Thoughts on a new screen making buisiness model

[ABuffington]

Pre made imaged screens are the norm in the electronic industry.  Textile is a bit different.  High volume companies can afford good in house pre-press art and screen making. The mid size shops would welcome this skill set, but would eventually bring in house or learn how to do it.  Too many variables downline, what inks?  Mesh? Tension, press registration, etc  So many things that would make a good set of screens not print well.  Seems like the sale would have lots of back end tech support for new companies that don't know how to print sim process, modify inks.  The sequence would have to be proven.  Many times in sampling a new design, revisions are necessary to pass approval.  However this would work for shops who know what they are doing, and needed outsourcing of pre-press and screens due to too much work. 

We have all the tools to do this here and found that the time delay was a deal killer.  It is possible in a well equipped shop to go from Art to Press in under 4 hours with as complex a design as can be printed.  Outsourcing would require companies to pad their delivery and most customers I ever had thought we just pushed a button on a copy machine and 600-20,000 shirts would be at the back door printed and packed the next day. (I have had 10k fund raiser runs come in Friday Morning and want 2000 shirts that afternoon! We delivered next day but pulled an all nighter since we had to pick up shirts at 3 different locations to get all the sizes filled and started printing around 8 after dinner, and he wants a discount since it is a fundraiser? No sir, you get to pay the time and half not me.)

The other key area I see is the better print quality that could be had, but a lot depends on the printer's press set up skills.  If it exceeded anything a shop can do on their own, there would be a market, but at what percentage of all work? 

Al

[bulldog]

This is a neat idea but time is the killer. What if a screen pops and they need a re-do? That's another few days of waiting.

Plus how do you decide what screens to use? Are you using S-mesh statics? Chances are the customer is not familiar with these, then maybe you have to educate them on all of these little extra things that are STILL needed to get a good print besides just a good screen.

To me, for the money you have to put out and the inventory of screens YOU would need to keep this is a money pit. I don't think this is a build it and they will come thing either. You have to really get your name out there and do a lot of marketing. You'd have to explain to every potential customer who you are and why they should use your services. Not an easy task.

I think maybe some consulting would be a better gig. TEACH someone how to make the good screens, choose the right screens, sep things properly, etc. Or bits and pieces. Maybe even sep and send the films to people for them to learn. I think you'd make a lot more money doing that and in the end help a lot more people.

Just my two cents.

[Alex M]

In Europe and South America we are placing I image units into shops that have never made a Screen before BC they had a service like this.
But with the uni-kote, image and eco rinse it takes a lot of the guess work out. 
Now they just have the normal artists do seps (or they come from vendor) and away they go.

[Dottonedan]

That would be the other thing to do is get an auto coater for precise EOM.  An Eco Rince, would be ideal as well. A business like this taking advantage of these process improvement machines would be a great benefit but like people are pointing out, there are some drawback to the business model. I don't think that training/trouble shooting issues would be any harder or time consuming than it is already for just doing separation work and trouble shooting those results. I like the idea very much but you would have the turn time, added cost factor and troubleshooting as part of the business.  In running the numbers thru Beacon Funding, this is viable based on separation customer order type and order history. Add to that, managing a small team of separators and advertising in the trade mags, that business could be booming. I doubt tho that it would be a business that anyone can get into. Someone like a Joe Clark, Coudrey, or Lon Winters kind of guys.  Must be something to it not working as well, since they aren't doing it. Maybe not as profitable? Like maybe, yes, you could make a profit on it, but could you do enough, to make it worth building your business around that entire idea? Kind then justifying the statement, yes you can,/but should you?

It seems that you might need to sell these screens on the low end, at $25.00 and on the high end at 35.00 area. Could be pro rated the more screens you do in a job. You could do a lower price and still make a profit but not that great of a profit. Still tho, that is a worse case scenario of only doing averaging one 6 color job a day. You'd have to make payment on your equipment per day + a profit. Obviously the more orders you get in per day, the better. The whole reason for the STEII is to be able to handle 3-400+ screens a day. One would need to get there name out there pretty well.

People look at the screen price of 30-35.00 and say well, we could never charge that to the customer. Well, people also say that about separation charges. Coudrey sells a single color separations at $115.00 if you order only one time a year and $90.00 per job if you've ordered multiple times this year. If you want the really good stuff, It's a premium price (per color).  People will pay for that extra service.

[Onewithpez]

Do you currently sell films if you separate? I just had a job that I made way too complicated by trying to sep myself. And then after burning screens and doing test prints, I realized that sep'd wrong and printed over what should have been the shirt color. When trying to fix...my rip stops working. Needless to say, I will probably be taking advantage of your services for future sim process jobs. I would buy pre printed films to use my own expo and emulsion. 


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[TCT]

I like the concept, but the shipping costs alone would be a deal killer for me right of the bat. Not to mention waiting how many days if one pops on press or something. Then next day air shipping costs...

Darryl has the right idea, it could work here where I am. One of our vendors does offer outputting films and burning screens I'm 90% sure, no CTS though.

[abchung]

our city is known to be the city of Batik. We have people who offers reclaiming and burning services. we supply the films/laser printed paper and they do the rest..... the end product is a good varnished screen. they coat the emulsion with wood varnish to make it last longer.

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