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screen printing => Screen Making => Topic started by: alan802 on November 15, 2013, 02:19:38 PM
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I am particular about the screen tape we use. I've been buying the intertape #510 and it's a natural rubber based adhesive at 2.5 mil and we've used a ton of different mils and brands of tape over the years and settled on this. I have gotten it for around $4.15/roll and last time a little over $5/roll but now I have to draw the line at $7.99/roll.
I know we have all talked about the tape we use but it's scattered about in different threads. Can you guys list the exact tape you're using to tape the insides of your screens? I'm assuming most are using a natural rubber based adhesive since the others don't work very well, but what brand, spec and supplier?
I don't like the super thin, 1.8 mil tape since we have fans blowing all over production that tape is harder to work with and I don't think I'll like the 2.0 mil but I'm going to try it anyway. So I've bought the #500 Intertape, 2.0 mil but it's price is still way too high for my liking, $6.49/roll. I'll work as hard as I have to to find a more affordable tape that still works but if anyone has one that they love at a good price point let's get it out in this thread. I have a feeling that those who will be buying tape soon are going to be going through this same issue I am.
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3 inch masking tape from ACE hardware 2.85 roll. Been using it for 16 years. Plastisol and discharge jobs. yes paper masking tape.
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We use the 500. (http://www.silkscreen-supplies.com/home/screen-printing-supplies/tape/screen-tape/3-x55-yd-white-tape-24-500)
It is on the thin side but it doesn't bother me much.
We get it a bit cheaper from a different supplier.
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3" 110 yard 2.5 mill natural rubber adheasive clear tape from Uline here. Love it, never leaves residue, easy to work with, holds up awesome through waterbased jobs when applied right. $5.60, down to $4 and change per roll depending on your quantity ordered
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I use 155NR3X110WHITE from Nazdar. Its 110 yards leaves zero adhesive easy to work with but probably thin for you. it is $7.36 a roll. Nazdar has no documentation on its specs nor is it even on their site like half their stuff.
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I am particular about the screen tape we use. I've been buying the intertape #510 and it's a natural rubber based adhesive at 2.5 mil and we've used a ton of different mils and brands of tape over the years and settled on this. I have gotten it for around $4.15/roll and last time a little over $5/roll but now I have to draw the line at $7.99/roll.
I know we have all talked about the tape we use but it's scattered about in different threads. Can you guys list the exact tape you're using to tape the insides of your screens? I'm assuming most are using a natural rubber based adhesive since the others don't work very well, but what brand, spec and supplier?
I don't like the super thin, 1.8 mil tape since we have fans blowing all over production that tape is harder to work with and I don't think I'll like the 2.0 mil but I'm going to try it anyway. So I've bought the #500 Intertape, 2.0 mil but it's price is still way too high for my liking, $6.49/roll. I'll work as hard as I have to to find a more affordable tape that still works but if anyone has one that they love at a good price point let's get it out in this thread. I have a feeling that those who will be buying tape soon are going to be going through this same issue I am.
Tried many other tapes and keep going back to Shurtape CP66 in 72 mm. Google it - you can buy it from many vendors.
Spec sheet is attached.
~Kitson
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Al, do you guys use tape on ALL screens or just wb? we only tape on wb screens. wider scoop coater on the plastisol screens = no tape....I can justify spending a bit more on tape for wb if we don't go through a yard on every screen we make. we use 3" wide paper tape here too.
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We use intertape 2" wide 110 roll and we get it from J&J supply, that's the main tape alone with some blue block tape.
Darryl
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we use ULINE S-6536 3" x 110 yards 2.5 Mil Clear Natural Rubber Tape
144 roll price is at 4.30 per roll
http://www.uline.com/Product/Detail/S-6536/Natural-Rubber-Carton-Sealing-Tape/3-x-110-yards-25-Mil-Clear-Natural-Rubber-Tape (http://www.uline.com/Product/Detail/S-6536/Natural-Rubber-Carton-Sealing-Tape/3-x-110-yards-25-Mil-Clear-Natural-Rubber-Tape)
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This is what we use...am i doing something wrong by not buying more expensive tape?
http://www.ontimesupplies.com/mmm3710t6-bulk-packed-commercial-grade-tape-2in-x-55-yards-3in-core-tan.html (http://www.ontimesupplies.com/mmm3710t6-bulk-packed-commercial-grade-tape-2in-x-55-yards-3in-core-tan.html)
You can pull it off the screens and absolutely zero residue..we dog ear one corner and the way we tape just pulls off easy with one shot. Nothing happens to the tape even after we print 3500 shirts..
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The rubber adhesive is what you want, so if you're okay with its weight/thickness, go for it!
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I am particular about the screen tape we use. I've been buying the intertape #510 and it's a natural rubber based adhesive at 2.5 mil and we've used a ton of different mils and brands of tape over the years and settled on this. I have gotten it for around $4.15/roll and last time a little over $5/roll but now I have to draw the line at $7.99/roll.
I know we have all talked about the tape we use but it's scattered about in different threads. Can you guys list the exact tape you're using to tape the insides of your screens? I'm assuming most are using a natural rubber based adhesive since the others don't work very well, but what brand, spec and supplier?
I don't like the super thin, 1.8 mil tape since we have fans blowing all over production that tape is harder to work with and I don't think I'll like the 2.0 mil but I'm going to try it anyway. So I've bought the #500 Intertape, 2.0 mil but it's price is still way too high for my liking, $6.49/roll. I'll work as hard as I have to to find a more affordable tape that still works but if anyone has one that they love at a good price point let's get it out in this thread. I have a feeling that those who will be buying tape soon are going to be going through this same issue I am.
I don't use it, but found this -
http://www.industrialsupplies.com/displayproductdetail.do?skuSearch=Q52968&mr:referralID=NA&itemGroupOID=216498&origin=pla&cid=pla_goog&9gtype=search&mr:filter=20975063257%26cid&baseItemOID=216498&mr:ad=25000371577&mr:trackingCode=17783EA3-02AF-E011-87D9-001B21A69EB8&source=google_pla&sku=216499&mr:device=c&mr:adType=pla (http://www.industrialsupplies.com/displayproductdetail.do?skuSearch=Q52968&mr:referralID=NA&itemGroupOID=216498&origin=pla&cid=pla_goog&9gtype=search&mr:filter=20975063257%26cid&baseItemOID=216498&mr:ad=25000371577&mr:trackingCode=17783EA3-02AF-E011-87D9-001B21A69EB8&source=google_pla&sku=216499&mr:device=c&mr:adType=pla)
This is the 110 yard in a case of 36 for $3.11 each.
http://www.industrialtapesupply.com/products/Intertape-510-2in-x-110-yds-Natural-Rubber-Carton-Sealing-Tape-Heavy-Duty-Clear.html?utm_source=GoogleShopping&utm_medium=Feed&utm_campaign=Feed (http://www.industrialtapesupply.com/products/Intertape-510-2in-x-110-yds-Natural-Rubber-Carton-Sealing-Tape-Heavy-Duty-Clear.html?utm_source=GoogleShopping&utm_medium=Feed&utm_campaign=Feed)
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we use ULINE S-6536 3" x 110 yards 2.5 Mil Clear Natural Rubber Tape
144 roll price is at 4.30 per roll
[url]http://www.uline.com/Product/Detail/S-6536/Natural-Rubber-Carton-Sealing-Tape/3-x-110-yards-25-Mil-Clear-Natural-Rubber-Tape[/url] ([url]http://www.uline.com/Product/Detail/S-6536/Natural-Rubber-Carton-Sealing-Tape/3-x-110-yards-25-Mil-Clear-Natural-Rubber-Tape[/url])
We use this too. Awesome stuff for WB and plastisol. Best tape we have used yet.
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3" 110 yard 2.5 mill natural rubber adheasive clear tape from Uline here. Love it, never leaves residue, easy to work with, holds up awesome through waterbased jobs when applied right. $5.60, down to $4 and change per roll depending on your quantity ordered
Have you ordered recently?
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Couple of cases 2 days ago.
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Al, do you guys use tape on ALL screens or just wb? we only tape on wb screens. wider scoop coater on the plastisol screens = no tape....I can justify spending a bit more on tape for wb if we don't go through a yard on every screen we make. we use 3" wide paper tape here too.
Will a 20" coater coat a 23" screen? I need to get a new coater and your post made me think I should get a 20" vs the 19"
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We had a local tape supplier a year ago but their prices went up just like I'm seeing with J&J. But from what I'm reading here there is still either a lag with some tape suppliers that might still have tape supply from the cheap days or it's the classic case of cat and mouse with suppliers. Every time I've ordered over the past 2 years the price has increased, from both of the suppliers I've bought from. We buy stuff from Uline but up until now, I've gotten decent pricing from others so I didn't bother with them.
I don't want to speculate but I'm really starting to wonder how J&J could sell me tape for 4.15/roll a year ago and now for that same tape they want $7.99/roll when it looks like all the other suppliers haven't gone up on their prices all that much. I think I might just send this case of tape back, it doesn't look good from what I'm reading here.
Yeah Homer, we tape all screens but you guys know I'm open to try any and all things then settle on a winner. I haven't liked the 2" since my guys tend to get a lot of ink on the inside half of the rollers so the wider tape keeps cleanup quick and easy.
Homer, do you have permanent tape on your screens? What bridges that gap between emulsion and the frame?
I've always wondered how the paper masking tape worked for other printers and maybe we haven't used the right kind but we did use it when I first started. It left a terrible residue in the summer and if you didn't de-tape directly after use then it would stick to the frame as well as leave residue. But like I said earlier, it doesn't cost much to try different rolls and the search for the "best" in everything in production has always been fun for me.
I think I'm going to try every single suggestion besides the 2", no offense to you 2" guys :). I do appreciate the suggestions as well as others who are looking for tape.
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We ordered a few dozen types of tape from uline last year and got a whole box of samples from tape solutions in South Austin. With one exception (i don't remember the product code, but it was from uline, and I'll update this thread with the code tomorrow) they all sucked for one reason or another. A whole lot of them left residue, maybe just because of the central texas heat and humidity, and lots had issues with adhesion or ink getting mixed with the adhesive and bleeding under, etc. None of the masking and paper tapes held up on longer runs. A few of the ones that worked fine for the most part would shred apart when pulling them off the screen, making it take forever to clean up.
Honestly, the split tape from PMI has been the first no mess, no fuss, works as intended tape we have used. It's expensive, but it just works. This next week I am trying out a few kinds of permanent blockout though since that seems to be an even better option in a lot of ways.
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No idea if this would work or not for what you need, but Uline has some really good rubber adhesive CST's at decent pricing. The case of 3" (24 rolls) is $5.60 a roll. Looks to be really similar to the Interape 510...
http://www.uline.com/BL_3073/Natural-Rubber-Adhesive-Tape-Polypropylene?keywords=rubber (http://www.uline.com/BL_3073/Natural-Rubber-Adhesive-Tape-Polypropylene?keywords=rubber) tape
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I use the Uline rubber adhesive tape and have had zero issues. I use the 2" so it's only like $2 per roll for the 55 yard and I think $3.70 for the 110 yard.
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I remember someone mentioning that they use a permanent blockout for the edges of the frame and then use a scoop coater that overlaps the blocked out area. I wanted to try something like that to avoid tape all together.
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PMI 310 3"x110yds per roll. $6.45/Roll free shipping on 2 cases or more.
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I remember someone mentioning that they use a permanent blockout for the edges of the frame and then use a scoop coater that overlaps the blocked out area. I wanted to try something like that to avoid tape all together.
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.
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So to bring up this thread again....
We had PMI split tape send us a sample pack two weeks ago with their 3 lines. We used them up right away and got a few more to test, I have to say I like their stuff. It is without a doubt more expensive, but it is real nice stuff. It seems like it is easier and quicker to work with, but is it worth the extra $$$? Seems like it holds up better with discharge and when cleaning screens to change colors.
Are a lot of people using it? Or have people found that it really isn't worth the extra coin in the long run? It just seems to me like the ease and small amount of time saved may justify the cost.
Thoughts?
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So to bring up this thread again....
We had PMI split tape send us a sample pack two weeks ago with their 3 lines. We used them up right away and got a few more to test, I have to say I like their stuff. It is without a doubt more expensive, but it is real nice stuff. It seems like it is easier and quicker to work with, but is it worth the extra $$$? Seems like it holds up better with discharge and when cleaning screens to change colors.
Are a lot of people using it? Or have people found that it really isn't worth the extra coin in the long run? It just seems to me like the ease and small amount of time saved may justify the cost.
Thoughts?
I'm still using this for split-taping screens. Works great for me:
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-L5AlxNuuej4/UPhd7cr67YI/AAAAAAAACRY/63SSbJAaaD4/s800/20130117_152308.jpg)
Here's the thread about it: http://www.theshirtboard.com/index.php/topic,6212.0.html (http://www.theshirtboard.com/index.php/topic,6212.0.html)
Alan convinced me that clear tape is just as good or better than white tape which I used to get from T&J Printing. My last box of tape came from Staples and it has gone up $8 since my last purchase but free shipping ($4.08 each for 110yd roll):
http://www.staples.com/Tape-Logic-3-W-x-110-ydsL-x-17-mil-Natural-Rubber/product_191551 (http://www.staples.com/Tape-Logic-3-W-x-110-ydsL-x-17-mil-Natural-Rubber/product_191551)
Only 1.7mil but works just as good as my thicker stuff and peels cleaner than the T&J tape.
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Where'd you get the dispenser?
