Wow, Screen Tape Costs!!!

[tonypep]

Actually they are out there, trust me. And at that point prepress and setupdollars (other than cost of ink) become minimized to the point where many don't charge for them. They make the coin on the volume.
No doubt Sam you must have things nailed down tight. I can't imagine anything but. However if it were me, the consistent weekend work would speak to looking at more capacity. If it were sporatic perhaps not.

[bimmridder]

Sam, I'd love to come see your digs sometime. Let me know when you WON'T be there and I'll try to pop in.

[Socalfmf]

Tony

we are in the process of getting new dryer and press.  however we want to make sure that the work is going to be there and also we got this new contract right before Christmas and they do the big push, but they did just drop off another 12k shirts that they need in the month of January.

I think most of you guys know I am very calculated in what I do and make sure that we do not make false moves.

sam

[Gilligan]

2 color jobs... Seems like even less setup gains to be had, meaning faster press would make up more time.

Only thing this says to me is that your previous methods were incredibly inefficient.

I'd assume with numbers like this some of these must be reprints?

I imagine, having seen Alan's process first hand, that two color jobs require no micros as well and would be set up nearly as fast.  Add to that if their are repeats then films are faster on those jobs than dts as he has mentioned.

Like you say, it's all about systems. If dts helped you improve that much, that's awesome.  But recognize that you could have improved on previous systems and seen nearly the same sort of gains.  I imagine, head to head with the same jobs, Alan and you would practically be neck and neck.  Now give Alan 50k to spend on what he wanted (second press probably) and he would be crushing it.  This is how Tony crushes it, no one can doubt his procedures.

[tonypep]

12K in January is good news! Got something similar in the pipeline.

[kingscreen]

I penned an article on the tapeless screen describing the method above probably 10 ys ago. I don't necessarily recommend this for every one however. It was for static frames and over time, if not applied correctly, the frame glue can interfere with the coating process which will eventually render the screen useless. One of those ideas which turned out to be unviable for us in the end. Over taping DC screens can actually cause problems so in the end, our solution to the tape issue is to use as little as possible.

I would like to read that article if you have a link or can scan a copy of it.

[GraphicDisorder]

I imagine, having seen Alan's process first hand, that two color jobs require no micros as well and would be set up nearly as fast.  Add to that if their are repeats then films are faster on those jobs than dts as he has mentioned.

Like you say, it's all about systems. If dts helped you improve that much, that's awesome.  But recognize that you could have improved on previous systems and seen nearly the same sort of gains.  I imagine, head to head with the same jobs, Alan and you would practically be neck and neck.  Now give Alan 50k to spend on what he wanted (second press probably) and he would be crushing it.  This is how Tony crushes it, no one can doubt his procedures.

So you can buy a second auto, hire staff to run it, and deal with increased screen production/seps/scheduling/etc for 50k?  I mean even 2 new employees paid piss poor would cost you most of if not all of that 50k budget PER YEAR just to run this new press.  I guess he could find a 5k beat up all air Jav.  Can Alan's screen room produce enough additional screens to keep those guys busy on this second auto, would he have the sales to fill a second Auto and keep those guys busy as well as his current staff, or would he do the same work 2x as fast now and send everyone home at noon?   How many employees are at Tony's shop.  I assume Tony has more employees than 2 full time guys and a part time guy.  So apples to oranges in Tony and Alan's shop I would guess. 

I know he's your hero and I am not doubting for a second his processes he's done great and his shop is a inspiration for all us small guys.  But I think the pipe dream of just throw a second auto in there and it solves all is way out there.  It requires a bit more than just a auto investment and likely requires added labor costs, which the labor costs alone would cost more in 1 year than a DTS costs total which and be spread out if desired. 

[tonypep]

28 souls on board in production. And sorry that article is in Printwear Heaven. Too long a process to post here.
Brandt is right on some of those assumptions and if that big client jumps ship then you're sitting on some non productive sq ft, equipment, and labor. I'm sure Sam will proceed with caution.

[GraphicDisorder]

28 souls on board in production. And sorry that article is in Printwear Heaven. Too long a process to post here.
Brandt is right on some of those assumptions and if that big client jumps ship then you're sitting on some non productive sq ft, equipment, and labor. I'm sure Sam will proceed with caution.

 

[alan802]

I invite any of you to come see my shop.  we are very systems oriented and we know where every penny is and how to maximize it. 

on the weekend work we are printing at 720/hr  that is the max our press can do.  also a lot of those jobs are 500-2000 pieces so set up is very important.  most are 2 color but there are a few that are three and when we can just set up and go with no micros it saves a lot of time. 

