Wow, Screen Tape Costs!!!

[GraphicDisorder]

I think it all comes down to how good your FPU, film filing and other systems are. If you have a good FPU and other systems, you probably won't see much improvement from getting a DTS. I certainly haven't seen a solid explanation of where all the ROI money is going to come from posted anywhere yet.

Printing film is "hands-off" time, and on repeat jobs you only print film once. Pulling film from a good filing system has to be faster than printing DTS everytime. Taping up screens on a good system like Alan's is faster than any DTS screens I've seen.

A good FPU system has plenty good enough registration.
A good FPU has only 2 tiny marks that need to be taped up or blocked out
A clean shop doesn't have significant pinhole issues.

All of the things that can make a DTS an expensive and low-profit venture for most of us small to medium shops are systems, or can be had for a tiny fraction of what a DTS costs.

If you are having significant set-up times, you don't have a good FPU system or aren't using it correctly.
If you are having pinhole problems, you don't have a clean shop or have employees following the systems
If it takes you a long time to find old films or if they are in poor condition you have a bad film filing system or have employees not following good systems.

A few will tell (belittle) us over and over how great a DTS is, and how good the ROI is for a medium sized shop, but never offer any actual facts. There are plenty of reasonable people here who would love to hear the reasoning and would accept supported facts, there just haven't been many presented.

Some are happy with their DTS. Great, and you certainly don't have to explain yourselves here, but if you do, be prepared to back it up is all I guess. My 60" automatic squeegee sharpener is an undefendable purchase I recently made, I didn't even really have room for it yet, but yet there it sits.  ROI, never probably. Happiness factor is through the roof though. I justify it to myself because I've had several other equipment purchases which complete ROI was achieved in the first production run on them.

Damn you summed it all up perfectly! And you nailed one important fact on the head. Some people will buy certain equipment that have no ROI in any reasonable amount of time but they do so for quality of working conditions. Brandt for example would buy a CTS not because he cannot keep up on screens but because the quality and ease of use you can get out of it. I would never begrudge anyone for doing something like that its awesome actually.

Machines are cheaper than people.  If I can put a machine in that allows the same staff to do their job faster, better, and easier....it just makes sense to go that route before hiring in many scenarios to me.  I am certain I will be a DTS user at some point and I bet it's way before a ROI chart would tell me to do so. 

[Socalfmf]

Ink

having a dts takes out the human factor for lining up film  also film has a thickness which can mess with lining up. 

also has anyone figured out the cost of space to file all the film say over the course of 30 yrs?  or how about the time to file and retrieve each film and the cost to reprint film if needed. 

I know a guy down in Rhode Island that has an entire floor of just film.  what does that cost to have ( taxes, heating, rent, ect?)  also now that it is so big how much time does it take to retrieve and refile?  those are some big aisles.

just a thought.

sam

[GraphicDisorder]

60" automatic squeegee sharpener is an undefendable purchase I recently made, I didn't even really have room for it yet, but yet there it sits.  ROI, never probably. Happiness factor is through the roof though.

I agree with this big time.  Sometimes it's all that matters.....

[inkman996]

To be honest, I'm only lurking and skimming this thread but am I the only person wondering why everyone seems so concerned about how other people are running their business? It seems to me that every shop is different and what's more worth the investment, equipment wise, will vary greatly from shop to shop. Some people may have systems down in their screen department that a CTS wouldn't be more beneficial than a second or faster press. For some shops, maybe additional staff would be more valuable than equipment. Am I missing something here? Didn't this all start out just being about screen tape being pricey?

Scott

You can look at it any way you want but its discussions like this that can expose useful information for others. To be fair the thread had a couple several pages talking specifically about screen tape and useful sources, it was not till someone jumped in with a really arrogant cocky statement about scotch tape that things took a turn. No one once ever mentioned scotch tape till that person and even after a while when people stated their screen tape costs the same person tried to turn those costs into scotch tape costs.

Screen tape is something any shop that is not paying attention to it can make a big impact on their COGS. Imagine how ,many shops out there only use expensive blue block out tape and use it generously. I know this is fact because when i worked on the supply side companies would by blue block out tape by the pallet loads seriously. And when I went to production side I was ignorant enough to believe that same tape was the best and worth every penny. Yet today we spend a fraction on tape costs compared to when we bought blue block out tape and used it willy nilly.

I bet you lurkers lurk and pick up some of this info and make these changes in their shop. Hell I was doing exactly that back in the 90's on the old board.