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Where'd you get the dispenser?
http://www.uline.com/Product/Detail/H-836/Tape-Dispensers-Desktop/3-Deluxe-Multi-Roll-Tape-Dispenser (http://www.uline.com/Product/Detail/H-836/Tape-Dispensers-Desktop/3-Deluxe-Multi-Roll-Tape-Dispenser)
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Thanks. Real ingenuity.
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wait a second..you are worried about tape? really who worries about tape costs? oh that's right people running the F**KING BUSINESS.
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wait a second..you are worried about tape? really who worries about tape costs? oh that's right people running the F**KING BUSINESS.
Sam their is a vast difference between costs when comparing scotch tape for films and screen tape for screens. No need for the obnoxiousness
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Just for comparison sakes.
I figure we spent about $1500 on screen tape last year. I would guess no more than $5 on scotch tape for films. Hell we spend more on toilet paper in a month than we do on scotch tape.
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wait a second..you are worried about tape? really who worries about tape costs? oh that's right people running the F**KING BUSINESS.
Why are you so angry :)
I do concern myself with most everything we spend money on as well. Over $2K in tape that we just throw away 5 minutes after a job is done. I do not worry about scotch tape for film other than knowing that it makes up .00016% of our consumable costs...seriously.
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wait a second..you are worried about tape? really who worries about tape costs? oh that's right people running the F**KING BUSINESS.
Why are you so angry :)
I do concern myself with most everything we spend money on as well. Over $2K in tape that we just throw away 5 minutes after a job is done. I do not worry about scotch tape for film other than knowing that it makes up .00016% of our consumable costs...seriously.
Sometimes to save money on scotch tape for films, I just spit on the screen..... :P
Sorry, was that too soon? ;D
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^^Awesome. Actually if you use WP film, a little heavy breathing on it will make it stick. ;D
I think we bought ten bucks worth of Scotch tape three years ago--still have an extra roll in the drawer.
As far as the actual topic goes, we only spend a few hundred a year on screen tape, but I haven't seen a brand of frame tape that is so expensive it's WAY less cost effective than the cheapest crap I can find.
What I found was that using PMI on frames @ fifteen to twenty cents each costs us less than spending ten cents a screen on cheap tape AND a minute or two fighting with it... but I'm certainly not saying that's the situation for anyone else.
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wait a second..you are worried about tape? really who worries about tape costs? oh that's right people running the F**KING BUSINESS.
Why are you so angry :)
I do concern myself with most everything we spend money on as well. Over $2K in tape that we just throw away 5 minutes after a job is done. I do not worry about scotch tape for film other than knowing that it makes up .00016% of our consumable costs...seriously.
Holy crap $2k a year on screen tape. We've been using 3M 347 packing tape for years with no problem , one strip of tape around inside of frame and 2 strips on back to cover reg. marks. never a problem on our auto.
At what I pay that would be 55cases of tape (36 rolls). You must be cranking out the screens.
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wait a second..you are worried about tape? really who worries about tape costs? oh that's right people running the F**KING BUSINESS.
Why are you so angry :)
I do concern myself with most everything we spend money on as well. Over $2K in tape that we just throw away 5 minutes after a job is done. I do not worry about scotch tape for film other than knowing that it makes up .00016% of our consumable costs...seriously.
Holy crap $2k a year on screen tape. We've been using 3M 347 packing tape for years with no problem , one strip of tape around inside of frame and 2 strips on back to cover reg. marks. never a problem on our auto.
At what I pay that would be 55cases of tape (36 rolls). You must be cranking out the screens.
Crunching the numbers a little more it's probably closer to $3K than $2K but we use the tape for everything, including taping up boxes in shipping to getting lint balls from screens. I found that using 3" tape for sealing boxes is cheaper than the 2" since it almost always took 2-3 strips of the 2" on a box and now almost always 1 strip of tape on the box with the 3". Also, there is a roll of tape, sometimes 2, on every print head on the auto so there is at least 10 rolls on the auto, and 2-3 rolls on the manual. We've produced somewhere around 5,500-6,000 screens this year with approximately 50,000 ft of tape used on screens alone, then counting the 10-15,000 ft used for other stuff around the shop. Good lord, shops way bigger than us must use miles and miles of tape making our consumption look like a drop in the bucket.
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...Man, I dunno whats wrong with you guys sometimes. Why anyone is still effing around with screen tape is beyond me.
...Spend 25 bucks on a 19 inch coater, and then use blockout the rest of the way. Kill the possible pinholes AND eliminate tape entirely. In fact, we have switched to a new blockout that is water-resistant, and it DOES WORK. Whats cool about this is that if you have images ganged to both sides of the screen (or just need to reset a job up), you can de-ink it in your washout sink (we use beaniedoo specifically for this), scrub it down and rinse with water. Let dry, and its like a freshly burned screen right back on press. No press wash, rags, nothing.
...you can get the blockout from our good friends at Scott and Brandon at SpotColorSupply:
http://shop.spotcolorsupply.com/Water-Resistant-Blockout-Water-Resistant-Blockout.htm (http://shop.spotcolorsupply.com/Water-Resistant-Blockout-Water-Resistant-Blockout.htm)
...believe me, I was resistant to the whole idea too, I had been taping screens for 17 years. Then on the encouragement of some here that proposed this method (THANKS HOMER), I committed to trying it for one month. Haven't bought a roll of tape since. Its amazing how stuck in our methods we are sometimes, and how hard it is to break out of them, regardless of the benefits.
...I sound like a former 12-stepper over here don't I?
"Hi, my name is Sean, and I am addicted to Split tape."
;D ;D ;D
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Mike and Alan. I find it funny that I get jumped on because I included tape in my ROI and now someone is talking about tape costs it is ok. hahaha..well you know what? it all costs money and that comes out of my paycheck!
so I love the double standards you guys have!
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Mike and Alan. I find it funny that I get jumped on because I included tape in my ROI and now someone is talking about tape costs it is ok. hahaha..well you know what? it all costs money and that comes out of my paycheck!
so I love the double standards you guys have!
Sam, for the record, you didn't get "jumped on". You had talked about your ROI and said you were going to provide numbers in a few weeks. Months went by and nothing. So I asked about the numbers (politely) and you said that you were still calculating ROI as you kept finding things everywhere. You mentioned that you had just discovered that you had saved $90 bucks in scotch tape a year for example. (if my memory is correct, that was the amount). I simply suggested that you were getting too anal with it and in fact you were potentially losing money looking for the small things at this point. Meaning that you had plenty of data and I didn't think anyone was going to go... "if there was only about $90 more bucks I could save somewhere this would make total sense to me".
This is the same sentiment being expressed right now. People are discussing this because it's THOUSANDS a year in cost, not under a $100 bucks. No one beat you up because you were concerned about tape, it was only suggested that it was starting to get very minor and that the bigger picture is what we were curious about.
Then you got all pissy, took your ball and went home with it.
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Mike and Alan. I find it funny that I get jumped on because I included tape in my ROI and now someone is talking about tape costs it is ok. hahaha..well you know what? it all costs money and that comes out of my paycheck!
so I love the double standards you guys have!
Did you not follow the rest of the thread?
$5 worth of scotch tape versus several thousand in screen tape.
Scotch tape around here falls under basic office supplies, screen tape is a real quantifiable cost. There is no double standards when comparing two totally different products.
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This seems a lot of pages for tape, but what the hell, I'll jump in. We like good old fashioned masking tape on the inside (some of our printers are so neat, that they only tape the tops and bottoms, never the sides) and the 2.0 mil rubber adhesive tape on the print side. We buy our rubber adhesive plastic tape from Atelco, 2" x 100M (109.something yds) for 3.99 per roll, 36 in a case.
Steve
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Mike and Alan. I find it funny that I get jumped on because I included tape in my ROI and now someone is talking about tape costs it is ok. hahaha..well you know what? it all costs money and that comes out of my paycheck!
so I love the double standards you guys have!
Gilligan summed it up pretty much, but I'll jump in here and say that trying to compare the $50 we spend on scotch tape to the 50,000 ft of screen tape is just plain dumb. That's unlike you Sam, you're usually trying to convince everyone around here how smart you are.
Funny that you of all people are complaining about a double standard where there is absolutely none.
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I know Sam has a hard edge, but I usually think he's trying to point out that "doing it right" will get you a lot further than struggling along with bad processes. He's studied and worked pretty hard to get to where he's at, and he's seen small shops go down around him because they really didn't know what they were doing. I never get that he thinks he's smarter than everyone, but he does recognize when someone makes a post that is less than wise in a business sense, that it may be foolhardy, and he makes it pointedly. With the info available, especially here with all the givers here, people can have nice operation going and make a decent to very good living. But it ain't easy, and you (any of us) have to be "smart".
Steve
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I agree with you Steve.
It's just along those same lines that people point out it has become "less than wise in a business sense" to worry about the cost of scotch tape when calculating the ROI of a 50k machine. We are talking about like less than a point of a percent of the total cost of the machine.
When someone else worries about savings thousands of dollars going DIY or used he is quick to say how foolish it is to worry about the cost of just getting it done. And I agree some times. I just bought my vac hose attachment at what I feel is a ridiculous $90 because I have wasted too much time TALKING about making one for a few bucks. He would be the first to say I'm wasting my time worrying about a $90 item. Yet it's the exact same amount that he is worried about when talking about a 50k machine!
We just all felt that he should stop worrying about if Rich dropped a nickle in his machine as he looked over it and get on with things. ;)
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I know Sam has a hard edge, but I usually think he's trying to point out that "doing it right" will get you a lot further than struggling along with bad processes. He's studied and worked pretty hard to get to where he's at, and he's seen small shops go down around him because they really didn't know what they were doing. I never get that he thinks he's smarter than everyone, but he does recognize when someone makes a post that is less than wise in a business sense, that it may be foolhardy, and he makes it pointedly. With the info available, especially here with all the givers here, people can have nice operation going and make a decent to very good living. But it ain't easy, and you (any of us) have to be "smart".
Steve
Sorry if my post sounds like I'm saying that Sam isn't smart, I'm sure he's got an IQ that more than a mother can be proud of. The nature of his argument was absolutely dumb and it's always been my opinion and mine alone probably that Sam speaks as if he's imparting pearls of wisdom upon those who have a lesser mental capacity than he possesses. Speaking the way that I comprehend his posts is fine if you're a PH D professor giving a lecture to a bunch of college freshmen but when your speaking to many people who are as talented or more, as smart, have equal or more success, etc it helps to speak with a tad bit of humility and to act like he very well could be the 2nd or 3rd smartest guy in the room. My personal issues with Sam aren't without provocation as he's on more than a few occasions replied to a very innocent post of mine that wasn't meant for needing advice and it's rubbed me the wrong way. That's my problem and I don't want to be one to create a negative atmosphere and I do try to ignore posts like that most of the time. It's little more than banter for the most part but sometimes one can overreact and say something out of line and maybe I'm guilty but there was no reason for a post like Sam did so obviously there was reaction. I understand it's perfectly ok for any of us to inject our comments wherever we so choose, but just like there is freedom of speech in our country, there are repercussions at times.
That's my take and my opinions on the matter. Now how about some tape talk?
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I for one am using too much dang tape at the moment, I gotta round the ends of those sharp ass squeegees!
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So, that's a "no" on the PMI tape from people then huh?
The more I use it, the more I start justifying the added cost.
Now, if they only made a replacement for scotch tape...
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one thing we took into consideration was not so much the cost of the tape, but applying and removing it. all that time adds up, mostly removing. those costs add up fast...and if we can crank out a few more screens in washout by not dealing with tape, we come out far ahead...however, we do have some tape on hand for waterbase stuff but thanks to Mr Tees - I have some waterproof blockout to purchase! anything to make our job easier....
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Bingo! This is a perfect example of the type of thing many "consultants" will overlook. Generally speaking most will find that application labor dollars far exceed the cost of the raw material. Most screen printers/makers over apply tape as insurance when there are several steps that can be taken to minimize the need for this, regardless of what product you use.
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I have a question for the "no tape" people. Are any of you using roller frames? It seems like a nightmare to get ink under the rollers.
Matt
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I have a question for the "no tape" people. Are any of you using roller frames? It seems like a nightmare to get ink under the rollers.
Matt
no rollers for us. all S mesh statics and panel frames that we stretch in house.......Rollers just didn't fit in our shop....
I know, I caught hell from sam already, no need to dish more....
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I have a question for the "no tape" people. Are any of you using roller frames? It seems like a nightmare to get ink under the rollers.
Matt
Our best manual printer does not tape the insides on the sides, only the top and bottom. I know I would make a mess, but she doesn't, and this girl can print like hell. So, if one doesn't have that kind of control, it's best to tape up. And yes, it is a pita to get ink under the rollers...
Steve
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I have a question for the "no tape" people. Are any of you using roller frames? It seems like a nightmare to get ink under the rollers.
Matt
no rollers for us. all S mesh statics and panel frames that we stretch in house.......Rollers just didn't fit in our shop....
ritical
I know, I caught hell from sam already, no need to dish more....
Sold all our rollers. A tight frame is just that; square or round. Plus we're WB so tension less critical.
So statics and no tape. Clean with water. No residual adhesive to fight and no pricey rubber tape.
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...I do use statics only, and I can see how that could be a problem if it gets WAY under there on a rollerframe. We do get ink on the inside area of the frame, but it just gets scrubbed off during reclaim or the de-inking process I mentioned earlier.
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So, that's a "no" on the PMI tape from people then huh?
The more I use it, the more I start justifying the added cost.
Now, if they only made a replacement for scotch tape...
