alan802]

One thing I'll mention is if your press isn't calibrated to a decent tolerance, the higher tension levels are going to hurt you rather than help you.  To get the most out of a 40 newton screen your press needs to be calibrated dead on.  Our pallets are within a sheet of paper of one another so we can take advantage of any tension tension.  We also modified our regi system to not use carrier sheets and it's been more accurate and much faster. 

[bimmridder]

Alan, I'm with you. When we first got the Tri-Loc, I modified it to work without carrier sheets. My main reason was I wanted to be able to expose 4-5 screens at once, and not mess with the master frame on the glass. I always hated carrier sheets. I still got great results doing it "my" way. Still a die hard Tri-loc user.

[ericheartsu]

sorry for the radio silence on my end, these next two weeks are the busiest of the whole year for our little shop.

i'll answer all these questions tonight!

[Inkworks]

Our biggest time waster depends. For the "front end" it is dealing with clueless customers. For the production end of things I would say it is mixing specific discharge colors and like Kitson said "100% ship polices". We try to put individual packing slips in each box, that takes time. But I think I got a "system" almost set up. I'm trying to use our UPS printer to print packing slips from a template. Then we just fill in the blank on the computer and print.
MY personal time suck is the damn phone!!!!!! When I started out I never thought I would say it, but I hate to hear the phone ring!

Ditto, we're so busy the phone is really bugging me, as are walk-ins but it's all pretty good money. Sometimes I really miss the old days of just being able to print un-interupted .

Time to hire someone to deal with that for you. 10.00 per hour receptionist is the best money ever spent.

Yup, just putting it off as long as I can. We need the right person as they'll be the face of the shop for most customers, and it's a long, hard battle to break the customers habit of wanting to talk to me, right now every phone call and 90% of the walk-ins are for me. Not to mention all the training that will go into getting them up to speed on dealing with the customers to the same standard and knowledge base as mine. This person will have to be in it for the long run because I don't want to train someone every other year.

Some days I can't get anything done as I'm too busy quoting, answering questions, doing artwork proofs, answering e-mails and dealing with the phone and front desk. Yes it's great being "too busy" but that has it's limits. Thank goodness I have three great people running screenprinting, padprinting and embroidery! but there are still too many things on my plate that can't easily be handed off.....yet.

[Evo]

I still got great results doing it "my" way. Still a die hard Tri-loc user.

No carrier sheets? (not that I ever had an issue with them)

I'm eventually going to convince my shop to take the Tri-Loc pill.


Care to share your sheet-less method? I'm all ears... (PM is fine)

[Rockers]

One thing I'll mention is if your press isn't calibrated to a decent tolerance, the higher tension levels are going to hurt you rather than help you.  To get the most out of a 40 newton screen your press needs to be calibrated dead on.  Our pallets are within a sheet of paper of one another so we can take advantage of any tension tension.  We also modified our regi system to not use carrier sheets and it's been more accurate and much faster.

You got any photos of your regi system set up. Would love to go that way too. Please;)

[alan802]

I'll see if I can get some pics up some time in the next few days.  Essentially I have turned my Triloc master frame into an MHM style FPU.  I turned it upside down and raised it up off the table so that it hits the same side of the corners on the pallet jig as the FPU.  It does not sit on the exposure unit and has a dedicated table next to the exposure unit where everything is registered.  I register my film exactly how you would on an MHM system but with my corners butted up again my stop points instead of locked in the pins like on the MHM FPU and the registration grid is showing through the emulsion from the squeegee side and you simply tape the film directly onto the shirt side.

[ericheartsu]

First and foremost, let me thank everyone for their eagerness to help. I have a couple of minutes while a job being finalized, and waiting for UPS to show up.

We have deteremined a couple of things:
1. our AWT press has slowly gotten out of registration, but our tech is coming to re-register it for us today. This press has a single point of registration, which is it's biggest downfall in my opinion.

2. Our screens are to tight. Our intentions were good, but our press is just not set up to handle that type of high tension.

3. I had to sit down with our pin system registration grid and check and re check everything going with that set up. I did find room for many errors, and hopefully i've got them taken care of. Our carrier sheets were def. bending, and causing weird issues with things being straight.

Thank you to everyone that called and emailed. Hopefully we'll get this knocked out and fixed up today. at least i hope so, i have to print about 10K shirts by the end of the month! YIKES

[californiadreamin]

First and foremost, let me thank everyone for their eagerness to help. I have a couple of minutes while a job being finalized, and waiting for UPS to show up.

We have deteremined a couple of things:
1. our AWT press has slowly gotten out of registration, but our tech is coming to re-register it for us today. This press has a single point of registration, which is it's biggest downfall in my opinion.

2. Our screens are to tight. Our intentions were good, but our press is just not set up to handle that type of high tension.

#2 Very Correct!

Single point registration is not and inferior design buy any means.
I have customers that have "American Brand" printers, and have good results.
MHM s-type, E type presses use single point systems and they are "dead nuts" on
Registration.

Registration problems happen, because of worn, loose, parts. Metal Fatigue on older machines,
can occur, but not often. Or Improper installation

3. I had to sit down with our pin system registration grid and check and re check everything going with that set up. I did find room for many errors, and hopefully i've got them taken care of. Our carrier sheets were def. bending, and causing weird issues with things being straight.

Thank you to everyone that called and emailed. Hopefully we'll get this knocked out and fixed up today. at least i hope so, i have to print about 10K shirts by the end of the month! YIKES