[inkman996]

Ink

having a dts takes out the human factor for lining up film  also film has a thickness which can mess with lining up. 

also has anyone figured out the cost of space to file all the film say over the course of 30 yrs?  or how about the time to file and retrieve each film and the cost to reprint film if needed. 

I know a guy down in Rhode Island that has an entire floor of just film.  what does that cost to have ( taxes, heating, rent, ect?)  also now that it is so big how much time does it take to retrieve and refile?  those are some big aisles.

just a thought.

sam

Sam that shop is not the norm for us around here and does not really apply when we are talking about medium sized shops in general. To put this in perspective, my cabinet for storing films has a smaller foot print than your CTS. Also it does not cost us any labor because film is always being organized as we go while screens are being burned. Besides it has been said so many damn F!@#ing times we all agree CTS is awesome and really advantageous for the larger shops. You can keep glossing over that fact but it is true.

[alan802]

If Brandt wants to buy things for his shop to make people happier then I won't interfere or try to talk him out of it but I can post my opinion on the matter.  If people are already happy at their jobs, why would you spend thousands of dollars to make them even happier when there is no financial gain to be had?  I will always decide where to spend money based on what I think is important.  A few of those include:  1. Need 2. ROI 3. Efficiency 4. Morale  We need an automatic, we use newman rollers and quality mesh for amazing ROI, our exposure unit is efficient and all those things I mentioned help with morale...unless you're my printer   There are obviously more factors involved in spending money on equipment and tools but doing it just as a "quality of job" isn't enough for me.

I don't know how many times I've said it, I'd love to have a new DTS machine sitting in the art department.  But it still doesn't change the fact that we will not buy ANYTHING if it doesn't make "cents" or sense.  If we all bought things because 1. we want it, 2. we can afford it, then how ridiculous would our lives be?  If you want to spend 50K so Billy Bob's job is easier on his fingernails then that's your decision and I don't have to like it, I don't have to agree with it, but I'll defend my reasoning for saying it's not a good move for our shop to do the same. 

I'd love to AC the production area so my guys aren't sweating all day and when I'm out there I don't have swamp ass but how many of you would spend an additional $15K up front then likely $10-12K per year on additional energy costs?  The increase in production would be hard to quantify unless you did the same types of jobs before and after install but I doubt the AC would have much of an ROI at all.  It's a quality of job decision that I doubt many of you would choose to do.

I would never, ever, under any circumstance spend $50K on something that ONLY makes an already easy job (compared to many labor intensive jobs) even easier.  If that piece of equipment makes our jobs easier while giving us a great return, even better.

This is what I said:
How can DTS have such a poor ROI but Sam can easily afford it who apparently is "half" your shops size?  It's a fair question.... how can he afford it if the ROI is that bad?  Some of you act as if it would put you out of business its such a poor move.   

Who's acting like it will put them out of business?  And your reasoning is completely different than the other sides' in that it sounds like you run your business like some people live their lives "if it feels good, do it".  If you can afford it and it has some benefit, big, small, whatever, then you should buy it?  SRI will not buy a DTS because Sam says he's getting a 1 year ROI and it boils down to this: I DON'T BELIEVE IT.  If we do 25 screens per day, DTS will give us about $200/month in consumable goods associated with film and when it comes to pre-press labor, we would save about 21 minutes a day if we did all new jobs and no repeat jobs where the film was already printed.  If we do all repeat jobs then DTS is in the negative so let's just say half of the jobs are repeats and we save 10 minutes per day in pre-press.  Now on to setup labor film versus DTS...our regi system is legit, it won't be as accurate as a DTS, but when we routinely setup 5 color jobs and the job is ready for production in two test prints, 10 minute setups for a 5 color, I would guess DTS would yeild us about 15 minutes per day on a bad day, 25-30 minutes on a good day for an average of 1.5 hours/week.  So let's just pad the numbers a bit and say DTS will give us 2 more hours a week in labor savings but we can't assume that those two hours we would be printing 800 shirts an hour and losing that revenue of 1600 shirts can we?  No, so if you're using some sort of logic like that in your ROI equation then you're messing up.  What would we normally get done in those two hours at the end of the week when all the jobs got done?  Maybe we pick up a few extra jobs per week and make an extra $250/week and $1K per month (again, padding the numbers in favor of DTS).  Now we have $50K invested so out of all those numbers, how long is our ROI?  Well, padding the stats in favor or DTS and at 25 screens per day we come up with $200/mo (prolly closer to $150 with all the repeat work we do), 2 additional hours of labor at the end of the week to do "something" let's say a couple more jobs per week at an additional $1000 profit/month (I wouldn't mind profiting that for every 8 jobs we did) and I get a rough estimate of 3.3 years ROI for the $50K DTS.

