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screen printing => Equipment => Topic started by: royster13 on January 14, 2014, 03:50:33 PM
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http://www.atlasembroidery.com/blog/ (http://www.atlasembroidery.com/blog/)
Atlas Embroidery has just added 3 more presses to bring their total to 11....
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They are on the level of T-Formation (also in FLA) but not quite up to VF Imagewear (FLA) so not the largest but still friggin large
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They are only half as large as 2 other printers right in Orlando. These are private shops. People can say whatever they like as a business I guess.
If they were to say, (We are the largest (medium sized) shop in the South East) it might be more accurate. LOL.
We're the BEST printer around". See that a lot.
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And folks wonder why I am so hard on folks that want to become "contract printers"....
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And folks wonder why I am so hard on folks that want to become "contract printers"....
Don't know wht you're referring to that, but I don't think there is much $ in contract printing myself. They print 3 times as much to make the same total money as a printer that sells to the end user. It's got it's benefits tho. No selling to end suers, the customer is (slightly) more educated about the process. You have to already have a good amount of work to get into it tho.
I don't use Atlas at all. ONly because, (sure, their per piece price is low) but the screen charge + film is almost double most contract printers. So if it's an order for 36-72 shirts, its not that beneficial.
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They print 3 times as much to make the same total money as a printer that sells to the end user.
On a margin basis, I have no disagreement that statement....But seeing how the best place to measure success is on the bottom line sometimes low margins on volume will make more money....One of my suppliers prints 30,000,000 pieces a year (not garments) on 5 to 7 cents margin per piece....I have seen his "estate" and he does just fine....
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(http://www.atlasembroidery.com/images/gallery/DSC_0125.jpg)
Mmmmmmmmmmineral spirits.....
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Agreed. I've seen it also, Never had one myself, but I also know, there are a lot less of those 10-30 thousand unit jobs. Only very few customers out there to provide such an order. Some of the best shops on here prob only get a 10,000 order once a year if ever.
Great when you can build that type of client and they are out there, but thats what each of those who bid on them are fighting for. Fractions of a penny. Just a hard business that I'd rather not be in...unless I was a much larger shop. THere are many large shops sitting around doing stuff that most of us don't know about. In fact, I'm reminded of two more in Atlas's back yard. They deal in imported blanks and print themselves for souvie shops. They've got like 20 Auto's. Not that they do contract to my knowledge. Maybe thats where Atlas can feel they say that. Largest "contract" printer in the South East. But the two in Orlando do contract. Just rambling here.
I'm sure Atlas is well rooted into this type of business. One of his sales reps for a short time (was) the long standing sales rep for Liquid Blue and he's accustom to large volume. That guy's not there any more. Not that this means a thing.
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sounds similar to a large shop i worked at in rockford IL back in the mid 90s doing a lot of rock n roll merch and hot market printing. they had i believe it was 9 autos and a belt printer plus 4 manuals. Like Dan mentioned, per print cost was decent but screen and art were not cheap, which in the end kept most accounts to large well educated customers. running anything from new formulas to challengers and older gauntlets plus an all over challenger and a belt printer and manuals, yes it was a busy shop, with the right equipment and effort and great leadership it was a pretty successful shop, so it certainly is possible. Pretty sure 244 knows who I'm referring to and would certainly agree. 8)
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sounds similar to a large shop i worked at in rockford IL back in the mid 90s doing a lot of rock n roll merch and hot market printing. they had i believe it was 9 autos and a belt printer plus 4 manuals. Like Dan mentioned, per print cost was decent but screen and art were not cheap, which in the end kept most accounts to large well educated customers. running anything from new formulas to challengers and older gauntlets plus an all over challenger and a belt printer and manuals, yes it was a busy shop, with the right equipment and effort and great leadership it was a pretty successful shop, so it certainly is possible. Pretty sure 244 knows who I'm referring to and would certainly agree. 8)
that was Creative Silk Screen. I was fishing last week with Mike Domino.
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Pretty silly to claim they are now the largest printer in the south east. Hell even I know of a couple shops in southern Florida larger than them.
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sounds similar to a large shop i worked at in rockford IL back in the mid 90s doing a lot of rock n roll merch and hot market printing. they had i believe it was 9 autos and a belt printer plus 4 manuals. Like Dan mentioned, per print cost was decent but screen and art were not cheap, which in the end kept most accounts to large well educated customers. running anything from new formulas to challengers and older gauntlets plus an all over challenger and a belt printer and manuals, yes it was a busy shop, with the right equipment and effort and great leadership it was a pretty successful shop, so it certainly is possible. Pretty sure 244 knows who I'm referring to and would certainly agree. 8)
that was Creative Silk Screen. I was fishing last week with Mike Domino.
It was indeed! I just saw the pic of the hammerhead he caught!
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Pretty silly to claim they are now the largest printer in the south east. Hell even I know of a couple shops in southern Florida larger than them.