I'm going to keep using their split tape. The ease of use and speed more than justify the extra expense for me. I got sick as crap of pulling little shredded pieces of tape off my screen every time or having ink leak under or react with the adhesive on other brands and make clean up a pain.
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I've got about 12 rolls of the split tape and it's great stuff but I do not think it's worth the cost because it doesn't come off much easier than the tape we currently use at half the price. So several minutes a day maximum (on our heaviest reclaim day) would be saved by using PMI here at SRI. Our screen tape doesn't shred for whatever reason and usually all four sides comes off in one pull, all together in one piece. It doesn't come off as easy as the PMI, but some of the issues that some have with their screen tape doesn't happen here for whatever reason. Could be the adhesive of the tape we use, or more likely the thickness/mil of the tape we use is higher than the 1.7-1.8 mil that a lot of shops use. I love the 2.4 mil stuff and there is no way it would split when pulling off.
On the subject of permanent block out: I've printed a few jobs recently without taping up the insides of the screens but I wouldn't trust my guys to be able to do that and not make a mess. Without tape there on longer runs the ink would creep under the rollers and good lord what a mess that would make.
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Not being able to permanently block out roller frames is maybe the only negative thing about them. It drives me mad how much we "waste" on the tape and the labor to put it on, pull it off. That video from the German dude with the statics built with a bevel to drain water, permanent blockout on perimeter, just coat and go, that's the goal in my opinion for best possible throughput.
This topic alone makes me seriously consider stretching our own statics.
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can you buy those beveled frames in the states? They looked awesome...
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What frames are you guys referring to?
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ok so I have thought about this for a while. your tape cost is 1% if you do 300k in screen printing. So we are all worried about 1%? now if you do 600k well you see where this is going.
now I do not know how much he does in sales volume for screening but 300k is not that much for the staff he has.
thoughts?
again it is only 1%. so really it isn't that big of deal right?
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3k is a big deal no matter what the size of your operation. Better to find it now then when your bigger and have to track down numerous 3k items wasting money.
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...if you were spending $3K on scotch tape to tack up films, then good on ya. This thread is about screen tape, not film attachment tape. You know that, and so does everyone else. The spin didn't work, man, quit trying to kick a dead horse already. Sheesh.
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ok so I have thought about this for a while. your tape cost is 1% if you do 300k in screen printing. So we are all worried about 1%? now if you do 600k well you see where this is going.
now I do not know how much he does in sales volume for screening but 300k is not that much for the staff he has.
thoughts?
again it is only 1%. so really it isn't that big of deal right?
And scotch tape is 1% of that 1% for the same bottom line. I do see where you are going.
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Assuming five inches of scotch tape per screen (1.25" per film corner) I came up with $0.02 per screen for the good stuff bought
by the single dispenser/roll.
At 100 screens per week that's $2 a week, $104 a year.
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Our screen guy re-uses scotch tape for taping film on screens, get 3-5 uses out of each tab, seriously. it's faster than grabbing a new piece each time and folding over an end. that and he often uses only two tabs per film, so maybe 3" per screen, divided by re-use of 3, = 1"/screen. or $20.80/year at 100 screens a week.
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"You know how many crumb cakes I can get with that... you know how many chocolate milks?!" - DBAMTSCWDYJITH
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Our screen guy re-uses scotch tape for taping film on screens, get 3-5 uses out of each tab, seriously. it's faster than grabbing a new piece each time and folding over an end.
Not trying to add to the fire (side from the occasional sarcastic comment) but it if also extremely common for us to do this, reuse the tape that is.
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Without a dip tank, my screen tape says on for the next job, and the next job, and sometimes the next job, etc.
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Tees this thread is about money..plain and simple money. while it was not important during my ROI on a machine now all of a sudden it is important. but then again at 1% of your sales is it really important? hell yeah it is. every penny is important and with todays customers and financial situation it is even more important. that is my point. every penny counts.
sam
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Why are people confusing scotch tape cost for films and tape for screens? Sam no where in this thread did someone make scotch tape an importance and no where did someone say scotch tape is 1% of their sales. They are talking about screen tape.
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Ink, he's making the point of calculating costs for when he switched to a DTS machine to eliminate film, ink, and scotch tape. People bitched that he went as far as to calculate the cost of scotch tape into his ROI on the DTS machine. It's the ongoing battle between Alan and socal about roi on a dts machine.
No direct correlation to screen tape costs, just socal ribbing Alan and vice versa.
Every penny counts. 'Time' is a lot of pennies an hour.
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I personally didn't b!tch that he went that far. I only suggested that he not hold back on the numbers that he said he was going to present because he was still finding .01% savings. Not 1% but 1% or 1%. So does every penny count? Yes, but we are actually talking about fractions of said penny.
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yeah, and the time to apply the tape, that costs more than the tape itself...when our press stops for a minute, it costs me between $3-5 on average...for a single minute. So when it takes me about 30 seconds to apply the tape to a screen, that adds up....that person could be spending that time digging out wedgies, picking their nose, texting, eating, smoking, taking a long bathroom break and so on.
Speaking of screen tape, we went to clear tape because it's faster to remove. We have less tears and tiny pieces to pick off, so an untaper can do more screens an hour...so a little more upfront costs less in the long run.
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Tees this thread is about money..plain and simple money. while it was not important during my ROI on a machine now all of a sudden it is important. but then again at 1% of your sales is it really important? hell yeah it is. every penny is important and with todays customers and financial situation it is even more important. that is my point. every penny counts.
sam
I'll say that in my opinion, over the course of an entire year 5,000 pennies doesn't count, but 300,000 does. Our screen tape costs are well over 1% of our CONSUMABLE COSTS and I'm not giving one damn about our yearly sales. Scotch tape for film costs us $50/yr and screen tape costs us $3K/yr. That's a difference of 2,950 isn't it? If you choose to put $60 into your DTS ROI then I don't have a problem with it, I'm saying it's so miniscule that it wouldn't make a difference if it were there or not, it doesn't change the numbers enough to give a damn about. I'm not saying that $3K is this ridiculous number that we can't handle but if I drop our scotch tape usage by 50% it won't be felt in the bottom line. If I drop our screen tape usage by 50% it's the difference in giving the guys a $500 bonus at the end of the year or not. This has nothing to do with our annual sales, if we did 2 million a year our tape usage would still be the same percentages of consumable costs and be relatively the same problem and our scotch tape usage would still be so small that it wouldn't matter.
I don't know why you can't seem to grasp the difference in $50/yr versus $3K/yr but I'll try one more time. $2, 950 is the difference...has nothing to do with annual sales or how big my staff is. I'd bet money that Sam's production staff is at least the same as ours if not bigger but than again Sam operates a screen printing eutopia where people and machines accomplish numbers that aren't possible at other shops. It happens and maybe I'm just too cynical, or maybe I'm not.
And about the DTS ROI, it all boils down to this: I've got questions on how a shop Sam's size can get an ROI on a $50K machine and the responses I got never came close to answering them so I have to assume a lot of things. I assume this, I assume that, and when I've assumed so many different scenarios I come to the conclusion that it's not likely that anyone else in a remotely similar circumstance would get anything close to that ROI. It could be just another example of how one shop is capable of feats that others can't duplicate or perhaps it's something completely different, we may never know.
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From what the sales reps and other people have told me, I'd need to be running 50 screens/day at a minimum for the DTS to begin to make sense. I've run the numbers for myself as well, and we're going to have to be processing a lot more work before we can buy a 50K DTS. Now, if the cost could be cut in about half we'd be looking at buying one tomorrow!
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From what the sales reps and other people have told me, I'd need to be running 50 screens/day at a minimum for the DTS to begin to make sense. I've run the numbers for myself as well, and we're going to have to be processing a lot more work before we can buy a 50K DTS. Now, if the cost could be cut in about half we'd be looking at buying one tomorrow!
Same scenario here. We do not run 50 screens a day, maybe half of that on the busiest day and more like ten as an average. We are so far from realizing a 5 year or less ROI on one of those machines. I see a second auto installed long before a CTS. To be honest I cannot see a single auto supporting 50 screens a day on average. Imagine ten jobs at ten screens a piece or 20 jobs at 5 screens a piece all on one press phew! have fun with that.
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From what the sales reps and other people have told me, I'd need to be running 50 screens/day at a minimum for the DTS to begin to make sense. I've run the numbers for myself as well, and we're going to have to be processing a lot more work before we can buy a 50K DTS. Now, if the cost could be cut in about half we'd be looking at buying one tomorrow!
I've been told the same thing, well, similar numbers close to 40 screens per day. If we didn't gang up most of our images we'd be over the 40 threshold but we are steady around 20 on a slow day, 30 on a busy day. One day a few weeks ago we topped 40 in a day for the first time ever, I was stoked until I had to help reclaim them. I put 10 brand new screens into production last week and it doesn't feel like I did any. We never have enough. I've got 140 good screens right now but I feel like we need at least 200 usable screens right now.
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Although this thread has derailed somewhat, the ROI on CTS does not pan out for us either. I can definitely see how it can for others and it would be cool to have; the #s don't crunch. Everyones different. Basing it on film and tape does not make sense to me; its time and quick press setup, less pinholes etc.
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again film and tape are one item in the puzzle..we are making it more on the set ups, not taping regi marks, no pinholes, ect. that is where we are making the ROI so fast.
I challenged each of you to do a time study of the course of 1 day on how long it takes to just tape up regi marks on all the jobs you do in a normal day. I bet it is close to 25-30 min. that is 200-400 shirts. what the profit on 200-400 shirts?
start doing math like that and you will see the ROI
again this is just for taping regi marks...
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again film and tape are one item in the puzzle..we are making it more on the set ups, not taping regi marks, no pinholes, ect. that is where we are making the ROI so fast.
I challenged each of you to do a time study of the course of 1 day on how long it takes to just tape up regi marks on all the jobs you do in a normal day. I bet it is close to 25-30 min. that is 200-400 shirts. what the profit on 200-400 shirts?
start doing math like that and you will see the ROI
again this is just for taping regi marks...
The problem with your challenge and this has been pointed out and not addressed by you in the past is this.
In our shop and i would assume the majority of shops saving 20 to 30 minutes a day does not equal more work magically appearing out of the sky. If we had more printing than we could handle with in a weeks time then we would have to buy another press and hire help. We are not at that stage and that means a CTS would not actually save us any money with ROI because a CTS is not generating more work for us.
For the shops spinning their presses non stop all day then yes it makes huge sense to start searching for time savings. Its pretty basic thinking.
Sam before you got the CTS were you turning print jobs away because your 8 color DB and film printing was unable to keep up with the demand? I am just curious, I know a DB has limits on how much it can print. Post CTS are you now actually printing more work that you do not have to turn down because the CTS is gaining you enough time to print more? Be honest with your answer, did you pick up more work after your CTS that you previously would not do?
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again film and tape are one item in the puzzle..we are making it more on the set ups, not taping regi marks, no pinholes, ect. that is where we are making the ROI so fast.
I challenged each of you to do a time study of the course of 1 day on how long it takes to just tape up regi marks on all the jobs you do in a normal day. I bet it is close to 25-30 min. that is 200-400 shirts. what the profit on 200-400 shirts?
start doing math like that and you will see the ROI
again this is just for taping regi marks...
True in concept, but a false ROI unless you are ACTUALLY FILLING THAT MADE UP TIME WITH PRINTNG. If you were turning away work because you spent too much time taping film and regi's, then im sellin my equipment and workin for you.
Either way, turning the subject from screen frame tape to scotch tape just to try to have a reason to be right and call someone a hypocrite is pretty uncool, and kind of insulting to our intelligence if you ask me.
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Mike
yes and no...we now can get that work done faster which mean more work through which means we can take more work. I understand what you are asking, but if you get the work done faster, you get more revenue. but also faster work means you can take those RUSH jobs and charge a premium and earn new customers.
we were not necessarily turning work away, but now we can take more work and do it in a shorter timeframe which seems to be the norm in todays world.
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Tees...no the problem is cost of something. His tape consumption is not a big deal at 1% is it? I think it is, but then again you apply it somewhere else ( ie ROI on a machine it is stupid)
this is about making money. I commend Alan for looking at costs since most people do not know their true costs. Maybe I overthink costs and systems but I can tell you we grow between 20-40% a year and my mentor is great and I am looking at all costs right now and how those costs and systems affect my bottom line. I know if is can save 50 bucks 100 times a year that is real money. money going into my pocket or to buy lunch or to give a bonus sometime during the year. we have some great systems in place within our business and we fine tuning them to make them even better.
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Tees...no the problem is cost of something. His tape consumption is not a big deal at 1% is it? I think it is, but then again you apply it somewhere else ( ie ROI on a machine it is stupid)
this is about making money. I commend Alan for looking at costs since most people do not know their true costs. Maybe I overthink costs and systems but I can tell you we grow between 20-40% a year and my mentor is great and I am looking at all costs right now and how those costs and systems affect my bottom line. I know if is can save 50 bucks 100 times a year that is real money. money going into my pocket or to buy lunch or to give a bonus sometime during the year. we have some great systems in place within our business and we fine tuning them to make them even better.
...whether or not someone wants to apply the $25 cost of scotch tape toward ROI on a CTS is irrelevant here, if you wanna great, if not great. But this thread was about frame tape (a substantially higher-cost expendible,BTW), until YOU tried to make it about scotch tape in an attempt to belittle someone else in reference to a thread from umpteen months ago. Am I the only one kinda turned off by that here, really? Is that what the boards are about now? I don't get it.
