• Maximizing production
• Dealing with personnel issues
• Alleviating spoilage and downtime
• Day-to-day business management
• Tools of the trade
• What’s new in the industry
• Plus…

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How to Print... Better, Smarter, Faster In This Issue: October 21, 2009  •   Running Your Business Every Day •   Double Your Production in 30 Days •   Production Manager's Handbook •   52 Niche Markets for T-Shirt Printers •   Tools of the Trade •   Special Offers for Subscribers Only Running Your Business Every Day Hiring Independent Sales Reps - What You Both Expect What Reps Expect The first thing a rep expects from you is a marketable product. Something that separates your product from the products offered by other screen printers in the marketplace. You must also supply the rep with product samples, catalogs or sales literature, and order forms. Most companies expect these samples to be returned at the end of the selling season. Not only do the samples have value, but for tax purposes, you tread a thin line supplying any selling tools free of charge. The thin line is whether this person is an independent rep or a company employee. A company employee means Social Security, tax withholding, and so on. Talk to your accountant about what you can and cannot do for your independent reps. With samples, one technique for dealing with the cost is to invoice the rep at the time they receive the products. Attempting to collect on this invoice only occurs if the samples are not returned by a pre-approved date. What to Expect from Reps Independent representation not only provides you with the potential for increased sales, but also a level of expertise in the marketplace. Independent reps should possess basic selling skills along with knowledge of the market you want to penetrate. The reps should have a good rapport with many potential customers for your product before they ever put your product into their sample bag. You should be able to judge a rep's ability to sell your product by the other products in his or her line and by that person's track record, which you should have learned during the interview process. Note that I didn't say hiring process. At best, you retain a rep's services, but you don't hire that person. Independent reps are not your employees. You'll have to learn to treat them that way. If you participate in trade shows, you might consider having these reps work your booth. This is mutually beneficial. Note that compensating your reps while attending a show runs the entire range from airfare and hotel, to sharing some expenses. Don't be surprised if your reps disappear from time to time during the show to work other booths for the other lines they carry. Determine the time they'll spend at your booth before you decide to foot the bill for the whole trip. Trade shows also provide the opportunity for a quick sales meeting while you have all or most of your reps in one place. As for the sales volume to expect, you'll have to use your own experience in your territory or similar territories to come up with a standard to judge your reps. Just because someone professes to be a salesperson doesn't make it so. Discuss expectations up front. An experienced rep will be able to add a little education to your expectations. Next Week - Commission Rates Production Manager's Handbook Production Floor Layout and Workflow Ideally, your shop layout should provide you with direct routes between major production areas, allowing you to make the best use of your time and to maximize your efficiency. But your layout should also include the less direct routes to the ink room, the screen room, art department and paths that leads past the restrooms, break room and the soda machine. The objective in developing a shop layout is to create a pleasant and efficient workplace. And since your shop is where your employees will spend a good part of their waking hours, it is important that you view this workplace as an environment. Within a well-planned work environment, production processes move smoothly from one step to the next. In other words, your shop becomes a safe and orderly place where productivity can be maximized. Checking for Flow The first step in mapping your new production floor plan is to sketch a simple diagram of your current production arrangement on a large sheet of paper. Don't get lost in the minutia and concern yourself too much with proportion and exact scale. Next, draw lines and arrows showing the movement of an order through your production system. Think through an actual order, not the ideal scenario. Then take a long look at your diagram. Consider what it tells you about the positives and negatives of your production flow. Does the process seem to move smoothly, or do many intersecting lines indicate that people are tripping over one another? Does your current layout minimize the distance between each step in the process, or are your employees moving excessively back and forth, adding steps and time-dollars to every order? Now, imagine the process with multiple orders as they flow simultaneously through your facility. In other words, picture each person at each work station engaged in working on their own order and their own priorities. This is a great exercise, no matter how efficient you believe your operation may be. To make this exercise even more interesting, photocopy your production floor outline and have several of your employees diagram the same production flow from their own perspective. This invitation for input will build morale because your employees appreciate being part of the planning process. But just as importantly, this feedback will provide enlightening details about your production flow. For example, your employees may point out production steps that you never knew existed. Or you may discover that these same employees are confused about how an order is actually supposed to progress through production. Assumptions of production flow on your part, may not have been communicated to your staff as clearly as you might believe. These issues can be addressed when you sit down to plan the new and improved shop layout. There's no one perfect roadmap to follow. Many of the factors that will determine your shop's floor plan are strictly a matter