Ya, I don't get that. They did a TV spot on a large company up here a bit ago and the guy from the company said something along the lines of "the largest printer in the states" or "one of the largest" I don't remember which. But I was under the impression they were running 10 or 12 autos. I guess the regular Joe doesn't know the difference. I just found it kinda "tacky" for lack of a better word. Similar to the claim by Atlas.
None the less, kudos to them for the success.
I don't think I would want a shop that big, even if there was enough work to keep all the presses spinning. Just seems like a different ballgame at that point....
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Did they say largest printer or most autos? Are you guys counting shirts they print or counting machines? Just food for thought.
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I don't remember the exact words from the story I was talking about. I suppose I could look it up on the news channels website, but either way I can't believe they are #1 for either category.
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Its one of the reasons Imp mag doesn't do the "Top Rated Shops" issue anymore. Everyone fudges the #s and no way to back them up. (Some may remember Transcolor)
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I don't remember the exact words from the story I was talking about. I suppose I could look it up on the news channels website, but either way I can't believe they are #1 for either category.
Which may be true, but wouldn't we have to know how many shifts they all run, how many days they operate and so on? I mean they could have 11 Autos and run 3 shifts a day 7 days a week for all I know. With something like that it wouldn't be hard to beat a shop with 2x the equipment punching out a 5pm each day. Not saying that's the case, just saying consider we all may not know the complete story.
Its one of the reasons Imp mag doesn't do the "Top Rated Shops" issue anymore. Everyone fudges the #s and no way to back them up. (Some may remember Transcolor)
Sorta what I mean yes. It's pretty easy to claim something like "biggest printer" or whatever when there is nobody running around getting the full story.
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Its one of the reasons Imp mag doesn't do the "Top Rated Shops" issue anymore. Everyone fudges the #s and no way to back them up. (Some may remember Transcolor)
And the legit top shop fudge downward so they don't get bombarded with sales calls.
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11..
how about the shop in the midwest who has 28 MHM's on the floor.. bought 8 of them at once the other year.
Lets not forget about Nutmeg in the SE.. last I heard they had over 30 machines.
The volume is out there, it just depends on who you know to get it.
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Nutmeg is VF Imagewear
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11..
how about the shop in the midwest who has 28 MHM's on the floor.. bought 8 of them at once the other year.
Um, is that Lake Shirts? Because if it is, then my while point goes out the window and I have been HEAVILY mis informed!
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I'd rather be a top money shop with less auto's to feed than have a ton of machines to feed...I like simple.
Darryl
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one thing I always despised the Atlas for was their pricing. They are usually 40% less than the next cheapest guy and that just does not make any sense to me. They could be 10-15% less and still be the cheapest. Why leave all that money on the table?
In my mind there might be something funny going on there. Printing shirts for $0.21 per imprint and making money hand over fist does not go together.
pierre
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11..
how about the shop in the midwest who has 28 MHM's on the floor.. bought 8 of them at once the other year.
Um, is that Lake Shirts? Because if it is, then my while point goes out the window and I have been HEAVILY mis informed!
I dont think Lake Shirts is who John is referring to. I believe i know who he's talking about, but i'll let him clarify it.
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I didn't think so either because the MHM sales rep was going to bring me there a while ago v when was looking for a new press. But I could of swore he said 10 or something close
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Paramount Apparel perhaps go to their site and click on factory for pics
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And here it is
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Paramount Apparel perhaps go to their site and click on factory for pics
They've got a good little foundation and with a little work they'll be on their way :)..............wow.
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I wonder what kind of monthly salary an owner of an operation of that complexity takes home?
Moving 100 -1 color to 2 color max, shirts daily with a $10 net profit on each, daily, is like $1000 per day or $30,000 per month.. And that's with one manual press.. That's hmm.. 20 sales in 5 different shops per day..
With that kind of complexity I can only imagine.. He probably buys a new jet every year..
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I wonder what kind of monthly salary an owner of an operation of that complexity takes home?
Moving 100 -1 color to 2 color max, shirts daily with a $10 net profit on each, daily, is like $1000 per day or $30,000 per month.. And that's with one manual press.. That's hmm.. 20 sales in 5 different shops per day..
With that kind of complexity I can only imagine.. He probably buys a new jet every year..
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$10 per shirt in profit? Not in your wildest dreams. Most of these places you are looking at $0.10 of profit per shirt.
pierre
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And here it is
Tony, I notice in this pic that presses are arranged so that processed good are toward the outer edges of the building, and the presses are more centrally located near the middle of the building. Is there a reason for this that I cant think of? Seems to me like the opposite would allow for better flow of goods, and would keep possible mess (inks and such) out of the main central path of the production floor.
(Not that there is any mess, it actually looks really clean, nice shiny floor and stuff. Probably have a crew devoted just to screenprint-specific janitorial duties, I would imagine. I bet the amount of lint in a place like this can be absolutely staggering.)