Now 3.3 years is NOTHING to scoff about, that's why us getting a DTS in the near future is even on the table for discussion.  50 screens per day and we're getting there.  100 screens per day=no brainer (unless you're Tony's shop).

[Inkworks]

Ink

having a dts takes out the human factor for lining up film  also film has a thickness which can mess with lining up. 

also has anyone figured out the cost of space to file all the film say over the course of 30 yrs?  or how about the time to file and retrieve each film and the cost to reprint film if needed. 

I know a guy down in Rhode Island that has an entire floor of just film.  what does that cost to have ( taxes, heating, rent, ect?)  also now that it is so big how much time does it take to retrieve and refile?  those are some big aisles.

just a thought.

sam

3 good points there^^.

to paraphrase some great pro-DTS points:
DTS is easier and less prone to human induced error than manually lining up films with a FPU.
DTS makes it easier to have pinhole-free screens.
DTS allows for zero registration marks and the tape-up or block out of them.
DTS allows for zero film storage and all costs associated with it.
DTS allows for faster exposure times than film.
DTS can eliminate mis-registration from film stretch errors or when trying to drop a new sep. into existing film jobs.
DTS is just plain cool.


I have a tough time arguing with any of those, but some of the others presented earlier I have a tough time not arguing with, and it's not just to be a dick. I love slick equipment and buying new stuff.

There is probably some appreciable ROI through savings of DTS being just-plain-easier in many regards, as systems and employees are all variable that need to be controlled. For some of us arguing, it's tough to add up those intangibles and come up with the dollar value a good DTS demands in a reasonable time frame.

[GraphicDisorder]

If Brandt wants to buy things for his shop to make people happier then I won't interfere or try to talk him out of it but I can post my opinion on the matter.  If people are already happy at their jobs, why would you spend thousands of dollars to make them even happier when there is no financial gain to be had?  I will always decide where to spend money based on what I think is important.  A few of those include:  1. Need 2. ROI 3. Efficiency 4. Morale  We need an automatic, we use newman rollers and quality mesh for amazing ROI, our exposure unit is efficient and all those things I mentioned help with morale...unless you're my printer   There are obviously more factors involved in spending money on equipment and tools but doing it just as a "quality of job" isn't enough for me.

I don't know how many times I've said it, I'd love to have a new DTS machine sitting in the art department.  But it still doesn't change the fact that we will not buy ANYTHING if it doesn't make "cents" or sense.  If we all bought things because 1. we want it, 2. we can afford it, then how ridiculous would our lives be?  If you want to spend 50K so Billy Bob's job is easier on his fingernails then that's your decision and I don't have to like it, I don't have to agree with it, but I'll defend my reasoning for saying it's not a good move for our shop to do the same. 

Fault me for caring about my employee's effort, I can accept that.  I never said their job was hard.  I said it would make it easier and it would allow for more output when the time comes.  Maybe I like to be ahead of needs.  There isn't a thing wrong with that either.  BTW Billy Bob is James, and James is a person not just a employee or a number.  I don't mind if his job gets easier and in the process my shop will have the ability to move a little faster if the time ever comes.  I can't seem to find a negative in that, im sure someone has one though ready to fire. 

I'd love to AC the production area so my guys aren't sweating all day and when I'm out there I don't have swamp ass but how many of you would spend an additional $15K up front then likely $10-12K per year on additional energy costs?  The increase in production would be hard to quantify unless you did the same types of jobs before and after install but I doubt the AC would have much of an ROI at all.  It's a quality of job decision that I doubt many of you would choose to do.

I will probably cool my shop some day.  <Shrug>  Just was looking at "bigassfans" the other day. 

I would never, ever, under any circumstance spend $50K on something that ONLY makes an already easy job (compared to many labor intensive jobs) even easier.  If that piece of equipment makes our jobs easier while giving us a great return, even better.

This is what I said:
How can DTS have such a poor ROI but Sam can easily afford it who apparently is "half" your shops size?  It's a fair question.... how can he afford it if the ROI is that bad?  Some of you act as if it would put you out of business its such a poor move.   

Who's acting like it will put them out of business?  And your reasoning is completely different than the other sides' in that it sounds like you run your business like some people live their lives "if it feels good, do it".  If you can afford it and it has some benefit, big, small, whatever, then you should buy it? 

