The importance of staging

[inkman996]

We have a bunch of dollys with plywood attached to the top, all orders over one case go on them going in and going out. That way no one is picking boxes up all day long hurting them selves, plus it makes moving jobs around so much easier. We have a long hall way that we stage all the completed jobs in for pick up, a table for smaller orders and one area for UPS to pick up.

[RICK STEFANICK]

We have two buildings, the shipping/receiving is in the embroidery building so 95% of the merch is over there.  The first pic is of jobs due in the next two days.  Our shipping guy has access to the production schedule in shopworks and he checks in the shirts and will stage them in his area if the job is not due for more than two days, or bring them over to the screen printing building and put them on the shelving you see in this pic.


We have a production schedule that we give the crew every afternoon for the next day and we will put the boxes on top of the carts sometimes to get ready for layout, sometimes we just lay the shirts out onto the cart from the shelves, doesn't really matter. 


We put the work order with the handwritten info inside, the production sheet with shirt color and ink color, locations etc, then the film folder with the pdf printout of the job proof.


When the printer is ready for the next job he'll check the production sheet for the next job, roll the cart over and look at the paperwork for specs, then he takes the film/proof folder to the ink station shown in this pic and gathers the ink for the job or mixes up ink, whatever the job calls for, and then we give the work order to the catcher at the end of the dryer so we can check quantities for the third and final time before we box them up.



Some jobs that are higher quantities we have to stack off to the side and out of the way.


Sometimes we have cases and cases stacked up where you can't see the shelves, but we have a slight calm before the storm of next week so there isn't a ton of shirts over here yet. 

We finish the job, put it on the dolly and then take everything back to the shipping/recieving/pickup area.  We used to have a golf cart with a table that would hold 7-10 cases of shirts but the batteries died out and we haven't replaced them.

nice set up alan. looks like you have your scheduling and press staging straight.

[RICK STEFANICK]

I have also used those 8 ft roller tracks along side the presses with 3x3 plywood boards on top. then you just finish one job and slide the next up. that way you keep the press line full . works great without the investment in the carts.

[alan802]

I have also used those 8 ft roller tracks along side the presses with 3x3 plywood boards on top. then you just finish one job and slide the next up. that way you keep the press line full . works great without the investment in the carts.

I was thinking about having one of those long enough to go from the end of the dryer to the press loading area that way when we finish the back print we just roll the stack back up to the load station but those rollers are pretty pricey for 25'.  Plus we have carts that do the same thing but I was just thinking from a "cool" factor the rollers would be nice.

[Gilligan]

The boomerang has cool factor all over that!

[RICK STEFANICK]

I have also used those 8 ft roller tracks along side the presses with 3x3 plywood boards on top. then you just finish one job and slide the next up. that way you keep the press line full . works great without the investment in the carts.

I was thinking about having one of those long enough to go from the end of the dryer to the press loading area that way when we finish the back print we just roll the stack back up to the load station but those rollers are pretty pricey for 25'.  Plus we have carts that do the same thing but I was just thinking from a "cool" factor the rollers would be nice.

check out one of those warehouses that sell fixtures from closed companys. you should be able to pick them up really reasonable. those are my choice if you have the right layout to run them up the side of  dryer as you said.

[CastleKing]

I have to agree with  Tony and the staging. Regardless of your shop's size or volume that you are printing each day, it is imperative that product be staged in advance to keep the workflow going. My Dad used to tell that the more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in battle. If you implement a procedure and adhere to it religiously, when you get slammed, the workflow continues on without having to change your procedure when you are at peak capacity. Your procedures help you identify any shortages or discrepancies well before getting the order set up on press.

Rick Stefanick is spot on with the roller tables. We use them on our automatic presses and can lay out 2,000 shirts at each press with no trouble. We picked them up for about $100 each at a used equipment place.