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Mike
yes and no...we now can get that work done faster which mean more work through which means we can take more work. I understand what you are asking, but if you get the work done faster, you get more revenue. but also faster work means you can take those RUSH jobs and charge a premium and earn new customers.
we were not necessarily turning work away, but now we can take more work and do it in a shorter timeframe which seems to be the norm in todays world.
That theory only applies if the work is out there and going to be available to you. This is not possible for everyone in the business.
Getting work done faster only earns you more revenue if you can either fill your labors time with other work or cut their hours.
No one is arguing with you about saving a few bucks, its fine and dandy we all prefer to save money. But at the end of the day what some will not say is claiming an ROI in less than a year on a supporting piece of equipment that is supporting a diamond back sounds like BS. Everyone here can run numbers as well as you and no one to my knowledge can present numbers that say your ROI on a diamond back one shift is possible.
I think spending 50K on a new press which actually produces shirts makes a lot more sense in the long run than a CTS. Having two presses at or close to capacity brings in the benefit of CTS technology and a reasonable ROI.
Your numbers which you have refused to back up with data insults some peoples intelligence, there is people here smarter than you but you continue to insult them with your wild numbers and not back them up.
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Tees...no the problem is cost of something. His tape consumption is not a big deal at 1% is it? I think it is, but then again you apply it somewhere else ( ie ROI on a machine it is stupid)
this is about making money. I commend Alan for looking at costs since most people do not know their true costs. Maybe I overthink costs and systems but I can tell you we grow between 20-40% a year and my mentor is great and I am looking at all costs right now and how those costs and systems affect my bottom line. I know if is can save 50 bucks 100 times a year that is real money. money going into my pocket or to buy lunch or to give a bonus sometime during the year. we have some great systems in place within our business and we fine tuning them to make them even better.
Again Sam the 1% is about frame tape not scotch tape. I dare you to find any where in this thread where someone said they spend 1% of their sales on scotch tape.
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Of course this is all about making money but, more specifically, about identifying constraints and how best to apply resources ($$) to minimize them. For some, lack of work is the #1 constraint. In this case I would imagine that one would consider applying money to a more aggresive marketing and merchandising budget which would include trade shows (not screenprint shows), sales staff, etc. For others the constraint is poor planning and staging. No sense having the best of everthing if there is idle time due to lack of organization. Those dollars might best be applied to scheduling and/ or Production Manager. So if one has $50K to apply to process improvement the idea is to spend it in the way that that will result in the highest impact. CTS is an option and just that.
I know this is obvious but........
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Tony
I could not agree more...people often only look at the $$ being spent, not the money being lost by not doing something.
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IMO if everyone figured in the time savings not having to argue about DTS ROI they'd be able to afford the machine. Just food for thought ;)
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Tony great point you make there about a businesses #1 constraint and what it is. In our case our 1# constraint is lack of work. Not saying we are not doing well, we are doing great in fact. But at the end of the day we are not running all of our equipment at its full ability. Thats a goal we would love to reach and move on to expanding fro their. Sam makes a statement that people often look at money being spent versus money not being made. Where he comes up with this idea is beyond me, I would imagine everyone here is always looking for increasing sales. In fact there is by far more increasing sales posts than saving money posts. So his statement is flawed and actually just tailored to support his own arrogance against the rest of us.
Increasing sales in our shop is a huge topic and always first in how and what we can do to better the business. The problem is we want to generate more work of the type we want and not the type that can hurt us. We have been in contact with many large brokers that would not even talk to us unless we had two or more autos. I cannot tell you how many brokers turned us down because we do not have enough embroidery heads. Sure we could plot in some more equipment and have all that wonderful low as hell margin work but its not what we want.
To sum it up we have the equipment and systems to produce more product it is just a case of generating the type of sales we want as a mature business.
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To be fair Inkman, Sam has the opposite problem as you lately it seems. He seems to be having to work all weekend or a weekend day and such to put out orders. In other words he has plenty of sales, and not enough time. DTS in his situation buys him time he doesn't have. DTS in your situation leaves you with more of what you already have too much of, extra time.
Not defending him as we know he's a ass but reality is he's not totally wrong in certain scenarios.
Outside looking in your 2 shops are in different places it seems. Of course that's true of most shops here as we all run our ship a bit differently.
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IMO if everyone figured in the time savings not having to argue about DTS ROI they'd be able to afford the machine. Just food for thought ;)
...was going to post the same thing, B. Great minds, eh?
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To be fair Inkman, Sam has the opposite problem as you lately it seems. He seems to be having to work all weekend or a weekend day and such to put out orders. In other words he has plenty of sales, and not enough time. DTS in his situation buys him time he doesn't have. DTS in your situation leaves you with more of what you already have too much of, extra time.
Not defending him as we know he's a ass but reality is he's not totally wrong in certain scenarios.
Outside looking in your 2 shops are in different places it seems. Of course that's true of most shops here as we all run our ship a bit differently.
I agree with what you are saying and that is based on the Sam really being that busy. I don't know if it is true or not, we print more than him but we do not struggle to get jobs done on time. I judge this by the postings of his print figures on his DB. Going by them and the time he has owned his DB we print nearly double what he does. So how he is bursting at the seams and running weekends is beyond me. Our shop is definitely different than his, its our embroidery dept that really earns the revenue here. Occasionally we even have to run a second shift in that area to keep up. Sadly its not constant but for the most part it stays steady just not 100% full production 365 days a year.
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To be fair Inkman, Sam has the opposite problem as you lately it seems. He seems to be having to work all weekend or a weekend day and such to put out orders. In other words he has plenty of sales, and not enough time. DTS in his situation buys him time he doesn't have. DTS in your situation leaves you with more of what you already have too much of, extra time.
Not defending him as we know he's a ass but reality is he's not totally wrong in certain scenarios.
Outside looking in your 2 shops are in different places it seems. Of course that's true of most shops here as we all run our ship a bit differently.
I agree with what you are saying and that is based on the Sam really being that busy. I don't know if it is true or not, we print more than him but we do not struggle to get jobs done on time. I judge this by the postings of his print figures on his DB. Going by them and the time he has owned his DB we print nearly double what he does. So how he is bursting at the seams and running weekends is beyond me. Our shop is definitely different than his, its our embroidery dept that really earns the revenue here. Occasionally we even have to run a second shift in that area to keep up. Sadly its not constant but for the most part it stays steady just not 100% full production 365 days a year.
It seems to me either DTS has a smaller ROI than some of you think or Sam is busier than you think or it just wouldn't' work for his business. Sam is a lot of things but I doubt he's the type to let a DTS run him out of business just to save face here on this site so if it wasn't working for his shop id be a betting man that he'd get rid of it.
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Mike
this year we took on two huge contract customers. one is doing about 10k shirts a week for a nationwide chain and just added another client that has 720 franchise stores. we also just got a mail order catalog company that signed on and will do about 250k shirts a year based on the last 4 months of printing. we are in the process of adding a new sprint dryer and another press.
oh yeah we also added another 6 head emb machine, however even at 15 head Brandt still has 17...hahahahaha
so yes we are just that busy and we are doing between 8-10k shirts a weekend just so we do not hurt our regular client base.
but then again who am I? just a nobody!
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Faster production on 10K piece order leans heavily towards multiple presses (or faster ones)
as opposed to faster setups. Sure, faster setup time will help but 10K of the same thing is gonna
get done a lot faster at 1500/hr as opposed to 500/hr.
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EB
these orders are between 500-2000 so set ups are really important.
sam
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I know if is can save 50 bucks 100 times a year that is real money.
But the argument was saving $50 bucks ONCE a year. Not 100 times a year. That is the exact difference between the two discussions here. One is about $50 bucks 100 times a year and the other is about $50 bucks ONCE a year.
10k pcs @ 500/hour = 20 hours
10k pcs @ 1000/hour = 10 hours
Are you suggesting that you are saving 10 hours a weekend (when you run those 10k pcs) because of your CTS?!
If so, me thinks that your systems before were severely flawed.
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I think I've read a few comments here that might be confusing "can't afford a DTS because of ..." with "can't justify spending 50K on a supporting piece of equipment", we are the latter. I think most everyone in this forum with at least one auto could find a way to put back $500 a month for a piece of equipment if it really did yield 11 months ROI. My main questions were in regards to a smaller shop seeing a super fast ROI and it doesn't bother me that someone would get that kind of ROI, it bothers me that things are being left out of the discussion at this point out of spite, or pride, or whatever it may be. I know Sam has taken on a bunch of new business but for the last 7 years he's been putting out about half of what we have done in these 7 years, and now he looks to be doing a similar volume with the numbers he just posted. If I want to tell all you guys we did 2 million in screen printing sales with one auto but in reality we only do half of that, it doesn't really hurt anyone or anyone else's bottom line. BUT, if you endorse a product or technology and others look at you for advice you better damn sure tell the entire story and back up your claims with facts.
We still tape up regi marks, but most of the time it's done at the taping table and not on press after test printing is done. Taping regi marks here at our shop takes about 10 seconds per screen on the table and about 20 seconds per screen on press. So if we waited to tape up regi marks on press for all of our screens every day we are spending under 7 minutes per day taping regi marks. With DTS we would save that time and that is half an hour per week. Not numbers to scoff at but bordering on being irrelevant in my opinion. If you're comparing our shop to Sam's shop who is saving those 7 minutes, I'd argue that if we print for 4 hours out of the day at our usual 700-800 shirts per hour and Sam is maxed out at 550/hr then we make up those 7 minutes really quickly.
DTS is going to be in the majority of shops with automatics one day, how soon depends on the manufacturers and if someone will build a unit that can do 20 screens an hour, trouble free/reliable, for $20K then holy cow where do I sign up. Now if they remain at $50K and all but one of the supporting ROI info readily available says that the threshold for a shop to consider DTS is 40 screens per day then a shop that does under that isn't going to be making the best decision with their money. If a shop our size can somehow show an 11 month ROI on $50K then I'd be asking questions like what were efficiency levels like pre-DTS? If those questions have the wrong answers then I could start to see DTS having more of an impact on ROI. The shop that can go from film to expo unit really quickly, doesn't have to wait long for vacuum drawdown, has a MH bulb and SBQ emulsion, a good regi system, etc. will have drastically different ROI with DTS.
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With Sam's new volume he needs a new auto, one that will do 1000/hr and then he'll see some super duper real ROI. Printing 400-500 per hour versus 800-1000 per hour is some serious difference.
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Seems to me that until we can define the difference between theoretical/ideal ROI, and real world ROI, then this conversation is a complete waste of
time money 200-400 shirts an hour.
;)
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I know if is can save 50 bucks 100 times a year that is real money.
But the argument was saving $50 bucks ONCE a year. Not 100 times a year. That is the exact difference between the two discussions here. One is about $50 bucks 100 times a year and the other is about $50 bucks ONCE a year.
10k pcs @ 500/hour = 20 hours
10k pcs @ 1000/hour = 10 hours
Are you suggesting that you are saving 10 hours a weekend (when you run those 10k pcs) because of your CTS?!
If so, me thinks that your systems before were severely flawed.
The average shop does not run at 1000 per hour. Hell the above average shop does not even do that for 8 hours on an auto most of the time. 5-600 pcs per hour are the realistic numbers.
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I know if is can save 50 bucks 100 times a year that is real money.
But the argument was saving $50 bucks ONCE a year. Not 100 times a year. That is the exact difference between the two discussions here. One is about $50 bucks 100 times a year and the other is about $50 bucks ONCE a year.
10k pcs @ 500/hour = 20 hours
10k pcs @ 1000/hour = 10 hours
Are you suggesting that you are saving 10 hours a weekend (when you run those 10k pcs) because of your CTS?!
If so, me thinks that your systems before were severely flawed.
The average shop does not run at 1000 per hour. Hell the above average shop does not even do that for 8 hours on an auto most of the time. 5-600 pcs per hour are the realistic numbers.
If thread has shown anything, it is that, sam's shop isn't an average shop. ;)
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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.
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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!
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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.
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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. ;D
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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
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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.
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12K in January is good news! Got something similar in the pipeline.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
;)
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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.
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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
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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.
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Thats called the Nike Syndrome! No real or at least binding contracts in our business.
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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?
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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.
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Ummmm, what about tape? ;D
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Alan
it falls under our insurance as day labor...that is anything under 600 bucks a year. it works well.
and thanks Brandt.
Sam
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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.
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.
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Single day job shadowing is more common than you might think Alan. I did it when i was approached by Mills Pride to work for them. They paid my transportation lodging and time for one day it was nice.
I know hospitals also do this a lot, its how they weed out the non medical staff that need to work in areas with lots of trauma and blood.
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and I will add this...remember I USED to have a DTG. it was a good product, but it didn't work for us. I lost some one it, but it was a calculated risk and move. I will be the first to say it didn't work. ok didn't work for US!
so, I am not above thinking that we had it worked out however it didn't work out.
sam
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So the DTS started it's life as a DTG is what you are saying?
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Single day job shadowing is more common than you might think Alan. I did it when i was approached by Mills Pride to work for them. They paid my transportation lodging and time for one day it was nice.
I know hospitals also do this a lot, its how they weed out the non medical staff that need to work in areas with lots of trauma and blood.
Spent a week on St Thomas on their dime twice before I took that bait.
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EB no the DTG I thought we be a great addition but it wasn't due to our current business plan...however we all know that is a living breathing document and we shifted as a company and that machine became unuseful.
that is to show I can accept when things don't go the way I thought they would.
sam
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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. ;D 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.