A few of you are acting like its a earth changing choice.  That's all.  It seems way over the top to me to even go on like this over and over.  Yes I run my business like my life......it is my life.  Maybe that's the difference between me and some others.  I wont apologize for that either. 

SRI will not buy a DTS because Sam says he's getting a 1 year ROI and it boils down to this: I DON'T BELIEVE IT.

When did I say I believed Sam's numbers?  I haven't, I didn't, and I don't.  I said if Sam's shop who prints "half" what you do is seeing benefits from it maybe you are underestimating it it to some degree.  I didn't say that meant Sam's numbers were true. 

[inkman996]

All the points Sam and Ink listed make me drool and wish I had one sitting here. But I know its not practical at all for us yet. And I am sure its not all cute bunnies and happy rainbows with DTS. Just like any machine or system things will happen. A screen may be warped, you send the wrong sep, a sep was incorrect, pin holes from dust or poor reclaim, the machine itself hiccuped, the power flickered, its just like DTG. Manus had everyone believing they were simple and stable but yet so many came to realize they are not simple and were finicky as all hell. Compound that with white printers ugh. \

Hell just today I had one of our heads on our 12 head barudan break a bevel gear on the lower shaft. I am looking at a solid day to dismantle and reassemble this particular head. So even tho its the best machine in the business it broke and any machine will break in time.

I am not even confident I can do this in one whole day. To access this particular area requires literally untethering the whole head and removing it from its neighbors, huge job for a cheap part.

[bimmridder]

So is it safe to say that CTS is great for some and not feasible for others?

[Inkworks]

<Snip>  Maybe we pick up a few extra jobs per week and make an extra $250/week and $1K per month (again, padding the numbers in favor of DTS).  Now we have $50K invested so out of all those numbers, how long is our ROI?  Well, padding the stats in favor or DTS and at 25 screens per day we come up with $200/mo (prolly closer to $150 with all the repeat work we do), 2 additional hours of labor at the end of the week to do "something" let's say a couple more jobs per week at an additional $1000 profit/month (I wouldn't mind profiting that for every 8 jobs we did) and I get a rough estimate of 3.3 years ROI for the $50K DTS.

Now 3.3 years is NOTHING to scoff about, that's why us getting a DTS in the near future is even on the table for discussion.  50 screens per day and we're getting there.  100 screens per day=no brainer (unless you're Tony's shop).

You forgot depreciation on that $50K machine..... 

edit, oh and Technology Life Bell Curve, and associated price thereof. What is that same 50K unit going to sell for in 2,5, 10 years. Look at film printers and DTG for examples of what will likely happen to the cost of DTS, or for an even better parallel CTP in the offset world. I'd expect the same, or better machine to be roughly  50% of what it costs today in as little as 5 years....

[tonypep]

So is it safe to say that CTS is great for some and not feasible for others?

Dave that is blasphemous and you know it! Seriously though we did the old school 80 screens 80 minutes thing again this am except it was 120/120. 6 racks.......... set to go for the day maybe longer depends on obvious variables. Our shop is just plain different than those here so what/how we do things does not apply to many here. Trust me the system isn't broken. If those here knew what we print and who we print for most would "get it" I suppose.
On the squeegee sharpener thing well......the blade material was never designed to be abraded in the first place. These were an afterthought of equip companies.

[inkman996]

So is it safe to say that CTS is great for some and not feasible for others?

I think we all have said it many times. I think not practical is a better term.

In my shop I would prefer a WB Discharge dryer over a CTS first.

[bimmridder]

I will tell you one thing, unless you have a very diligent art staff, you can get you a$$ kicked. You don't have film to check to make sure everything correct. You likely won't find out until on press. Can you afford that down time? Or do you make your art department stronger? No, it sure as hell isn't all puppy dogs and rainbows. And it is a machine, it will go down. Can you fix it? (it won't call in sick though) It sure isn't for everyone. but is is right for us. I can't imagine our operation without it (them ) But is sure not a simple plug and play. It's a NEW system within your system, and it damn well better be right for you.

[JBLUE]

I will tell you one thing, unless you have a very diligent art staff, you can get you a$$ kicked. You don't have film to check to make sure everything correct. You likely won't find out until on press. Can you afford that down time? Or do you make your art department stronger? No, it sure as hell isn't all puppy dogs and rainbows. And it is a machine, it will go down. Can you fix it? (it won't call in sick though) It sure isn't for everyone. but is is right for us. I can't imagine our operation without it (them ) But is sure not a simple plug and play. It's a NEW system within your system, and it damn well better be right for you.

 ^^^^^^^ Best answer right there ^^^^^^^^