Realistic Production Standards

[jsheridan]

Our press has a pedal that can be programmed for pause or skip, we use it as a pause. My question isn't about the speed itself, but why you would more than double that speed with 2 people vs one. How are you going from 400 to 1050 an hour when the time saved by the second person is the time it takes to unload and grab another shirt during the index, but the loading takes longer than both of those actions together based on what im seeing in our shop. I could see going from 650 to 1050, but not understanding how the jump is 400 to 1050.

Pulling the shirt off the press and putting it on the dryer takes longer than loading a shirt. Then factor in all the press work is now done by two people on the roundabout way I mentioned and there is your 1.5 multiplier.

loading is really throwing a shirt on a board and pulling it back straight. If that guy is slowing you down then they need more training or a boot to the ass.

[jsheridan]

I only read a little bit so correct me here if I'm wrong by saying this, but every shop does not have the same size press or dryer, so how long it takes one shop to output 10K is going to be very different than a shop with a bigger press and larger dryer.

A lot of people on here talk about speed, but for me if I have a shop with only 1 or maybe two auto'sI'm not going to worry about speed but concentrate on quality production,

I see those large shops with 6 or more auto's worry more about speed because of the volume they need to keep the doors open.  So to me there is really no production standard unless your comparing your shop to another that is set up the same as your own.

Yes each shop will vary on capacity. What?s changing is the velocity at which the shop produces at.
If you have the ability to produce 6000 garments a day, but only do 3000 ?on a good day? then something is wrong.

You print the inkset in the screens as fast as it will allow you to. Thats where quality and speed have brunch together, get drunk then freak in the backseat and produce 5500 piece days.

Big shops aren?t just running fast to keep doors open, those guys have more in receiving than your average shop did in the last 5 years. they?re performing at the optimum level that the equipment was designed to run at. You don?t buy a race car to drive on the street kind of thing unless you just want to be that guy who wins impressions awards.


 

[blue moon]

3K should be your minimum. I am happy with 4K even though we can, and often do a lot more.
Equipment is not the only thing in play here. High temps and hard driving your employees erodes the morale. Goal of our company is to improve lives so making ppl miserable does not gel with it.
Treat your ppl well, and they will step up when needed.

pierre

[3Deep]

Keeping the doors open is just an expression, but your right right those guys buy equipment that can handle there work load...now what is this "get drunk then freak in the backseat and produce 5500 piece days."        I also agree with you P I've been on the end of working like a dog and it can get old fast!!!!!!!

[ericheartsu]

j i'm still interested to in seeing what your thoughts are on shops that are working with waterbased ink. I know shops like Danny's are doing more and more wb, but what is realistic production for those? it takes more time double stroking, and more staff to achieve more efficiency.

[jsheridan]

Here is where a Roq plays into those double stroke production numbers

Each head is independent of the others and prints at its set speed.

Head 1 can have a double stroke base at max flood/print and be able to finish its job before head 4, after the iron, has a really slow flood, to give extra cool down time, then fast print in the same time as head one did two strokes. Goes even faster when you have the programming for down flood so now the head doesn?t angle up on 2nd flood/print.

Watching a Roq print is different in that all heads work at different speeds, on the ecos of course.
other machines, each stroke much finish before the cycle can repeat. M&R prints and waits for the rest of the heads to finish, example is run a slow flood.. the machine waits until the flood finishes before every head does a print stroke. then drops or stays up for 2nd flood and waits for all heads to finish. Yea it?s a slow and boring process and why we try to avoid it all costs.

The Roq can still do 500 an hour with double stroke while others struggle to get past 350 hr.

I don?t see the guys being driven here, they all want to do what they?re doing. I?ve seen driven crews under bad supers where the morale sucks but not here. This crew is lean mean top producers. I?ve been told many operators have come through over the years that don?t make the cut or can?t keep up. Two of the guys here have more drive than I do and that?s saying tons. I know how to run a press and these guys run circles around me. I thought I knew what good production was, have run amazing numbers in the past and always ran a tight floor... then I got here and saw what real production looks like being done by half the staff I was used to. Good people and good machines do make all the difference.