I would love to have 10k runs that just set up and go and a faster press would be great but we all know those jobs are not around anymore. 

so again anyone wants to swing by and see our systems come on by!

Same here, applies to anyone and anytime.  And like most of us here, systems are in place.  I have a printer with a red ass and 2 other guys back there that drive me crazy but still things run smoother than our local competition because of systems.  I'd love to take a tour of anyone's shop that would have me.

What's a 2 color job?  Wow, that would be nice.  We're fighting with a 700 piece, 7 color sim process job with a very gummy platinum colored ink mixed in on 65% poly 35% viscose right now and doing it in one revolution has proved to be tough.  But moving at 350/hr is what we have to do instead of our usual speed.

And I'm one that thinks that press speed is very important for small jobs just like it is for larger jobs.  If your press can print a 144 piece job in 9 minutes versus 18 minutes then why is saving 9 minutes in pre-press (DTS) considered so much better than saving 9 minutes on actually printing the job?  It's still the same 9 minutes is it not?  That's just me, slow and steady works but fast and steady works better.  It's like the old saying "work smarter not harder", what about working harder and smarter?

I have to question WHO'S sucking all of the profit out of your businesses.  Now multiple of you have gone as far as to say your shop is doing "double" or more than Sam.  When you say something like that it actually hurts your own argument when you make a statement like that.  How can DTS have such a poor ROI but Sam can easily afford it who apparently is "half" your shops size?

I'm wondering if some of you do a ROI on a shirt cart, or a table, or a freaking chair at this point that just improves quality of life in the shop.

Ever thought that if a larger shop can't see a 12 month ROI there might not be anything wrong with that shop?  Perhaps something is wrong with the smaller shop, or maybe the numbers don't make sense for another reason other than the bigger shop not turning a profit?  I know just by looking at impressions counts over the last 7 years that we've done roughly twice as many imprints on our machine.  There is more to the equation but if it takes 7 years for a press to reach 1 million and 4 years for another press to reach 1 million, it's not exactly half but for arguments sake and laziness to not want to get an exact number I say "half" or "double" whichever you want to use.  I know what types of jobs we're all printing, I know what the average customer is like at a custom screen print shop.  I know the average job consists of 3.5 colors on dark shirts with 78% of those jobs needing 2 locations, bla bla bla.  There are exceptions in everything and contract shops do different jobs than custom shops and whatever niche you go after will dictate what types of jobs you're printing.  The stuff Brandt prints is a lot different than what we do as far as print specs go and I bet Brandt's #'s are more like a 4.0 color average and well under 78% for 2 locations with probably half of them being one location.  Sam is one of the few that doesn't post many pics of what they print but I can put two and two together and I know a lot about what types of jobs a shop like Sam prints because our shops are damn near mirror images of each other.  I know exactly how other shops are printing things, I can take one look at your prints and tell you exactly how you printed them, and how long it took you to print them on the machine you have.  That's not a gift, it's just called being observant to the point of obsessive.  It's probably more of a flaw than anything but when people claim things on the forum often times if the numbers don't look right I'll waste time trying to figure it out.  Just like Sam did with his ROI figures, it struck me as very extreme and the further I dug, the more it didn't make sense.  We all exagerate or we leave parts of the story out that would explain things but everyone's heels are dug in here and it's too late to clear up the story.

And again, who is saying they can't afford one?  Who said anything about not having profits left over at the end of the year?  I guess you are ASSUMING since some of us that don't believe the Sam ROI story as it's being told that it means we can afford one!!! Many of our arguments are we couldn't see a year ROI on a 50K investment because it's not possible at our shops and the scenario that I've layed out a dozen times where that type of ROI would be possible with that volume shop but Sam has told us 100 times how efficient and systems oriented they are.  I mean the guy gets 720/hr out of an all air DB when others can't come close to that so that tells me they really know what they're doing.  Now back to more facts as I see them:  Higher volume shop=30 month ROI, lower volume shop=11 month ROI, "confused smiley here".  And I've described the scenario at least a dozen times how this ROI thing works in regards to post-DTS and pre-DTS efficiency versus pre-DTS inefficiency so I'm not going to do it again since nobody is reading or comprehending it anyway.