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I offered plenty.
our Exposure time went down 69%
our rise out time went down 20%
we have zero pin holes due to no glass.
our set up time increase so we can do about 3-5 jobs more per week. even thought I think it is higher now.
I will have to go back and look but I know I posted most of them and then started getting more in depth with tape and whatnot.
with that labor was a huge savings and by doing more jobs it is making us more money vs. saving money!
sam
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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. ;D 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.
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I can buy the exposure time going down because you're not exposing through glass and film, but as mentioned, for most small-medium sized shops that's not a bottleneck unless they are using crappy light sources, and it's hands-off time. I posted about how a $500 Nuarc flip-top can be modified to have exposure time to rival, or beat the new LED units, nobody seemed to care. My 3K Nuarc Fliptop smokes my 8K Olec and wall frame, but it doesn't matter to us as the worker can be doing countless other things in the 60-120 seconds an exposure takes. I still might by a used 6K fliptop that will accommodate a 23 - 31" screen as I see them go for under $1000 often, and sell the Olec 8K and wall frame for a profit.
I'm still not sure how a press set-up is faster than a when using good FPU system, care to eloborate? Did you have a good FPU system before the DTS?
I guess I just find it too easy to circumvent an expensive piece of equipment with some cheaper things and good systems.
I for one will make a point of stopping in if I get down that way, beers and lunch are on me.
Just times the Nuarc Flip-top, 45 seconds exposure including pulling vacuum on a 156 non-S mesh with Autotype 8000 with Diazo. Murukami Autosol HV with a half-load of Diazo would cut 15-20 seconds off of that.
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I can buy the exposure time going down because you're not exposing through glass and film, but as mentioned, for most small-medium sized shops that's not a bottleneck unless they are using crappy light sources, and it's hands-off time. I posted about how a $500 Nuarc flip-top can be modified to have exposure time to rival, or beat the new LED units, nobody seemed to care. My 3K Nuarc Fliptop smokes my 8K Olec and wall frame, but it doesn't matter to us as the worker can be doing countless other things in the 60-120 seconds an exposure takes. I still might by a used 6K fliptop that will accommodate a 23 - 31" screen as I see them go for under $1000 often, and sell the Olec 8K and wall frame for a profit.
I'm still not sure how a press set-up is faster than a when using good FPU system, care to eloborate? Did you have a good FPU system before the DTS?
I guess I just find it too easy to circumvent an expensive piece of equipment with some cheaper things and good systems.
I for one will make a point of stopping in if I get down that way, beers and lunch are on me.
Just times the Nuarc Flip-top, 45 seconds exposure including pulling vacuum on a 156 non-S mesh with Autotype 8000 with Diazo. Murukami Autosol HV with a half-load of Diazo would cut 15-20 seconds off of that.
My guy organizes film while screens are being exposed. He shoots two then develops them. So he has no time wasted standing around doing nothing. If he has no films to organize he cleans carrier sheets. When we have a large screen day I do all the exposing while he does all the developing, works smoothly and is certainly not a bottle neck area for us. Our bottle neck from what i can judge is during change overs. They seem to just take to long unless I am back there managing the guys directly. But if I am not back there changeovers take so damn long it drives me nuts and I have to figure out how to get these guys to work more proficiently ion that area.
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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
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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
Simple. I don't give a hoot, and I'm glad people like their various machines and make money. Like I said about my squeegee sharpener. It's when ROI is defended that some of us question it when it doesn't make sense to us. that's all.
Nobody has to defend any purchase, but when you try to, be prepared if the math looks like it adds up differently to us.
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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. ;D 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.
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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
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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. ;D ROI, never probably. Happiness factor is through the roof though.
I agree with this big time. Sometimes it's all that matters.....
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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.
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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.
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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).
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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.
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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.
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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.
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So is it safe to say that CTS is great for some and not feasible for others?
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<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....
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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.
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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.
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I will tell you one thing, unless you have a very diligent art staff, you can get you a$$ kicked. You don't have film to check to make sure everything correct. You likely won't find out until on press. Can you afford that down time? Or do you make your art department stronger? No, it sure as hell isn't all puppy dogs and rainbows. And it is a machine, it will go down. Can you fix it? (it won't call in sick though) It sure isn't for everyone. but is is right for us. I can't imagine our operation without it (them ;D) But is sure not a simple plug and play. It's a NEW system within your system, and it damn well better be right for you.
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I will tell you one thing, unless you have a very diligent art staff, you can get you a$$ 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 ;D) 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 ^^^^^^^^
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When we do go DTS, I know I'll be as giddy as the day the RPM showed up. But I can't let my "screen print weiner" control my thought process and I have to do what's best for the long-term interests of the shop. 3.3 year ROI doesn't get me that excited, but there is a pulse down there.
A little birdie told me there was a new DTS coming out at a nice price point of 18K, capable of doing 15 screens an hour. Now we've got some blood flow down there.
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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.
You haven't been paying attention.
You don't try to run both presses at the same time. You stage everything. Unless I missed something, this is part of what Tony does. Your print guys float from press to press knocking down jobs while someone else goes behind them tearing down and setting up jobs. You don't need all that additional staff then. If it's a short job and the next one isn't setup yet then they can take a bathroom break or pitch in and get the job setup even faster.
No matter what you are turning out way more pcs per shift than you were with just adding in a DTS that can MAYBE save you some time, but not really if it's a repeat order (again, like Tony's model and to some degree Alan's).
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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.
You haven't been paying attention.
You don't try to run both presses at the same time. You stage everything. Unless I missed something, this is part of what Tony does. Your print guys float from press to press knocking down jobs while someone else goes behind them tearing down and setting up jobs. You don't need all that additional staff then. If it's a short job and the next one isn't setup yet then they can take a bathroom break or pitch in and get the job setup even faster.
No matter what you are turning out way more pcs per shift than you were with just adding in a DTS that can MAYBE save you some time, but not really if it's a repeat order (again, like Tony's model and to some degree Alan's).
Paying fine attention are you because even in your 1 press running, and 1 being setup/broke down.... Alan only has 3 employees right? So.....who's this someone else that would be tearing down/setting up the other press while the other one is being run by those 3 people? He's gonna have to hire at least a part timer to handle that. What does that cost per year? Keep in mind that will also mean jobs start happening faster thus either everyone goes home early or you do more work. More work means more screens, can his screen staff handle more? Or will they need more help? What's that cost? It's not as simple as you said "50k second press". There are labor costs in there some where no matter if you run it 1 at a time staging the other or if you run them both at the same time. Plus do we really think Alan would only buy a 50k press?
Tony has almost 30 people in his production. Do you think its easier to find someone to break down a 2nd press at Tony's shop, or Alans?
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I thought we were talking about sam's shop? He's got a guy just cranking out screens on the dts right? Has to be some ass time for someone some where.
When is your shop making money, when the machines are running or when the jobs are being setup?
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If we bought a second auto it would definitely be run by the same crew running the other one, with the addition of one full time employee instead of 2 or 3 and I'll pick up any slack if there is any until we can manage to do all the other stuff that comes along with more work. Then as business picked up to need two autos spinning at the same time we'd adjust it to fit that need. I think a shop doing our volume in no shape or form needs two autos, but if you bought a used one at a good price and while one auto was printing and the second auto was being setup with the next job, it could work for a shop our size. I am of the belief that I don't want a second auto until we have to have it and was thinking DTS would be done before the second auto. I think I can make both scenarios work well, but DTS seems like the more simple route along with keeping payroll the same. The second auto would have a better ROI if the jobs were there to support it but with adding DTS instead, you can better manage any normal increase or even decrease in production. It would be terrible to buy a second auto because of a hot new customer only to have them realize they can get it done much cheaper somewhere else and there goes the money for the second auto. If you only needed a 25% increase in production capacity a DTS makes more sense. If you need 100%, then obviously a second shift, longer shift, or second auto/more employees are your options.
I've been looking and planning for our growth and I do not want to add a second auto until our current one is running at 16 hours a day, 6 days a week. I'm sure we'll crack before that happens and get one before we add a second shift, but according to the math from very smart dudes, a second auto should be bought once the first one is printing at 70% capacity for 160 hours a week. Those look like crazy numbers to me but I trust those who gave them to me. There is a formula that makes sense and personally for my sanity I'd add the auto before we got to that point. But to make up for the additional employees and to make sure both autos are running at a sufficient level for optimum profits that 70%/160 hours looks pretty good.
I love trying to figure this type of stuff out, and I don't mind giving full disclosure since we're all friends here for the most part, but a bigger auto and DTS is what I will do when the time comes. Sell the RPM, get a new 12 or 14 color auto that is freaking fast, Ferrari fast, then pair a new DTS with it and then we're doing 1.5-1.8 mil/yr with one auto with one more full time employee, perhaps 2.
And I got a quote for some screen tape today and also told our old supplier that I'd found a much cheaper option. They are going to get back with me tomorrow, but I'll have calls screened heavily because I'm not playing that game on freaking screen tape. If we're dealing with a new auto or something like that, then I'll play, but not for tape.
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I just find the time you've spent on worrying about 50k purchase AMAZING ...
And I'm sure this reminds a lot of us of a time when you refused to pick up a phone to call Gary Fox about some discharge samples... Which btw, would have likely saved you all that headache that took you months (not constantly, I know) to work out.
You hate the phone and guys like Alan and I love this industry and love to crunch numbers.
I've spent way too much time building overly complicated excel sheets... Just because it was fun and gratifying.
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I thought we were talking about sam's shop? He's got a guy just cranking out screens on the dts right? Has to be some ass time for someone some where.
When is your shop making money, when the machines are running or when the jobs are being setup?
I know what you really want to do is just insult Sam, there is plenty of time for that.
You made a reference to Alan's shop and a second 50k auto and how that makes sense. Much like several calling BS on Sam (which I somewhat agree with at least at some level), I reply to you and call BS that 50k is all it would take due to needing a least SOME more labor. Now your back to talking about Sam's shop?
I don't fully believe much of anything Sam say's mostly because he's really excited and likely embellishing some. But that doesn't change that fact that he's made DTS work for him.... I think its fair to present the question that could some of you be underestimating the value of DTS and your just ignoring it over basic ROI math? I mean you have to admit, that if Sam can make it work who's apparently half the size of Alan or Inkman that maybe it should be worth considering that maybe ROI isn't telling the full story.
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I can buy the exposure time going down because you're not exposing through glass and film, but as mentioned, for most small-medium sized shops that's not a bottleneck unless they are using crappy light sources, and it's hands-off time. I posted about how a $500 Nuarc flip-top can be modified to have exposure time to rival, or beat the new LED units, nobody seemed to care. My 3K Nuarc Fliptop smokes my 8K Olec and wall frame, but it doesn't matter to us as the worker can be doing countless other things in the 60-120 seconds an exposure takes. I still might by a used 6K fliptop that will accommodate a 23 - 31" screen as I see them go for under $1000 often, and sell the Olec 8K and wall frame for a profit.
I'm still not sure how a press set-up is faster than a when using good FPU system, care to eloborate? Did you have a good FPU system before the DTS?
I guess I just find it too easy to circumvent an expensive piece of equipment with some cheaper things and good systems.
I for one will make a point of stopping in if I get down that way, beers and lunch are on me.
Just times the Nuarc Flip-top, 45 seconds exposure including pulling vacuum on a 156 non-S mesh with Autotype 8000 with Diazo. Murukami Autosol HV with a half-load of Diazo would cut 15-20 seconds off of that.
I would recommend checking out the MHM FPU; it's what sold me completely on our Synchro press; put screen in the holder, 3 seconds, put on film and tape, maybe 10 seconds, take of the holder and put in the vacuum frame. All around, if you setup is right, and you zero out your heads, you can pretty much drop the screens in and add ink, squeegee and floodbar and go... I believe most FPU systems are designed to speed it all up. We got ours with the press, at half price if we bought the press which we did.
Steve
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I just find the time you've spent on worrying about 50k purchase AMAZING ...
And I'm sure this reminds a lot of us of a time when you refused to pick up a phone to call Gary Fox about some discharge samples... Which btw, would have likely saved you all that headache that took you months (not constantly, I know) to work out.
I bet we don't have 30 minutes total in trying discharge. Just because it took us months to find free time doesn't mean anything and calling the dude on the phone wouldn't' have sped up the rate at which I got around to it.
You hate the phone and guys like Alan and I love this industry and love to crunch numbers.
I like numbers, love numbers even. I just don't let math drive my business to the degree some do. If I have it wrong I am sure it will come up at some point...right?
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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
Well, we have 20 years worth of film that maybe takes up 40 square feet, out of 8000. Once a year we go through a list of the previous years jobs to throw away birthday parties, bar-mitzvahs and any other one timers. We still keep the digital files, but that takes no room. And I'm pretty sure film storage costs are figured in as overhead anyway in a large place storing as much as a whole floor (sq. ft?). Before we opened our shop back in '90 (part time at night), I worked for someone else from '75 to "93. I had all films (all pre-digital) and paper art stored in about the same amount of space in some custom made cabinets to hold very large file folders.
Steve
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I am of the belief that I don't want a second auto until we have to have it and was thinking DTS would be done before the second auto. I think I can make both scenarios work well, but DTS seems like the more simple route along with keeping payroll the same. The second auto would have a better ROI if the jobs were there to support it but with adding DTS instead, you can better manage any normal increase or even decrease in production.
Exactly my thoughts. IMO it's a lot easier to fuss over ROI or not on 50k than it is on 100-150K press.
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I thought we were talking about sam's shop? He's got a guy just cranking out screens on the dts right? Has to be some ass time for someone some where.
