Mid sized shops and growing pains

[GraphicDisorder]

Our biggest challenge is lack of extra hands.  So its often hard to shift gears from embroidery to screen print to design all in the same day often.  When possible we schedule days all embroidery, or all screen print or all design and so on.  But its tough at times to do that.  So thats our biggest struggle.  We are just two people so it is what it is I guess.  I think a lot of our issues would go away with another employee and I struggle often about when to do that.  Gut keeps telling me not yet so I listen.

The girls at the shop each have their own tasks. They break the tasks into time segments. Something like 1st hour of the day is burning screens, next hour while those are drying is emails, responding to quotes. Presses usually don't even start up till after lunch. But at that point all the other stuff and the press spins no matter what till the end of the day.
Maybe doing stuff like that will help. It works for me to in my personal life. Like the next 30 minutes is email only... then reddit for 20, then a smoke

Ya we do things similar to that, we come in do email until its done or until its becoming too late to continue to do it (oldest first).  Then she either burns screens or starts embroidery and such.  We generally dont print until after lunch as well.  Then we generally print the rest of the day, often into the night.  Embroidery same thing once we start it we are on it all day. 

My day is pretty different.  I am on email almost all day, I get bunches of email over night, takes me often till 10-11am just to do email.  Then I will do the design work for the day which can take all day depending on the projects.  If its not a all day deal I help Shelly print/sort etc. 

[shellyky]

... then reddit for 20,

[tonypep]

Good Morning All......I'm back and the shop is in running on all cylinders so heres a new installment. The subject is people and it could get ugly!
Sooner or later as the company grows from a one to three person shop to over a dozen the owner/operator will need to extricate him or herself from some of the daily tasks often which means actually printing. It's been said that "You can't work on your business if you are working in it". Cute but not necessarily true if you manage your time correctly. True, if you own the company and are running the auto you probably won't have time to focus on the big picture. But when you are in those growing years you may not always have the need and/or budget for a full time screen maker or ink mixer. Someone has to assemble the pre-press elements so who? The printers? I hope not but I know this to be often true. Okay not necessarily a bad thing if you have spotty work flow but again I'm primarily addressing the suddenly steady busy and bustling shops. So herein lies the need to hire a Production Manager or Supervisor.
Often the postion is filled by bringing up the star player from the ranks. Unfortunately this can backfire. A close knit group of employees often like to socialize outside of work and indeed, be good friends. When one of the friends now takes on a mantle of leadership resentment often sets in amongst the group. And this new leader; while they might be an ace printer and excellent employee, does not always have the necessary skill sets to deal with this. I've often had a supervisor approach me about "I just want my press back".
Indeed managing people is an acquired skill and an acquired taste as well. It's not always fun. You have to leave your emotions in check and do your best to be fair, friendly, rational, and balanced. You need to posess the ability to hire, fire, assess, manage, and motivate employees. I've found that the more skilled a person is in the craft, the less of those traits they seem to posess.

So let's look at bringing in someone with prior skills. The good news he/she is usually an unknown and therefore establishing leadership is easier. The bad new is they have prior habits. Not necessarily bad ones but often different. Often when interviewing for this position I'll pose a trick question....."What would be the first thing you would change if you were hired for the position?" The answers typically range from switching ink systems, emulsions, pallet adhesives etc.
But the real answer is......"Nothing". Now change can be good and often is but there is such a thing as managing change. In order to do so one must observe and absorb eyerything and everyone around them. Take notes, mental or otherwise. Consider all possible implications when considering a change is a critical step. "Thats how we did it at at XYZ shop" is not enough reason.
OK so no concrete solutions here mostly observations but sooner or later I hope you get to the point where it's blantantly clear that screen printers don't produce revenue by counting shirts, mixing inks, making screens etc. Screen printers make money printing shirts.
best tp

[mjrprint]

Good read. I work in a large shop. We have 5 manuals, 4 autos, 2 embroidery machines with a laser soon to add another embroidery machine and laser. We have roughly 45 people in production including 3 pre-press, 2 press leads, 12 printers which three are back-ups, a slew of catchers and embroidery staff. We typically run jobs that are 48 to 124 pieces with color changes and go through a ton of screens and setups per day. we also have 9 artists, a sales staff and two sister companies that produce all our garments. Without good systems it would all be a trainwreck. We get better each year though. There are two of us that are production managers due to all the work and I also service all the equipment. The great thing about here is I cross trained a lot of the people. Printers can print auto and manual and support staff can fill in wherever needed. The more tools you have the easier the job!

[tonypep]

Cross training is critical especially in the early growth stages. We are not in the manufacturing business more like the mass-customization business. The more versatile the employee the better you can react to what hits you. It's usually a little easier in early growth years as there tends to be more time to be thorough.
Kudos to Matt for mentioning they get better each year.......process improvement is a never ending task.

[RICK STEFANICK]

i think a good mix of work is also critical with the mid sized shop.the larger contract shops can make it on sheer volume but the smaller mid sized shop needs the good mix of contract/ custom and maybe a couple other threads of income like embroidery or dtg?  with mid sized shops sometimes the fixed overhead can be similar to a large shop. cash flow to finance the venture is critical and that takes a good plan and diversified customer base. i know of several really organized, super shops that went south due to cash flow problems..sorry if i got off track .i was going somewhere though..

[mk162]

No, you are dead on, cash flow is everything.  It doesn't matter how much work you have, if you aren't getting paid fast enough, it won't matter.  The amount of cash is important, but the velocity of cash is more-so.

[RICK STEFANICK]

yes tony your right .training in the early growth years is critical when preparing for the future. i think what happens though, is we get comfortable with the small cross trained crew we are so proud of as a small environment and we REACT when the flow starts to change.It is hardly ever a slow change. and then we as owners immediatly step up and take on more responsibility in production.. thats ok short term but we all know you cant REALLY run your business printing everyday. now especially since you have moved to mid size status. bottom line is training people costs money. a great business plan is critical building in all these factors for print volume, mix, cash flow projections, financing? (if and when), shop size etc.  our employees are our best asset and labor is our biggest expense and we are only as good as the people who work with us.. i wish i had it all this figured out.  great thread.