My entire argument hinges on a few key facts and it changes completely if those two numbers are changed, or in fact not really facts at all.  $50K is the first one, for arguments sake let's say 12 month ROI is the second one.  Figuring ROI is not easy for some, but for others it's pretty simple to figure.  This is the short and sweet version of how many of us do it, and it doesn't matter where we do it.  You take how much you spend on film, how much labor is involved with using film for your screen development, then setup labor and a few other little things and then you compare them to post-DTS costs and labor and then you take that difference and work some magic with the cost of the machine and how much more money you're saving/making then out poops an ROI figure.  Ever thought about what the ROI figures would be if you only paid 25K for a DTS instead of 50K and then do the math, works out twice as fast doesn't it?  Math is a funny thing and if you change a few numbers in the equation the outcome changes.

I think the same reason why you don't have a 16 color challenger III, a sprint international HO and a Kiwo I-jet II is the same reason why many of us haven't bought a DTS unit yet.  I'd love to argue that my example is extreme but most of us buy equipment when it has an ROI that we think is good.  Your idea and my idea of a good ROI could be completely different but I'm not buying a $50K DTS machine until it makes sense on paper, regardless of whether or not we can afford one.  I have bought things just because I can, a Breitling watch, a stupid Lexus SUV, an even stupider jet ski, but when it comes to the shop, we don't do things just because we can.  I really hope you can understand that instead of assuming the shops that do more volume than Sam can't afford DTS because we're not making a profit.  You assume SOMEONE is blowing all the money because we're arguing against a lofty ROI figure that quite frankly we just don't believe.  Again, $50K, 12 month ROI, average one auto shop volume...not happening at SRI, or Graphic Disorder.  And if you'd like to prove me wrong, I bet someone out there will gladly take your 50K and get you a DTS before the new year.

[Socalfmf]

And I can tell you have another press adds a lot more to payroll, workers comp, insurance, space requirements, the list goes on and on. 

oh yeah and try finding people who actually want to work!  hahahaha  there is the biggest problem....there are plenty of jobs but not people who actually want to work.

example:  we do a day paid interview to show them what they are really getting into.  I have had people who say no problem and cannot even handle 4 hrs working.  really?  4 hours?  but it is better to do that then put them on payroll to find out in 4 hrs they cannot do the job or do not want to do the job.


plus my guys love the overtime. 

sam

[inkman996]

I have to question WHO'S sucking all of the profit out of your businesses.  Now multiple of you have gone as far as to say your shop is doing "double" or more than Sam.  When you say something like that it actually hurts your own argument when you make a statement like that.  How can DTS have such a poor ROI but Sam can easily afford it who apparently is "half" your shops size?

I'm wondering if some of you do a ROI on a shirt cart, or a table, or a freaking chair at this point that just improves quality of life in the shop.

Seriously where did I ever say our profits are down or we cannot afford a DTS? an ROI calculation on a CTS is not hard at all anyone with more than a Pea sized brain can get a decent rough estimate from it.

In our shop at our current work flow the best bang for us if we decided to spend 50K would be a larger gas dryer. This would allow us to finally run WB and discharge which both can increase production times immensely and also put out much better product than the competition. Following this which hopefully would generate more sales and higher color images a second auto would be perfect. Having the oven already in place makes this a lot easier. If the second auto and the increased sales work out then add in the CTS.


For us to put in a CTS now would be putting the cart before the horse, it wouldn't make any sense even tho we could afford it but it would not be practical at all. And my whole point on our shops production stats is somehow we print more than Sam but yet cannot see an advantage to a CTS yet. Seriously if we took the numbers to the accountant he would laugh his off at us.

If Sam has these new contracts coming his way I am happy for him we all deserve more business, I know we could land big contracts that are similar but unwilling to take that kind of risk. We were actually offered one time the whole embroidery contract for CVS if we invested on serial more embroidery machines. Thank god we didn't because I heard the fulfillment company that used to do it got dropped and went in to financial crisis.

Tony may know about this one. The shop in Boston that became super successful because they printed the Cheers apparel. From what i have heard from vendors back then he struggled mightily once the show ended and the demand for that apparel dried up. I know he had multiple machines dozens of employees etc. It is just to damn scary to put to much risk into just a few accounts.

[tonypep]

Thats called the Nike Syndrome! No real or at least binding contracts in our business.

[alan802]

And I can tell you have another press adds a lot more to payroll, workers comp, insurance, space requirements, the list goes on and on. 

oh yeah and try finding people who actually want to work!  hahahaha  there is the biggest problem....there are plenty of jobs but not people who actually want to work.

example:  we do a day paid interview to show them what they are really getting into.  I have had people who say no problem and cannot even handle 4 hrs working.  really?  4 hours?  but it is better to do that then put them on payroll to find out in 4 hrs they cannot do the job or do not want to do the job.


plus my guys love the overtime. 

sam

I like the idea of doing a paid interview type of thing.  Is there any liability or issues to worry about should this person "claim" they got hurt during their day at the shop?  Is it something as simple as having them sign a waiver drawn up by a lawyer or do you just do a handshake deal and hope they are good, honest people?