When is your shop making money, when the machines are running or when the jobs are being setup?
I know what you really want to do is just insult Sam, there is plenty of time for that.
You made a reference to Alan's shop and a second 50k auto and how that makes sense. Much like several calling BS on Sam (which I somewhat agree with at least at some level), I reply to you and call BS that 50k is all it would take due to needing a least SOME more labor. Now your back to talking about Sam's shop?
I don't fully believe much of anything Sam say's mostly because he's really excited and likely embellishing some. But that doesn't change that fact that he's made DTS work for him.... I think its fair to present the question that could some of you be underestimating the value of DTS and your just ignoring it over basic ROI math? I mean you have to admit, that if Sam can make it work who's apparently half the size of Alan or Inkman that maybe it should be worth considering that maybe ROI isn't telling the full story.
No, Sam's shop is the point of topic BECAUSE it is Sam that is giving the 11 month ROI, it is because Sam is running an entry level press that states 550/pcs hour. These are some of the reasons a 2nd auto or at least a replacement auto might have been better money spent. Tony doesn't run all of his auto's constantly, but he has his printers printing constantly.
As far as the problem with the ROI and you saying that "If Sam's shop can do it..." I think the issue has been addressed.
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. ;D 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.
You admit (or maybe it was Shelly) that you are severely lacking in this department and there is a lot of time wasted here (that's not a stab, so please don't feel the need to defend yourself, I'm sure our prepress is in worse shape). But in your case, ABSOLUTELY would you see an ROI more like Sam's. But most shops that size have or should have tackled the prepress department and got it fine tuned as much as possible. For some guys (like us), we can afford to waste a bit of time in this department because we aren't up to our eyeballs in work. But for us, now is the time to start addressing those things. I'd rather tune up a current system to get every bit I can reasonably get out of it before I drop 50k on a problem that is a training/systems issue. A consultant would come in for a fraction of that and vastly fix more than just that.
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No, Sam's shop is the point of topic BECAUSE it is Sam that is giving the 11 month ROI, it is because Sam is running an entry level press that states 550/pcs hour. These are some of the reasons a 2nd auto or at least a replacement auto might have been better money spent. Tony doesn't run all of his auto's constantly, but he has his printers printing constantly.
I think Sam's posts are safe to divide by X to get real numbers. I've always been smart enough to pick up on that and you guys certainly are as well.
You admit (or maybe it was Shelly) that you are severely lacking in this department and there is a lot of time wasted here (that's not a stab, so please don't feel the need to defend yourself, I'm sure our prepress is in worse shape). But in your case, ABSOLUTELY would you see an ROI more like Sam's. But most shops that size have or should have tackled the prepress department and got it fine tuned as much as possible. For some guys (like us), we can afford to waste a bit of time in this department because we aren't up to our eyeballs in work. But for us, now is the time to start addressing those things. I'd rather tune up a current system to get every bit I can reasonably get out of it before I drop 50k on a problem that is a training/systems issue. A consultant would come in for a fraction of that and vastly fix more than just that.
You quoted someone else but referred to us. Our pre-press isn't terrible, but film output/seps/burning kills a day a week for us due to OTHER reasons. Shelly also digitizes the weeks embroidery jobs that day, she seps that day, film output that day, orders goods, and so on. Which clearly at times runs into the next day or doing one digitizing file this day or that day or day of. James burns, tapes, pin holes, and so on. So I wouldn't say its the processes fault as much as it is just too much to do for 2 people for our volume so we struggle there. But we don't struggle at press, we dont have set up troubles at all really. We just need more hands. Probably hire again in Jan. It's our next largest problem is Shelly spread too thin. DTS is on our list, I think another set of hands is first and larger press/dryer. That way Shelly can help with the business more and just help print as needed. Our artist used to help print but he's got 5-6 days of work every week. I have 5-6 days of selling every week and still often leave email at the end of each day which is sad. We are growing though, so ill take it.
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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
Well, we have 20 years worth of film that maybe takes up 40 square feet, out of 8000. Once a year we go through a list of the previous years jobs to throw away birthday parties, bar-mitzvahs and any other one timers. We still keep the digital files, but that takes no room. And I'm pretty sure film storage costs are figured in as overhead anyway in a large place storing as much as a whole floor (sq. ft?). Before we opened our shop back in '90 (part time at night), I worked for someone else from '75 to "93. I had all films (all pre-digital) and paper art stored in about the same amount of space in some custom made cabinets to hold very large file folders.
Steve
If someone wants to fill up 10,000 sq ft with film then that's their problem, and it's a big problem that I couldn't imagine a sane person having. We have 7 years worth of film taking up two vertical Hon 4/drawer cabinets, so about 4 sq foot in the engraving room and the more current film is hanging on the wall in the art room and I spent $100 on that hanging file system. In no way is keeping film as cheap as keeping a digital file, but let's not act like we're cataloging screens with images in them for future use. Retrieving the film is almost as easy as finding it on a hard drive. You have the design #, walk over to the wall and you find it within 5-10 seconds. Filing it is equally easy and we do run into problems with the dislexic person filing the film but it's rare. We do like Steve and go through the film every once in a while and cull the dated film or things we know we won't print again. Recently we've started putting all the dated film in a shared folder with all the other dated film and it takes up a small sanmar box.
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You quoted someone else but referred to us.
Only to say that you should be able to see that if your systems aren't tuned for what you have then changing the system to something completely different that doesn't require you to fix problems will mean you can see numbers better than your average shop that hasn't neglected certain systems.
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You quoted someone else but referred to us.
Only to say that you should be able to see that if your systems aren't tuned for what you have then changing the system to something completely different that doesn't require you to fix problems will mean you can see numbers better than your average shop that hasn't neglected certain systems.
Huh? :)
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Just had to put a new roll of Scotch tape on the dispenser.... Damn! >:(
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You quoted someone else but referred to us.
Only to say that you should be able to see that if your systems aren't tuned for what you have then changing the system to something completely different that doesn't require you to fix problems will mean you can see numbers better than your average shop that hasn't neglected certain systems.
Huh? :)
Are you telling me that run on sentence didn't come out of my head like it sounded? ;)
I only used that quote and the referenced Brandt shop to point out that, if you don't have your system finely tuned, like you do Alan. Then you are wasting time with carrier sheets and other prepress issues. When that is the case then you will see large reductions of prepress labor due to implementing a DTS. But that is only because your pre-DTS system was not worked out as good as it could or should have been.
If you have a tri-lock and use carrier sheets AND are sloppy then a DTS will be amazingly better as you will jump on press with no adjustments. But if you made a FPU like yours and take just a bit of care in lining up your films before exposure then you won't see nearly the same jump in labor ROI. Which is the situation you are facing.
You have your FPU/prepress system fine tuned very well, it takes VERY little time to get setup to burn. Just seems like if Sam is able to crank out that much more work in a day due to prepress/setup labor savings then there was a severe flaw in his systems before hand.
I basically just butchered what Inkworks was saying. :)
Don't bother reading what I just posted... just go back and reference his post again.
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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?
This - after thinking about this machine for the first time when it came out - was my initial thought. A two man operation here -- had messed up films printing out today - have had many messed up films printed out before. Unless there's some way to wipe the ink off without damaging the emulsion to be able to reprint on the screen, I like the idea of just throwing the film away and not needing another screen. Major time-sucker had we lost as many screens as we have film in our 8 years of existence. Perhaps the screen is salvageable after a misprint has been done?
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This - after thinking about this machine for the first time when it came out - was my initial thought. A two man operation here -- had messed up films printing out today - have had many messed up films printed out before. Unless there's some way to wipe the ink off without damaging the emulsion to be able to reprint on the screen, I like the idea of just throwing the film away and not needing another screen. Major time-sucker had we lost as many screens as we have film in our 8 years of existence. Perhaps the screen is salvageable after a misprint has been done?
Just to be clear, you have two people in your whole operation?
I believe the man himself has stated that there is no salvaging a misprint screen.
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This - after thinking about this machine for the first time when it came out - was my initial thought. A two man operation here -- had messed up films printing out today - have had many messed up films printed out before. Unless there's some way to wipe the ink off without damaging the emulsion to be able to reprint on the screen, I like the idea of just throwing the film away and not needing another screen. Major time-sucker had we lost as many screens as we have film in our 8 years of existence. Perhaps the screen is salvageable after a misprint has been done?
Just to be clear, you have two people in your whole operation?
I believe the man himself has stated that there is no salvaging a misprint screen.
Yes sir. 2 man circus here.
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And screen printing/embroidery isn't all they do.
They are like me and have their hands in other endeavors completely unrelated to this field.
They also have a ping pong table that gets very little use these days... probably a fishing pole or two in the same shape. :p
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They also have a ping pong table that gets very little use these days... probably a fishing pole or two in the same shape. :p
Definitely below the belt.
Eb, perhaps that's the next step in its evolution: inks that can be wiped off if you notice an error before exposing. But I imagine it still wouldn't be noticed for most of us until the ink got pushed through if you missed it in the design phase/seps - easier to notice when holding films up to each other - don't see that being possible with screens of course.
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You quoted someone else but referred to us.
Only to say that you should be able to see that if your systems aren't tuned for what you have then changing the system to something completely different that doesn't require you to fix problems will mean you can see numbers better than your average shop that hasn't neglected certain systems.
Huh? :)
Are you telling me that run on sentence didn't come out of my head like it sounded? ;)
I only used that quote and the referenced Brandt shop to point out that, if you don't have your system finely tuned, like you do Alan. Then you are wasting time with carrier sheets and other prepress issues. When that is the case then you will see large reductions of prepress labor due to implementing a DTS. But that is only because your pre-DTS system was not worked out as good as it could or should have been.
I hadn't yet noticed much of any pre-press issues here other than other parts of our business getting in the way of actually doing them. Just need to hire.
If you have a tri-lock and use carrier sheets AND are sloppy then a DTS will be amazingly better as you will jump on press with no adjustments. But if you made a FPU like yours and take just a bit of care in lining up your films before exposure then you won't see nearly the same jump in labor ROI. Which is the situation you are facing.
We are not sloppy at all with our Tri-Lock or Carrier sheets. We often require 1-3 test prints and off we go. She does carrier sheets so fast that honestly I barely even catch her doing it so it's not a long process. Are there better ways, I am sure of it. But it's not a bottle neck at all for us right now. You will have to forgive me for focusing on the largest problems first. LOL
You have your FPU/prepress system fine tuned very well, it takes VERY little time to get setup to burn. Just seems like if Sam is able to crank out that much more work in a day due to prepress/setup labor savings then there was a severe flaw in his systems before hand.
It takes very little for us to burn as far as actually doing the process, again it's simply getting to it that's the trouble. Remember she has to digitize before she can sep, she has to order all the blanks for the week before she can sep as well. Which sorta works as James will coat the screens for the week while she is doing that. It all comes together well many days, but days where there is a disaster in embroidery with a file or ordering or whatever it may be it really can put a wrench in the system. This is simply lack of hands for us currently. I am sure the bottle neck will move after that and we will tackle that when it pops up.
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And screen printing/embroidery isn't all they do.
They are like me and have their hands in other endeavors completely unrelated to this field.
They also have a ping pong table that gets very little use these days... probably a fishing pole or two in the same shape. :p
Brian beat me to the low blow remark as I literally typed this all out and noticed he posted the same thing I was going to!
I did just get my boat running again after a few months hiatus, but where oh where is the time to actually use it. Maybe a CTS will free up some time for fishing. That would be the best ROI I know of.
And I would imagine that knowing that you have one shot to output seps when going to screen vs. film would make one double check everything. Though incorrectly outputted screens due to operator or machine error could be a big problem for operations where a couple people do everything and are usually reclaiming and coating almost exactly what they need for the next days work, unless they would just reclaim/expose more than they need.
Monetary ROI would not be there for us, but if it brought about an increased quality of life, efficiency, and prevented us from having to hire then I would not be opposed.
Was told by a Lawson rep that they have a new machine coming out with the same printhead as the Express-Jet that will output a 12x18 image in around 2.5 minutes instead of Express-Jet's 40 seconds for around 18k. This would be the ticket for smaller shops who do not need a screen a minute but would like the other advantages of CTS.
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Monetary ROI would not be there for us, but if it brought about an increased quality of life, efficiency, and prevented us from having to hire then I would not be opposed.
I like your thought process ;)
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Ahem.
Second press or a few more employees will be your fastest return on more fishing time.
I can guarantee it.
Except for some hot market stuff we haven't worked a weekend in years. That's a point of pride
as far as I'm concerned, to me my free time is exponentially more valuable than money.
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Sorry Brandt, I was basing that on your own post. Forgive me that fau paux if you will.
My shop is very much at capacity on screens. We are a small shop, we don't have MORE time for screens. In fact screens is very much what hold us back in doing more screen printing.
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They also have a ping pong table that gets very little use these days... probably a fishing pole or two in the same shape. :p
Definitely below the belt.
Eb, perhaps that's the next step in its evolution: inks that can be wiped off if you notice an error before exposing. But I imagine it still wouldn't be noticed for most of us until the ink got pushed through if you missed it in the design phase/seps - easier to notice when holding films up to each other - don't see that being possible with screens of course.
Trust me my friends... We know the feeling.
I was just in your neck of the woods forum Thursday night to Monday afternoon... I haven't stopped since last Monday! And now we got xmas stuff this weekend... It will never end. ;)
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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 ;D) 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.
