Computers and Software > Business/Shop Management Programs

Scheduling Per press/location

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tonypep:
Fast forward to days more typical production model, with a couple to a handful of autos and often smaller minimums. Certainly, all the progress with DTS,LTS, and pre-reg systems will reduce turnover times but still, to me at least, the key is to develop a scheduling model that allows for flexibility without chaotic disruption. We all know how crap happens. Missing shirts, art issues, pallet/paper changes, screen reburns....you know the drill. A seemingly obvious advantage is to put everything on wheels. Of course shirt carts, but screen racks, ink carts, squeegees/floodbars on hand at all times. At Harlequin we had prepress carts with inks, screens, squeegees floodbars, printed design instructions, and approved printed samples kept in a "parking lot" waiting to be assigned to a press for example. Those same carts were used for teardowns where they would be wheeled off for cleaning etc.

My hats off to the shops that have things dialed in with minimum disruption and last minute changes but I feel that is less than normal. So again, for me, flexibility is key; whether you schedule on a monitor or paper. And perhaps not lastly nor leastly, strong management that is capable of changing the course of the day without incurring the inevitable complaints or mutiny! I have also learned over the decades to listen to the seasoned press ops whom, at times, may come up with a more efficient, less stressful approach. Its important to listen and encourage this. Serious morale booster in my experience. Again, every shop has its own set of issues that vary far too greatly for me to comment on exactly how to schedule. Best advice is to learn from what you do already and do your best to streamline. The only constant in this business is change.

tonypep:
Addendum to the addendum.....I've found that whether industry specific, or homegrown, the better scheduling models list the "cliff notes" on each order. # of colors/flashes, yth/adult etc, and course locations and quantities. Color coding helps a lot with this. In some shops You will see check boxes for garments pulled, screens burned, inks ready, approval required, etc. Goes a long way to prevent hiccups

GraphicDisorder:
The key to scheduling time is someone who has done it doing the scheduling. Otherwise IMO it often wont be logical/close.

We used Monday here which is great for us. I sell the job and put it on the logical day. I dont really dictate the order of work ON the actual day so if operator would rather do job 3 first and job 1 5th or whatever that is all fine. We do have 1-5 star system, 5 being must produce that day and works it way down to how "hot" the job is. So in those cases we do the hotter jobs first.

I dont always nail it but in general im pretty close. Its not perfect and its literally by "feel" from having done it so long.

tonypep:
Based on the short period of time I visited you Brandt I'm sure that works about perfect. I believe most of your work is 6-10 colors and very few pallet changes so due dates are good guidelines based on priority. Couldn't agree more that if you haven't spent hard time on the production floor printing, you simply will not be a great scheduler. All the schedulers at OATS were promoted from production.

bimmridder:
We've developed our own "Tracking System" over the years. Years ago we tracked every job as far as pieces, garment color, set up time, tear down time and some other numbers. We (not we, my business partner with the brains) crunched numbers and came up with a system of assigning "units" to a job. A big way of doing some averages basically. Using this system we can schedule by number of units. It's not easy to explain. And I guarantee this system wouldn't work in any other shop. With all of that said, we have a schedule, but we don't. I have access to all of the scheduling info, but I don't post it. We always try to image a day ahead. Much more flexibility for us that way.  Being a big supplier to Minor and Major League Baseball, you may be able to imagine the number of orders running through right now. We are very hands on, making sure we do all we can to please every customer. Sales Manager may come to me and ask if we can switch some orders around. Sh gets to decide which customer gets bumped a day or two. She knows her customers, I know production. Imaging a day ahead gives us flexibility to do these kinds of things. Along with imaging tomorrow's work today, I'm prepping orders that will be imaged tomorrow today. So basically I'm given the freedom to juggle things around in that three day window. Throw in the "must ship by" and "can't ship until" orders and it can get fun. It sounds like chaos, but it works well for us. And no, it really wouldn't work in many, if any other shops. I can almost see the smoke coming out of Tony's ears right now.

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