of personal preference, while others will be based on the eccentricities of your particular facility and production needs. Next Week - Flow and Proximity Tools of the Trade Plastisol Ink Curing Achieving a full cure using plastisol ink should, on the surface, be a simple proposition. Turn on your dryer to the proper temperature, lay the shirt on the belt, and send it on its way. But there are rules, and there are complications we must deal with to be certain of a proper cure. Under heat, polyvinyl chloride (PVC) resins in plastisol ink will dissolve into the plasticizer. To fully fuse the plastisol to the garment, the ink film must be heated to a temperature in the range of 310-320F. At the point when the entire thickness of the ink film reaches this temperature, you will achieve the ideal adhesion to the garment and maximum wash fastness. In other words, the plastisol ink will be fully cured. If the ink film feels dry to the touch but has not achieved a minimum cure temperature, it may give the appearance of being properly cured, but the ink may simply have gelled - all the plasticizer is absorbed but the ink not fully cured. Ink will gel at 180-240F, or partially fuse at 280F. But in either case, without reaching the minimum cure temperature, the garment is not ready for delivery to the customer because it cannot withstand wear or laundering. Flash Drying The gel stage is an important function of plastisol ink for the purposes of producing an underbase print. Textile inks are made to print on textiles, and not on a plastic sheet of cured plastisol. When an underbase is completely cured (or even partially fused) rather than gelled, you are in fact printing your overprint colors onto plastic. This over-gelling can result in the overprinted colors washing out during laundering. To ensure you are not over-gelling your underbase, flash dry only until the ink is dry to the touch, and test your results. Apparent Curing A phenomenon of "apparent" curing occurs when the top surface of the ink film has reached the optimum cure temperature, but the ink closest to the garment has not. This results from the garment itself not reaching the required temperature. A printed garment needs the right combination of time, temperature and air movement to ensure the ink and fabric fuse together. If the physical garment does not have time to reach the correct curing temperature, the ink at the garment's surface (where it touches the ink film) will not reach that point either. The result will be an ink surface cure, but undercuring where the ink physically touches the garment. Over-Curing Over-curing textile inks can also cause problems with adhesion and wearability. Temperatures in excess of 350F can result in a loss of elasticity in the cured ink. When the plasticizer-resin chemical interface is destroyed by excessive heat, the ink can crack or fade when washed. When an underbase is over-cured and then cured again in the dryer after the overprint colors are added, "fisheyes" in the print may occur when the underbase is literally boiled. Frequently, the overprinted ink is blamed for the pock-marked surface, but the problem is actually rooted in the over-curing of the underbase ink. Next Week - Curing Variables Double Your Production in 30 Days Qualitiy Control - Taking Responsibility Let's pretend a major new customer is taking a tour of your production operation today. He asks one of your employees, "Who's in charge of Quality Control here?" Most of your employees would likely point to the end of the dryer belt and say, "Right over there. Those guys are in charge of Quality." In most shops this is the basic reality, directing your visitor to the employees who inspect the print and search out defects as they fall off your dryer belt. Here's the flaw in that scenario. Pointing at those employees at the end of the dryer belt tends to absolve your other employees who are doing the pointing. All these other employees somehow "get a pass" on the quality control issue by assigning the responsibility to a limited group of their coworkers. I write often about attitudes and responsibilities on the production floor and company wide. While our first thought in production management is in technical expertise and training, the reality of successful production is in a positive environment where "taking ownership" and assuming responsibility for success is the priority. Creating clear direction and letting your employees know and understand exactly what is expected of them is the key. In this article, we'll discuss this responsibility issue. Specifically, we'll talk about each employee assuming the responsibility for the quality of the final product that leaves your production floor. This most certainly is a shared responsibility for all your employees, as much a part of order entry as procurement, as much a part of the job of the person pulling garments, as the responsibility of your press operators. We easily make the assumption, as owners and senior managers, that everyone knows what part they play in our final product. We assume that everyone knows they must do their part in the process to make the final product as nearly perfect as can be expected. To make the final product as much like what our customers' expect as is humanly possible. But, in reality, this is a huge assumption. Few of us have made the conscious effort to make Quality Control a primary responsibility. Quality Control as a function of whole-company responsibility takes on a different description than inspecting finished goods for registration, pinholes and correct sizes. This limited inspection is a critically important function, but whole-company responsibility deals as much with a smooth and efficient flow through your operation as it does with the correctness of a finished order. It deals as much with inspecting for pinholes in screen prep as it does at the end of the dryer belt. Company-wide efficiency means taking responsibility and ownership at each step and stage of the production process. The production process begins with your sales reps and flows through your facility right up to your shipping dock. In most screen printing shops, the process normally flows in this direction: 1) sales, 2) order entry, 3) purchasing (and/or inventory), 4) scheduling, 