Dave I totally agree. We would have to be damn near perfect to make a CTS worth while otherwise a couple goofs up hare and there would negate any advantage of the machine. In our case the art department is me at least for the majority of art and all of the seps and films.madly tho that is not the only hat I wear, I have to manage embroidery as well and work with customers and deal with employees. I make mistakes on films and seps occasionally more than I could get away with on a CTS but bearable with film. The day we ever got a CTS is also the day we would need a full time artist.
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Ahem.
Second press or a few more employees will be your fastest return on more fishing time.
I can guarantee it.
Except for some hot market stuff we haven't worked a weekend in years. That's a point of pride
as far as I'm concerned, to me my free time is exponentially more valuable than money.
That is definitely one way to go though though hiring for us would mean that we would have to go out and get more work to justify the hire and deal with the many headaches we read on here about employees. I am happy with the money coming in and the amount of work so why not tighten up our processes with possibly the help of certain capital equipment to get that 5 day work week down to 4.5 or maybe even 4. I could be dead wrong about this and it could just be that hiring someone makes me nervous since it would be something completely new to me. Making a press do what I want I would imagine is much easier than making a person making an hourly wage do what I want.
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Ahem.
Second press or a few more employees will be your fastest return on more fishing time.
I can guarantee it.
Except for some hot market stuff we haven't worked a weekend in years. That's a point of pride
as far as I'm concerned, to me my free time is exponentially more valuable than money.
That is definitely one way to go though though hiring for us would mean that we would have to go out and get more work to justify the hire and deal with the many headaches we read on here about employees. I am happy with the money coming in and the amount of work so why not tighten up our processes with possibly the help of certain capital equipment to get that 5 day work week down to 4.5 or maybe even 4. I could be dead wrong about this and it could just be that hiring someone makes me nervous since it would be something completely new to me. Making a press do what I want I would imagine is much easier than making a person making an hourly wage do what I want.
This is my thoughts exactly I just wish there was a magic ball to make all the necessary equipment just to be here and be good at running it. I'd love to work 4 days a week but at our pace and the lack of equipment to make things go faster sometimes 5 isn't enough.
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Wow, haven't had a chance to look at this until now so my turn to derail the thread ;) .... Slammed this week so just got home from printing. Starting out as a 2 person shop when I leaped into the industry using a manual press and extremely limited equipment eventually growing to a small sized high production(for our size) shop using DTS/2 autos here's my take.... My number one thing trying to grow screen printing over the years is I've always approached making money to keeping a press spinning, bottom line. The only way a t-shirt company can make money is if they are printing t-shirts right? That's how I have looked at it so being the one that had to hire employees, train people the way I expect things to be done, watch the press op stand over a job for hours(yes I said hours and if anyone here is saying they have never personally struggled setting up a job for great registration on press I would say might be ummmm fibbing, lol), among many many other factors which leads to a stressful situation made me want dts for multiple reasons much more then a "roi". When your in the position of having to work IN the business and ON the business there becomes a new sense of urgency trying to put in place tools and people that can allow you to work on the business more in order to continue to grow it. When I looked at buying dts it wasn't so much about the consumables I was saving, rather the potential it would do for me. I was effing sick and tired of watching press ops I would hire to help me out stand over a job setting it up while I was having to attend to a client, or a shipment, packslip, sell a new job, order supplies, etc etc etc because I knew my press was not spinning which was the only way I could make any money. My job is to keep jobs feeding the press and if there's no work then that's all on me. I will admit before my guys were nowhere near the best at setting up jobs on press but I always found it pretty hard to find employees that had a high level of dedication and care for their work along with the understanding we are a business trying to make money which meant try to work at a good pace hence why I look hard at new technology. I might be the only one but I have struggled finding employees that give a damn, which is another factor in why I went dts all together. Since going dts I have been able to keep my same press ops for a long time as we have a great system with that has allowed me to get off my ass and get an actual ROI(that's what I would call it)......I told myself take the risk with dts, get off your bum and work your ass off to sell some jobs and pay for it....I did not look at the roi as what I would save so much on film and consumables but the fact I would be able to keep my presses spinning more often and allowing myself to work ON the business finding new work. I think it all boils down to what your definition of roi is, as I was able to pay for my dts many times over already when I looked at it this way. My system is real simple, 2 autos, 1 guy on each press, 1 guy catching at the end of the belt, and myself staging jobs for each press and helping with setup/teardown on each press. 1 guy making screens on dts, prepping art files, exposing screens, taping screens, etc, then 1 guy in the washout doing whole screen process/ink tasks has been a pretty great setup for a small shop like mine. 6 people total is all to make it run pretty well. The dts allows me to setup all the jobs on press and with proper planning I usually make sure 1 press is always printing shirts. This year we will have done almost 1 million impressions between both presses by the end of this week which I think is respectable considering much of our work is 6-10 colors, 100-1000 pcs runs and I know would have never been possible without dts, bottom line. Just yesterday I timed myself and press helper tearing down a 4 color job and setting up another 4 color job and with perfect registration in 4 min, 53 seconds. Will that always happen? No way, but that alone when I can save that type of time and stress(go back to other things in the business) the roi is so fast to me it's not even funny. I would probably be naive and say dts has it's place in every shop but I truly am too young and umm stupid to understand every business model out there. We all know Tony has his stuff together, runs his production badass, the list goes on so I can respect someone like him that says dts will not work in their business model. But for my business, being a young guy starting out with nothing and trying to grow from the bottom up, dts was the best thing I've ever done. The fact is the most stressful day in my shop the last year was when my dts was not working. I watched my press op stand over an 9 color sim process job for 45 min getting it lined up and about puked since I was then used to our max 20 minute setups. 45 minutes was not even bad for what he was doing but it felt like forever to me at that time when we got used to much faster setups. Do we get perfect setups each job? No way, but usually it's a tiny micro this or that and if art is done correctly on a lot of jobs never any micro needed. But at the end of the day, is dts right for everyone? Probably not. Do dts machines have problems? Yes at times. Will dts make you money? Nope, you have to go out and sell work to feed the beast but they sure are hungry. Would I ever run a shop without a dts now that I've been fortunate to have one? Nope, never would even consider it as I've worked less weekends, less nights, spent more time with my kids, brought in more business, kept employees longer, and have been much happier since having dts. It was a risk for us, but has proven to be something that I will never regret purchasing, ever. I look at it as a necessary tool in my shop that is every bit as important as the press printing t-shirts, and it's one of those things that I think is hard to understand the true potential until you have one.
Just my .02 on some late night dts discussion, take it for what it's worth. :) Just thankful we are fortunate enough to have a dts.
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Sorry Brandt, I was basing that on your own post. Forgive me that fau paux if you will.
My shop is very much at capacity on screens. We are a small shop, we don't have MORE time for screens. In fact screens is very much what hold us back in doing more screen printing.
Holy November 2012. That was over a year ago. The shop has changed in a lot of ways since Nov 2012.
You've taken the post out of context. The context and larger problem is too many hats for Shelly. She is tied up in other areas so there is not more time for screens due to that. If we had some more hands, this would allow more time for screens. When we hired James our screen time got much faster as Shelly just hands him the films and he burns/rises/tapes/stages/etc. He is even doing the set up of the press now and Shelly basically shows up to load. This was a huge output change for us. But as we are SUPER busy in embroidery as well digitizing is sucking up a fair amount of time now as well. So the two processes bump into each other. Screen print often looses that battle as there is SO much embroidery to do and its harder to make up time in there. We simply need to hire again. Assuming Jan kicks off good we likely will. This will allow for Shelly to get things done a bit faster while other things are happening. Our embroidery girl is trying to learn digitizing but being that she is so busy doing the actual embroidery it's tough. Erik has more artwork to do most weeks than time to do it. I have more sales to do than time to do it as well most weeks. When I can I help embroidery most often.
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Would I ever run a shop without a dts now that I've been fortunate to have one? Nope, never would even consider it as I've worked less weekends, less nights, spent more time with my kids, brought in more business, kept employees longer, and have been much happier since having dts. It was a risk for us, but has proven to be something that I will never regret purchasing, ever. I look at it as a necessary tool in my shop that is every bit as important as the press printing t-shirts, and it's one of those things that I think is hard to understand the true potential until you have one.
This is basically what I was questioning with as passionate as several DTS owners are about them.... Thanks for confirming. I feel like its easy to just do ROI and assume the math is the full picture. IMO it sounds like from your post it just made your shop better all around even happier employees. I am not sure how you put a number on quality of life in the shop but it's worth mentioning for sure!
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oh Danny....you mean more than consumables are factored into an ROI? no way! ( my best valley girl voice) that is what I have been trying to say to all of them but they just don't get it.
also on the post about clearing out film how much are you paying someone to do that? how much are they being paid to put them back, how often do you have to reprint film? these are all factors. we were spending a lot of time trying to file so good we were losing money. then if one film got ruined we would have to replace the entire print job.
oh yeah like Danny said and Screenprintguy can confirm my head printer said he will NEVER work in a shop that did not have a dst. I know Mike aka screenprintguy spoke with my head printer for a while before buying his dst. so it is not coming from me it is coming from an employee who can see what it has done to our shop!
sam
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I won't argue the pros and cons of this anymore. We have been CTS for 8 1/2 years. I have one employee that was here pre-CTS. Nobody here understands what "film" is and how you use it to make a screen (really kind of funny). I just know CTS is right for us. Otherwise instead of ordering another one a few weeks ago, I would have bought a nice film printer. (Anyone looking for a new in box 4880?) I will just offer, that if anyone is interested in learning more about what it has done for our company, and how it might help you, please give me a call. I love talking shop, especially equipment. Just make sure you set aside an hour or more. I'm no J.C., but I do ramble on. This is a legitimate offer to help anyone that might be looking, to learn more about what it has done for me. I'm not saying it's right for you. I just can't imagine our business with it (them)
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oh Danny....you mean more than consumables are factored into an ROI? no way! ( my best valley girl voice) that is what I have been trying to say to all of them but they just don't get it.
also on the post about clearing out film how much are you paying someone to do that? how much are they being paid to put them back, how often do you have to reprint film? these are all factors. we were spending a lot of time trying to file so good we were losing money. then if one film got ruined we would have to replace the entire print job.
oh yeah like Danny said and Screenprintguy can confirm my head printer said he will NEVER work in a shop that did not have a dst. I know Mike aka screenprintguy spoke with my head printer for a while before buying his dst. so it is not coming from me it is coming from an employee who can see what it has done to our shop!
sam
So that's how you've come up with 11 month ROI? Just pulling numbers from the sky to make up for quality of life? Well hell, I can just make up some numbers then and make the ROI whatever I wanted it to be, but I don't work like that.
I guess we're lucky, we rarely have to reprint film so DTS will be a breeze. My artist doesn't even look at the film after he prints it. It goes into the art folder and out to production.
Seriously, how much time could possibly be spent filing an art folder full of film? Unless you were printing 50 jobs a day and your filing system was a mess then I couldn't even imagine one second of press time being lost due to filing an art folder, at least here. When a repeat job comes down, my artist goes and grabs the folder from the wall within 10 seconds. Filing it is as simple as putting a shirt on a hanger and putting it in the closet. If that really was something that was slowing down production then you don't have the process nailed down as much as you thought.
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We get it guys, we really do. You don't believe Sam's ROI numbers. I don't think anyone does. It's ok to let it go.
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-A9E5Z9p9IFQ/UTi46cUjAKI/AAAAAAAAHI8/YW3VMta0U64/s1600/insanity-source.jpg)
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alan
it is not made up numbers it is labor cost numbers. it is pulling film, sorting, film, lining up film, refiling film ect. it is not all just about press time it is about burn time, about set up time, about rise out time. yes I measure all of it.
it quality of life factored into the ROI nope. but I will tell you it is really NICE!
oh yeah and instead of printing film my artist is doing work that makes us more money vs. just printing film. more value.
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Sam, you have been hammering "11 month ROI!" Over and over... And now Danny post a well composed "this is why it works for me REGARDLESS of ROI" and you hook your wagon to it and scream, this is what I've been trying to tell you guys.
No, you have said that you get it in 11 months because you get all this time to do magic jobs that you weren't turning down before but now have as soon as that dts landed on your shop floor.
Brandt has been talking quality of life from the beginning and NO ONE has argued against that. If that is what he wants then we've all said, go for it. Not everyone would buy for that reason, but no one has ever said he was wrong for that justification.
11 months ROI, wrong. Quality of life, dealer's choice.
*edit* in fact no one was arguing anything at all about dts here until you got all pissy about 3k/year tape cost being discussed and not your $40/year scotch tape cost. Look at the title of this thread.
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no my original posting was why is it so important to worry about .3% of cogs? if he is doing a 1 million in printing who cares about some tape. that was my point. because it does matter.
for 11 months ROI yes that is what it is. I attempted to tell you guys how I can to that number and I am being told NO! but oh well. I know this year we had another record year and we added new machines, new employees and I am making more and more.
sam
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Sam you could shut these guys up if you show all the numbers. If you don't then IMO this will never end and we know some of these guys will bring it back up 1000 times just cause thats what some of really enjoy about the forum. If you don't it also appears to them you are hiding something.
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Sam you could shut these guys up if you show all the numbers. If you don't then IMO this will never end and we know some of these guys will bring it back up 1000 times just cause thats what some of really enjoy about the forum. If you don't it also appears to them you are hiding something.
I disagree no one would bring any of the scotch tape gate except for Sam himself. Just go back to the second or third of this page and see where Sam jumped into this thread with a snotty comment about scotch tape.
