It’s been said numerous times—time is money. We in the printing business need to apply that cliché within our businesses. Ultimately, this is related directly to our sales/administrative and equipment/production departments, which need to work hand-in-hand and each be as efficient as the other in order to realize maximum efficiency.

Administrative staff must keep up with production and keep the presses full, while production must keep up with the administrative staff and produce all the orders that are generated in a timely manner... all the while communicating every step of the way. Sync those two or maybe even one pulling ahead of the other from time to time, forcing the other to keep up, and you will maximize efficiency in your operation while always challenging yourself to find new efficiencies.

Back to the basics

Administrative efficiencies are really all about how quickly a business can respond to a customer, accurately move a customer from the first request for information or estimate to a confirmed job and, beyond that, how fast you can get the job out the door and invoiced.

All these factors have a direct impact on cash flow and the ability to produce future volumes. If you shorten the sales cycle as often as possible, and thus open up the press for the next job sooner… and do so all year long, more jobs can be produced. Here’s a quick look at how administrative efficiencies can help you:

1. Provide estimates quickly—Getting the estimate out sooner than a competitor provides an edge in capturing that job. It means the opportunity to confirm the job sooner and customers perceive the business to be more organized and efficient.

2. Provide mockups quickly—The quicker customers can move from design description or art from a raw file to a mockup or sample, the quicker you can start producing the job.

3. Provide invoices quickly—The sooner a job is invoiced, the sooner the cash gets in the bank. In addition, if you’ve promised your customer an order in 10 business days but you get it to them in five, again, you’re looking organized, efficient, professional, and super appealing to the customer who will likely order from you again.

4. Ship immediately—Don’t waste a day. When a customer has paid for the order, don’t even delay shipping a day if you have to.
While some of these details may seem simple, it’s amazing how many in our industry skip over them. Process those orders; get them in and out of the shop as efficiently and accurately as possible.

Admin and production should be working from all of the same work orders, mockups and other documents and preferably using a data-management system that can be accessed throughout the shop, not only in the admin department where the documents are produced, but down in production where they’re actually used and the true results of the job are recorded.

Production

There are numerous ways to better production efficiencies as well. Think about every step of the process. Ordering blank garments, printing films, burning screens, checking in garments, setting up press, printing tests, producing, tearing down and getting all the final info back up to admin for invoicing. Again, same as admin, all have a direct correlation to cash flow and the volume that can be produced. Here’s a quick look at some production efficiencies that can help:

1. Consistent accurate documents—Make sure the admin and production departments are synced and operating off the same paperwork. The mockup and work order that goes from admin to production needs to be easily readable and have every single tidbit of information the production department needs to accurately produce the job.

2. A healthy motivated production crew—Pay them well, keep them involved, make it fun and keep your employees happy.

3. Clean and functioning equipment—Keep equipment clean and functioning by following the maintenance schedules and developing your own cleaning schedules. Like a doctor or auto mechanic, this will help you prevent unwanted downtime or equipment failures.

Maintaining clean, functioning, current equipment will help you have an edge on your competitors when it comes to workplace efficiencies.

4. Inventory on hand—Keep the appropriate inventory on hand. Or, if you operate the way we do and order garments specifically for each confirmed job, get them in house and set aside as soon as a job converts. This way, if there are any garment shortages or back orders, they can be addressed without any delay to the production schedule.

5. A well thought-out workflow diagram—Organize your shop according to your workflow. Get rid of junk around the shop, get each workstation in an assembly line pattern. Arrange all workstations and supplies as close together as possible; keep them there, keep them clean and print, print, print.

The mockup, along with a work order and product ticket, are used by the customer for all print details and the production department for all print details— both the customer and our production department using the same paperwork ensure there is no lapse in communication and we are producing the order to the customer’s expectations.

It can be hard to calculate the value of these lessons in production. There are the obvious benefits of hard-earned dollars and keeping customers happy, but there are other benefits that are not as obvious—full documentation and records on every job for future tracking and planning, consistent longer-term happy employees, less risk of misprints or just plain disasters in the shop, better ergonomics, and on and on.

For now, really focus on admin and production working together, using the same forms, and communicating incessantly so that there are no surprises in either direction. We definitely don’t want to find ourselves in the age-old restaurant conundrum where the wait staff is upset with the cooks, and the cooks are upset with the wait staff, people are playing the blame game by department, etc. It’s important to attack this as a team.

It’s all about how you present yourself to your customers pre- and post-sale and it’s all about how much volume you can push through the equipment you have on hand in any given day, month or year.