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I wonder what kind of monthly salary an owner of an operation of that complexity takes home?
Moving 100 -1 color to 2 color max, shirts daily with a $10 net profit on each, daily, is like $1000 per day or $30,000 per month.. And that's with one manual press.. That's hmm.. 20 sales in 5 different shops per day..
With that kind of complexity I can only imagine.. He probably buys a new jet every year..
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$10 per shirt in profit? Not in your wildest dreams. Most of these places you are looking at $0.10 of profit per shirt.
pierre
That is what I'm asking.. For the complexity involved in doing business, what's the salary like for the owner? The reward must be obscene..
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Let's say 30 million impressions/year, 51 working weeks.
Let's also say 30 presses.
Roughs out to about 4000 impressions per day/machine. Completely doable, even in one shift.
Let's say they get $0.25 per print. Some probably less, some probably more.
That's $7,500,000 a year.
Let's say 3 people per press, and given it's the midwest, $12/hr.
3x$12x8x5x30x51= $2.25 mil in basic wages.
Let's call it $3.5 mil when all is said and done.
Leaves you a cool $4 mil for rent and utilities etc. with a little left over for yourself.
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art fx in Norfolk is running 20 there and like 10 in charlotte
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I think the thing that I've been neglecting is that I should remember to appreciate where these guys are at. They apparently like that part of the business and are apparently efficient at the process. So Kudo's to them.
It would be a long hard road to get there, no matter the Marketing they use so they must be doing something right.
I hope for their sake, they are able to keep up the momentum.
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Um, is that Lake Shirts? Because if it is, then my while point goes out the window and I have been HEAVILY mis informed!
Yes it's them.
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Never been to Paramount. Largest employer in Bourbon Missouri. 80 ys in business. The layout is similar to what Fortune Fashions was. In the foreground there is a "parking lot" for raw goods, safely away from inks, etc. This is the staging area. Similarly there were "go carts" with inks, screens, print instructions, work orders, and samples staged in a separate parking lot. The supervisors and team leaders are charged with marrying the goods to go carts. The presses themselves would have staging areas where the next job or jobs (depending on volume of order) are parked so the press ops hover around their work areas without having to scout out the parts and pieces of the next order. Its pretty much the only way you can run such a large operation however I always try to emulate this proceduralization in any shop. Even if its a one auto company. Its a mindset.
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Let's say 30 million impressions/year, 51 working weeks.
Let's also say 30 presses.
Roughs out to about 4000 impressions per day/machine. Completely doable, even in one shift.
Let's say they get $0.25 per print. Some probably less, some probably more.
That's $7,500,000 a year.
Let's say 3 people per press, and given it's the midwest, $12/hr.
3x$12x8x5x30x51= $2.25 mil in basic wages.
Let's call it $3.5 mil when all is said and done.
Leaves you a cool $4 mil for rent and utilities etc. with a little left over for yourself.
considering the industry and the size of the business, they should be in 2-10% net profit. That makes the profit $750K in the best case scenario. Nothing to sneeze at, but a far cry from what can be made in some other industries on such sales volume.
pierre
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BTW Paramount is a Nike shop primarily so I'll wager they do a good bit better than .10. When I printed for Nike they paid quite well. You're up early Pierre.
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My main business is a much different animal but a few years back ALL the big guys went under. The only ones that made were the balloon dippers and the little guys. The dippers would be the hanes and gildan in this field. The home base garage printers suffered but made it through on low over head. There were 2 shops were about 8x my annual volume (my volume is roughly 1.2 million pieces) that both went bankrupt. There were a few others that were 3 - 5x my volume and they were absorbed by the dippers. We actually made it because we have the shirts too. Business has actually become much better for me because many of the guys that used to be in my market are now gone. My point is that bigger is not always better. I know there is money to be made but like anything else there is a downside too.
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Agreed big=not much fun to work at as well.
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Think of all that poly bagging and bar codes and stickers and exact, exact shipping instructions. (Box must be this tall and wide, Box must be under x amount of weight, do not stack boxes more than x high, boxes must be made by Elves, and must face North at all time...)
Just as much goes into after the press as before it
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BTW Paramount is a Nike shop primarily so I'll wager they do a good bit better than .10. When I printed for Nike they paid quite well. You're up early Pierre.
I was talking net profit. After all the payroll, equipment payments, loan payments, rent, supplies, marketing, taxes, yadie, yadie, yada . . . they would be doing well if they clear $0.10 per shirt. If they are selling the garment too, there is a little more to be made, but the overhead is higher too. At 400K yearly impressions per press, that makes them $40k of profit per press per shift. At 30 presses, that's $1.2MM. That's nothing to sneeze at.
pierre
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The big operations like Atlas, Target, etc. spend a fortune on direct mail, trade print advertising, trade shows, etc.....As soon as sales slow down they have a problem with overhead so they need to keep things moving....All the big players are at the PPAI Expo this week...