[GraphicDisorder]

I have to question WHO'S sucking all of the profit out of your businesses.  Now multiple of you have gone as far as to say your shop is doing "double" or more than Sam.  When you say something like that it actually hurts your own argument when you make a statement like that.  How can DTS have such a poor ROI but Sam can easily afford it who apparently is "half" your shops size?

I'm wondering if some of you do a ROI on a shirt cart, or a table, or a freaking chair at this point that just improves quality of life in the shop.

Ever thought that if a larger shop can't see a 12 month ROI there might not be anything wrong with that shop?  Perhaps something is wrong with the smaller shop, or maybe the numbers don't make sense for another reason other than the bigger shop not turning a profit?

Perhaps.  I just find the time you've spent on worrying about 50k purchase AMAZING for a 7 figure company attached to a even bigger company.  That could be both a compliment and a negative.  There comes a point when it's ok to spend money like you found out with your old dryer.  Which I always wondered myself why you still had it.  I'm not trying to insult you either.  I run my business a little different as a owner.  Not that my way is better than yours.  Just different.  They both work seems to me.  I haven't bothered paying attention to ROI.  I do math daily on our situation but not to the point im sure you do.  I know that we are so far to the good that 50k doesn't drastically change our situation so when I see that we could REALLY benefit from a DTS I assure you be it 50k or 25k by then we will do it.

I know just by looking at impressions counts over the last 7 years that we've done roughly twice as many imprints on our machine.  There is more to the equation but if it takes 7 years for a press to reach 1 million and 4 years for another press to reach 1 million, it's not exactly half but for arguments sake and laziness to not want to get an exact number I say "half" or "double" whichever you want to use.  I know what types of jobs we're all printing, I know what the average customer is like at a custom screen print shop.  I know the average job consists of 3.5 colors on dark shirts with 78% of those jobs needing 2 locations, bla bla bla.  There are exceptions in everything and contract shops do different jobs than custom shops and whatever niche you go after will dictate what types of jobs you're printing. 

Ive never doubted you were printing more than Sam, Sam is guilty of passion and that exciting his posts.  I wont totally fault him for that.  We know he's a ass.  He knows it too.  Doesn't mean he's wrong about DTS in his situation.  Hell I bet if you added DTS tomorrow you'd be happy as hell about it.  Take take the money outta the equation for a minute... You wouldn't like to have one?  You've spent a ton of time discussing it, I am guessing it's because you actually do want one. 

The stuff Brandt prints is a lot different than what we do as far as print specs go and I bet Brandt's #'s are more like a 4.0 color average and well under 78% for 2 locations with probably half of them being one location. 

You'd be way incorrect on that one Alan.  I bet we are easily 90% of our jobs doubled sided, it could be even higher than that.  We rarely print single sided stuff.  Just did 3 jobs last week single sided and we all commented how nice that would be to do all day.  Most of our jobs are at least 1/3, many 1/4 | 2/4 | 3/4 | 4/4, some 5/6/7 color stuff in fact some 7/7 at times. 

Sam is one of the few that doesn't post many pics of what they print but I can put two and two together and I know a lot about what types of jobs a shop like Sam prints because our shops are damn near mirror images of each other.  I know exactly how other shops are printing things, I can take one look at your prints and tell you exactly how you printed them, and how long it took you to print them on the machine you have.  That's not a gift, it's just called being observant to the point of obsessive.  It's probably more of a flaw than anything but when people claim things on the forum often times if the numbers don't look right I'll waste time trying to figure it out.  Just like Sam did with his ROI figures, it struck me as very extreme and the further I dug, the more it didn't make sense.  We all exagerate or we leave parts of the story out that would explain things but everyone's heels are dug in here and it's too late to clear up the story.

As I said, Sam is a ass and I don't doubt for a second he embellishes a bit.  But his shop seems to be having no trouble affording it and you CAN'T argue it's not improved his process.  This is all the ROI some people need, regardless of how well a shop is or isn't running it can always be better, easier, faster, and higher quality of life at work.  Some people don't weigh some of those things as much as they should.  Which reflects in the turn over, trouble with employees, and so on IMO. 