5) art, 6) screen prep, 7) printing, 8) inspection, 9) price/pack and 10) shipping. In your unique situation, you may have other functions and steps in your own chain of production. The opportunities for quality errors seem great though, when you look at the number of steps and hands each and every order must pass through. Every step is an opportunity to either ensure quality or to let a quality monster escape and begin stalking through your facility. This is why it is imperative for individual employees to take responsibility for their own particular steps in the process. Simple mistakes and errors tend to have a snowball effect in any manufacturing operation. The further down the production hill the snowball rolls, the bigger it gets. Before you know it, you've got a hard frozen ball big enough to be the base for a pretty handy sized snowman. And this guy can be difficult to deal with if he gets to be that big. Once the smallest error or poor quality decision is made, it becomes more and more difficult to detect and resolve as it moves from department to department and further away from the point where it developed as a simple oversight or misunderstanding. An error made by an order entry person becomes increasingly more difficult to catch by the time it reaches the art department and screen prep and so on down the line of production. A decision to not question the color of blue on an order, for instance, becomes a much larger problem on the press. The prevailing assumption in most companies is that someone along the line would have caught a mistake before it ever got past the walls of their own departments. "This doesn't seem right, but it surely wouldn't have gotten this far..." This easy-way-out assumption makes your production staff less attentive to the potential for a snowballing mistake rolling across your production floor. Next Week - Errors and Expectations 52 Niche Markets for T-Shirt Printers High School Athletic Beyond-the-Uniform Market Uniforms are one very specialized end of the custom garment marketplace, but there’s another sometimes hidden market within this category. For the custom T-shirt printer, coaches and athletic directors buy plenty of basic T-shirts. Under the jersey, under the shoulder pads, chances are pretty good that the player is also wearing a T-shirt that says something like “West High School Varsity Football”. These T-shirts are purchased for every team at your local high school and middle school, from football to track, from volleyball to soccer. In the world of commodity white T-shirts with one color prints, this is a goldmine. (Include ash in this mix as well. Just as easy to print and will make sense if you’ve ever tried laundering a white T-shirt worn for a few practices or games.) The market is specifically for T-shirts used as practice shirts, position specific like “Bulldog Defense”, weight room shirts and dozens of other “team identity” garments. This can be a “down and dirty” sale. White or ash T-shirts with a dozen stock phrases and basic clip art graphics, along with your local school mascots. 24… 50… 100 white T-shirts for $X.XX. The teams and coaches do not need or want anything fancy here. This is the place for the classic “Central High Athletic Dept” garment. Get in the door with a coach or group of coaches and you’ve got a loyal customer base. Start with a “special offer” mailer to all your local coaches. Find the names online at each school website, or ask any student from that school. Printing tip for using plastisol: Be sure to thin your ink and take care to lay down a minimum ink film. Likely this garment will be worn during hot, strenuous workouts and games, so breathability is a must. No 110 mesh here! Remember athletic directors and coaches are not professional buyers. In fact, they are likely teachers during the day and coaches after hours. Spending time searching for a garment decorator is not a priority. So, make it easy to buy with a price that makes sense, and you have the sale. The Rule for selling to non-professional buyers: Make it easy to buy! When selling to schools, be sure to follow protocol. Even if the kids are kicking in to buy their own shirts, chances are good you still need an official Purchase Order. School bookkeepers hate to get invoices without a properly issued Purchase Order. You go to the back of the line. “Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200.” If the coach is taking care of the money, you may have to remind him or her often. They aren’t avoiding your request nor do they have some desire to keep you from getting your money, but paying this bill will not be a priority. And DO NOT allow the school year to end without getting paid. If you do, plan to sit on the invoice until the next school year. DO pursue this great bread-and-butter garment printing market with all the schools in your area. Special Offers for Subscribers Only Save 10% on all Orders till October 31, 2009 Garment Decorating Supply, LLC is providing a full line of waterproof and non-waterproof film positive material that is identical to what U.S. Screen sold as FastPOSITIVE, now being called QuickFilm MAX and CLEAR. Garment Decorating Supply, LLC is also providing dye based film positive which is identical to FastINK, now called QuickFilm INK as well as an industry RIP software that you can upgrade your FastRIP program too, called QuickFilm RIP. Along with the U.S. Screen products, Garment Decorating Supply, LLC is also offering, FastMANAGER shop management software, training DVD’s, books and stock artwork by Dane Clement of Great Dane Graphics, and T-Seps, the big brother of FastFilms an industry color separation software. Go online to place your order and get free ground shipping in the continental US (with a $50 or more purchase) and as a SPW reader you can also take an additional 10% off you order till October 31st, 2009 by using the coupon code SPW10 during the checkout process. (Offers only good on online orders!) Go to Garment Decorating Supply Screen Print Weekly is a free publication from Terry Combs and 52 Publishing, PO Box 19586, Fountain Hills, Arizona 85269. Please forward this issue to your coworkers and industry friends.  Click here for FREE subscription.   Unsubscribe | Update Profile | Confirm | Forward