A far as watebase.. HSA and what not is double stroke and realistic numbers are in the 350-500 hr range as it runs solo. No point in dropping an extra 125 a day for another body to stand there when one guy does it all. Bigger machines and better ink is on the horizon as we all venture into pvc free inks.

danny really wants to dump all the plastic ink and go HSA, and I fully support that decision, can?t wait for it to happen but we have a bunch of environmental conditions to tackle before that happens so we don?t fall into the same pits others have making the switch.

[mimosatexas]

The way we have our dryer setup in relation to our unloaded station it takes less than 2 seconds to unload, solo or in tandem. No way you're loading faster than that, so I don't get how your 1.5x as fast with 2 people unless the setup isn't ideal on that front. What am I missing?

[Maxie]

John, what you describe about the S Roq sounds pretty much the same as the MHM S Type. I actually prefer  the MHM where only the screens lift up and down.
I have not managed to find loaders/unloaders who can maintain more than 600 an hour.
We also have a set where he printers have other functions, mix colors, etc and we do a lot of small runs so our average is much lower.
I know there are shops where the printers only print, their numbers will also be higher.
I?d be very happy with 4000 per machine per shift, in our shop 3000 is more realistic.

[blue moon]

The way we have our dryer setup in relation to our unloaded station it takes less than 2 seconds to unload, solo or in tandem. No way you're loading faster than that, so I don't get how your 1.5x as fast with 2 people unless the setup isn't ideal on that front. What am I missing?

we at least double the printing speed with a puller. One person maxes out around 450 and we've done 1200 with two. Just for the record, these are printing numbers not final tallies. Best we've done, as far as I can remember, is 1k fronts (2+ubase), dryer, flip, 1k backs (1+ubase) and then boxing it all up in 2 hours and 15 min. So that's almost 1k/hour produced.
Setup is as ergonomic as possible. Loader does not move and puller has a half step.

pierre

[mimosatexas]

I guess I would need to see a video and compare. Loading is the slower action for us.  All of this is moot though for us as the sabre seems to pretty much max out on a 10" tall front design at around 60 dozen.

[Doug S]

Our unloader when we have one also will open up the tail of the shirt to stop me from having to fiddle around with those sometimes stuck together tails and also they will straighten the shirt back up if the one below the shirt you are grabbing sticks and falls back down on the stack in a wad.  This helps significantly.  On a day when everything is running close to perfect, we can knockout 3800 to 4000 shirts.  That's if we have everything set and ready to go when we get here. 

[jsheridan]

I guess I would need to see a video and compare. Loading is the slower action for us.  All of this is moot though for us as the sabre seems to pretty much max out on a 10" tall front design at around 60 dozen.

I just uploaded a video to my youtube.
https://youtu.be/XMWblwai2g4

[1964GN]

Small print and zero glue. Wish all jobs were that easy

[jsheridan]

Didnt have time to film when the glue took two hands and had to be ripped from the boards. This is towards the end of the stack as the glue got easy.
Print size was a standard front.. or was this the back.  Both prints had 12? strokes.

[mimosatexas]

Small print and zero glue. Wish all jobs were that easy

giant unfitted shirts too.  I can't remember the last time we didnt print on a 4oz fitted shirt skewed toward smaller sizes...

It looks like your unloader has to do a full 180 and take a step each time.  Ours stands sideways, grabs the shirt, and just shuffles slightly to the right. shirts are lifted and pulled onto the end of the belt in one motion, no change in orientation. loader does a little less than a quarter turn with their shoulders to grab the shirt while the press indexes, then loads in one motion and straightens as the stand back up.  The unloader is consistently finished and ready for the next shirt prior to the loader finishing the straightening.  I'll grab a video sometime this week for advice, but I'm not sure how the unloader would ever have to take more time to do fewer steps with our setup.