And again, who is saying they can't afford one?  Who said anything about not having profits left over at the end of the year?  I guess you are ASSUMING since some of us that don't believe the Sam ROI story as it's being told that it means we can afford one!!! Many of our arguments are we couldn't see a year ROI on a 50K investment because it's not possible at our shops and the scenario that I've layed out a dozen times where that type of ROI would be possible with that volume shop but Sam has told us 100 times how efficient and systems oriented they are.  I mean the guy gets 720/hr out of an all air DB when others can't come close to that so that tells me they really know what they're doing.  Now back to more facts as I see them:  Higher volume shop=30 month ROI, lower volume shop=11 month ROI, "confused smiley here".  And I've described the scenario at least a dozen times how this ROI thing works in regards to post-DTS and pre-DTS efficiency versus pre-DTS inefficiency so I'm not going to do it again since nobody is reading or comprehending it anyway.

I actually said how can Sam afford it though if he is half your volume and being the ROI is so bad.  Admittedly "can't" afford would be strong words.  The argument for not doing something is often first and foremost "we can't afford it".   I don't doubt that you can afford it, your choosing to let ROI drive your business and that's fine.  You do know best for YOUR business.  But any one thing changes the complete picture for ANOTHER business that isn't a exact copy of yours.  I can tell you this, for the effort you've put in doing ROI over and over and arguing about it on this board IMO it would have been a smarter investment to just buy one.  50k should be NOTHING to a well operating shop doing 7 figures.  I look at things as if when there is plenty left over why not improve the situation. 

My entire argument hinges on a few key facts and it changes completely if those two numbers are changed, or in fact not really facts at all.  $50K is the first one, for arguments sake let's say 12 month ROI is the second one.  Figuring ROI is not easy for some, but for others it's pretty simple to figure.  This is the short and sweet version of how many of us do it, and it doesn't matter where we do it.  You take how much you spend on film, how much labor is involved with using film for your screen development, then setup labor and a few other little things and then you compare them to post-DTS costs and labor and then you take that difference and work some magic with the cost of the machine and how much more money you're saving/making then out poops an ROI figure.  Ever thought about what the ROI figures would be if you only paid 25K for a DTS instead of 50K and then do the math, works out twice as fast doesn't it?  Math is a funny thing and if you change a few numbers in the equation the outcome changes.

ROI all you want till your blue in the face.  If the ROI was soooooo terrible how can Sam easily make it work in his shop that's "half".  Said differently if it impacted his shop so well, consider you might be under estimating how well it would work for you.  Outside the math for a minute Alan.  I know its not comfy out there but consider it. 

I think the same reason why you don't have a 16 color challenger III, a sprint international HO and a Kiwo I-jet II is the same reason why many of us haven't bought a DTS unit yet.  I'd love to argue that my example is extreme but most of us buy equipment when it has an ROI that we think is good.  Your idea and my idea of a good ROI could be completely different but I'm not buying a $50K DTS machine until it makes sense on paper, regardless of whether or not we can afford one.  I have bought things just because I can, a Breitling watch, a stupid Lexus SUV, an even stupider jet ski, but when it comes to the shop, we don't do things just because we can.  I really hope you can understand that instead of assuming the shops that do more volume than Sam can't afford DTS because we're not making a profit.  You assume SOMEONE is blowing all the money because we're arguing against a lofty ROI figure that quite frankly we just don't believe.  Again, $50K, 12 month ROI, average one auto shop volume...not happening at SRI, or Graphic Disorder.  And if you'd like to prove me wrong, I bet someone out there will gladly take your 50K and get you a DTS before the new year.

I've never suggested once what the ROI on a DTS is because I couldn't give a freak less to be honest.  ANYTHING that improves my process, quality, speed, or quality of life in the shop is all the ROI I need.  Again of course assuming we have the capital to do it or that the money isn't best spent on something else.  Obviously DTS isn't our next purchase as we have larger issues like customers wanting more colors and so on which we hope to buy a larger press and dryer next year.  We will see, the money is there, but like you at times I let the math get in the way.  Sorta like I did waiting so long to buy my first Auto that I was told I couldn't afford. 

I think my over all point is don't let the numbers be the only thing you are looking at.....  My dad used to be VP of a 55 mil a year company, a new president did some math on a customer of theirs, HOME DEPOT which was the second largest customer of theirs at the time.  This customer wasn't the most profitable for them due to their demands on price/supply chain/etc.  So they fired that customer.  Today the company is falling apart.  That customer while not super "profitable" was a huge reason the factory could run so efficiently, so when you took 100's of 1000's of pcs outta the mix the place fell apart.  While the example doesn't fit perfectly here it is just one example how some "math" can not exactly tell the full story.