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Sam you could shut these guys up if you show all the numbers. If you don't then IMO this will never end and we know some of these guys will bring it back up 1000 times just cause thats what some of really enjoy about the forum. If you don't it also appears to them you are hiding something.
I disagree no one would bring any of the scotch tape gate except for Sam himself. Just go back to the second or third of this page and see where Sam jumped into this thread with a snotty comment about scotch tape.
So nobody has ever brought up DTS or Tape after the original incidents ever? You sure?
Doesn't change my point really. If he was to provide numbers (believable ones), it would shut these guys up.
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Sam you could shut these guys up if you show all the numbers. If you don't then IMO this will never end and we know some of these guys will bring it back up 1000 times just cause thats what some of really enjoy about the forum. If you don't it also appears to them you are hiding something.
I disagree no one would bring any of the scotch tape gate except for Sam himself. Just go back to the second or third of this page and see where Sam jumped into this thread with a snotty comment about scotch tape.
So nobody has ever brought up DTS or Tape after the original incidents ever? You sure?
Doesn't change my point really. If he was to provide numbers (believable ones), it would shut these guys up.
Everyone would stop talking about Sam just the same as they would stop talking about me or you if we went away.
Sam, you brought up a 1% item and it seemed that you needed reminding that you were comparing it to a 1% of 1% item... eventually... it DOES become a moot point.
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but Brandt...according to them I took my ball and went home...you are damn right.
there is a big difference between owning a business and working for someone who owns the business. but then again what do I know. and I will do a search but I did post the numbers once.
sam
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He can "post" all the numbers he wants, he's sort of done that but just like you said Brandt, believable. That's why there's an argument about this. And in rebuttal, I've posted numbers that I'm sure we all recognize and are more than believable but it get's glossed over by the other side. He can type numbers like an all air DB doing 720/hr, doesn't change the fact that he's likely got the only one in the world that will do that. He can tell us his printer can do 7000 pieces by himself in 16 hours, that's averaging more for 16 hours than I can do for a 5 minute burst on a press twice as fast. Those numbers would be just like me claiming we only spent $100 on film last year to make my ROI figures look better. You guys know a shop our size couldn't do that.
I'm pretty sure I'm not arguing with myself here B? I guess I'd shut up about it if things were said that make sense. The other DTS guys that have chimed in haven't said anything that I disagree with. Funniest part of all of this is if DTS gave us a 1 year payback then I'd have two and I'd be selling them as well.
I posted some seriously padded numbers with our shop as the backdrop for DTS ROI and it's gotten no comments. If 3.3 is good for your shop and it will help with morale or whatever, then knock yourself out. It's your shop, your money to do what you will, I don't have a problem with it. What I have a problem with is someone telling me that cowsh it is peanut butter and I need to make a sandwich out of it.
I'd expect to hear every single comment from Danny's shop, they have two autos to feed, 1 million impressions a year, that makes all the sense in the world to go DTS. But a shop that does 1/6 of that, 1-4 color jobs...
oh yeah and instead of printing film my artist is doing work that makes us more money vs. just printing film. more value.
So your artist sat there and stared at the film printer while it prints? It's like arguing against using a dip tank because your guy only puts one screen in at a time and then sits there and watches it soak while doing nothing else.
If you've got that much time screwing around with film and film filing then you've got more problems than DTS can fix. You're not printing 30-40 jobs a day Sam. You've got one auto and hopefully no more than 3 guys dedicated to screen print production so how could this film be such a time waster? Is anyone else that has one auto and prints half a dozen jobs a day having this film nightmare I keep reading about? If you are don't be afraid to say yes, there are others here that can and will help you so you don't have to write a $50K check to fix it.
A serious question now and no BS involved and I'm trying to make a point while learning something. How about the MHM guys, any of you considering DTS? Have you ran the numbers to see if DTS is for you? Or do you just want one and plan to buy one for other reasons?
And to clear things up, I don't have a problem with DTS. I think it's the greatest thing since the retensionable frame and S thread mesh. I WANT ONE DAMNIT!!! I don't have a problem with any of you guys that have invested in them for your shops for whatever reason. I don't have a problem with you buying one just because you can. I have a problem with $50K, 12 months, 1 auto. I have a problem with trying to convince other shops that size that they will see the same results.
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Alan
I have one question for you. what is the average profit per job you do?
simple question...just the average? 200-300 bucks?
sam
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but Brandt...according to them I took my ball and went home...you are damn right.
there is a big difference between owning a business and working for someone who owns the business. but then again what do I know. and I will do a search but I did post the numbers once.
sam
I'll tell you what you know, it's not near as much as you think you do. You continue to insult so many people with those idiotic comments about owning the business and just working in one. That's just like if I were to tell those others who run smaller shops than me that they don't know what they're doing until they reach our size...total BS. You don't have to own a shop to know how to run one, and just because you own one doesn't mean you know how to run one. They're so independent from one another and one CAN have nothing to do with the other. I don't own this business, but I promise you our production would run circles around yours and I'm the one that's responsible for that, not the owners.
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Alan
I have one question for you. what is the average profit per job you do?
simple question...just the average? 200-300 bucks?
sam
Let's go with $235 for shats and gaggles. And if you come with an argument that if a shop goes DTS that they will get more work in the door it is pulling numbers out of thin air again. I won't play that game. We don't work on speculation and what if's. What about the shop that has outside sales people and the one making the decision for DTS has nothing to do with sales? If we bought a DTS machine it would literally have ZERO impact on our sales...ZERO. Because in many shops, production has nothing to do with the sales department other than doing quality work and doing it on time to make customers happy and "hopefully" get more business in return. You don't need DTS to do that.
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it has everything to do with it...you would not have a job if they did not own the company. you can be replaced. you are not responsible for the EPA, OSHA, Payroll ect. i could go on and on.
now answer the question of what your profit is per job.
lets go with 200 bucks.
xtra job 200x50 x3 = $30,000 printing three extra jobs a week do to set ups. we are really doing about 5- 6 xtra
artist 1 hr day film output = $4,500
film costs = $900.00
than start adding in the labor for faster screen making and rise out you have a 11-12 month ROI
so there ...that is my shop and our numbers
that is the quick breakdown since noone wants to hear about tape.
sam
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Sam you could shut these guys up if you show all the numbers. If you don't then IMO this will never end and we know some of these guys will bring it back up 1000 times just cause thats what some of really enjoy about the forum. If you don't it also appears to them you are hiding something.
I disagree no one would bring any of the scotch tape gate except for Sam himself. Just go back to the second or third of this page and see where Sam jumped into this thread with a snotty comment about scotch tape.
So nobody has ever brought up DTS or Tape after the original incidents ever? You sure?
Doesn't change my point really. If he was to provide numbers (believable ones), it would shut these guys up.
Everyone would stop talking about Sam just the same as they would stop talking about me or you if we went away.
If nobody acknowledged him at all I bet he would stop coming around and even if I am wrong he's just gonna be a dude talking to himself if ignored. It's my opinion some of you like the drama though, thus the digs, insults, and bringing up stuff. Hell id go so far to say some of you really miss DS days. It's not like you guys are actually interested in what Sam is saying, you are interested in proving him wrong. That's a big difference in my eyes.
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LOL I thought this was about the cost of tape, I work at my shop so I don't own a business, I don't print 700 shirts an hour, I don't run 40 to 100 screens a day, so sometimes when you guys toss those numbers out I kind of do the jaw dropping. Reason say you have one auto a dam getty up and jam auto and you can print 700 shirts an hour that's 5,600 shirts, and the work day is only 8 hr's. You have some working ass employee's and they are machine's at the press, being a little dot as I am I have a hard time with the numbers, I've been to large shops own by some very big names and I didn't see production like that even though they put out some product. I'm like alot of you guys I would like to check out shops that are in production and just look, not talking with anyone just watch then maybe I say hell ya those numbers are true. I do think the one thing we get caught up in is do those numbers happen 5 days a week 8 hours a day steady every month or is it something that happens so often.
Darryl
Ps I forgot to say I'm kinda laid back, but that's my style less drama to deal with here at my little shop wouldn't have it any other way.
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Still not going to jump in the middle, but thought I should offer a little more information on our shop. We've been CTS for 8+ years. Through out that time we have always had three autos, but all have been upgraded to newer models over time. One manual press, but that doesn't count. Busy season we do 40-45 set ups in a ten hour shift on those three presses. Our jobs are not simple, from 3-7 colors average, but up to ten color. I keep seeing people talk about one and two color prints, but I still don't believe they exist ;D. We did all the ROI on the first CTS we got, and it showed less than three years, which is kind of the target number here. I know it was much closer to two years. And I keep saying it. It was and still is the perfect fit for OUR company. But is is only one part of many systems. I know Alan wants one, but Alan knows it's not right for them, at least right now. Nothing wrong with that. I just keep saying over and over, it's what works best for us, and I honestly don't know what we would do without it.
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it has everything to do with it...you would not have a job if they did not own the company. you can be replaced. you are not responsible for the EPA, OSHA, Payroll ect. i could go on and on.
now answer the question of what your profit is per job.
lets go with 200 bucks.
xtra job 200x50 x3 = $30,000 printing three extra jobs a week do to set ups. we are really doing about 5- 6 xtra
artist 1 hr day film output = $4,500
film costs = $900.00
than start adding in the labor for faster screen making and rise out you have a 11-12 month ROI
so there ...that is my shop and our numbers
that is the quick breakdown since noone wants to hear about tape.
sam
I put those "real" figures in my ROI I did yesterday. You really think we can say that because you bought a DTS you landed 5-6 more jobs per week? I've got an idea, what if we bought a DTS and our sales doubled? Tripled?
And do those DTS screens make themselves? We do 12 more jobs per week now than we did 3 years ago, no DTS here.
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Bimm, same thing can be said about having a cell phone, tech makes things a little easier every year, it's do you really need it, does it help you can you justify it, it's your choice.
Darryl
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I am not saying we landed more of them I said we were outputting more of them which relates to more money being earned in the same time period...
I am also saying we can take those RUSH jobs because we know we can take them on and be able to do them and that adds even more money due to rush fees or repeat customers.
sam
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I'll tell you what you know, it's not near as much as you think you do. You continue to insult so many people with those idiotic comments about owning the business and just working in one. That's just like if I were to tell those others who run smaller shops than me that they don't know what they're doing until they reach our size...total BS. You don't have to own a shop to know how to run one, and just because you own one doesn't mean you know how to run one. They're so independent from one another and one CAN have nothing to do with the other. I don't own this business, but I promise you our production would run circles around yours and I'm the one that's responsible for that, not the owners.
I would say if all I had to worry about was screen printing and those processes my life would be exponentially easier. I think most business owners would agree with that.
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Braggarts and liars when confronted with or asked for actual facts will jump to insults and innuendo instantly.
Since time eternal. Makes for a well massaged ego but a poor social life I would imagine.
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I was just going to say it strikes me as odd that the very people who scream the loudest that arr dubya bee is such an ass take so many plays from the type of playbook he ran from... but you pretty much just said the same thing, EB.
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I was just going to say it strikes me as odd that the very people who scream the loudest that arr dubya bee is such an ass take so many plays from the type of playbook he ran from... but you pretty much just said the same thing, EB.
Whoa buddy nobody here steals money like that guy ;)
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Time to put this thread to bed?
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I know I am done. And one final note. I really wish I only had one department to worry about.
now on to the 18th job that I will be doing today.
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Time to put this thread to bed?
About 10 pages ago, I would say.
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I need a break, but before I do, going back to Sam's tired argument of owners versus peons...Who do you think chews ass when someone gets OT when it wasn't needed? Who do you think makes sure the production floor isn't a death trap? Who do you think tries everything in his power to be environmentally responsible with our waste? Who orders UPS labels for shipping/receiving? Who do you think has to wield the plunger like a sword at least once a week because we have a phantom crapper who clogs the production toilet with their football sized turds? The answer is...yours truly.
Brandt, would you tell Shelly that she's got no idea how good she's got it not having to deal with what you do on a daily basis? To her face and expect not to get Homered in the junk? If in fact you both don't share ownership which I don't know.
For all the responsibilities that one owner says he has that outweigh the sad employee, their are 10 employees that will say they do way more on a daily basis than an owner of said business. Responsibilities are different, but work is work and most shops our size don't operate or stay in business without employees doing a ton of work that the owner doesn't want to do or doesn't have time to do. I concede there are certain things that need to be done by the owners, but to diminish someone's responsibilities or workload simply because they don't have "owner" on their business card or desk plate is one of, if not the most ridiculous comments Sam has ever made.
Now for all you owners who do a ton more than your employees do, I commend you, but you probably wouldn't come on the forum and try to insult your employees or other non-owners because you have a lot more on your plate than they do.
My situation isn't that unique. I bet there are tons of regular ole employees that make just about every decision the high and mighty Palomar Sam makes.
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I know I am done. And one final note. I really wish I only had one department to worry about.
now on to the 18th job that I will be doing today.
I passed 18 about two hours ago and I'm in a different time zone, poor me. Hey Tony, how much have you done today? Oh wait, you don't own the business so it doesn't matter to some reading this thread but I'd like to know anyway.
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you have 18 departments to worry about? hmmm really? doubt it. and I am not talking down or insulting employees I am saying they are different. and MY BUSINESS IS ONLY AS GOOD AS MY EMPLOYEES! I know that and that is why they are very well taken care of.
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I need a break, but before I do, going back to Sam's tired argument of owners versus peons...Who do you think chews ass when someone gets OT when it wasn't needed? Who do you think makes sure the production floor isn't a death trap? Who do you think tries everything in his power to be environmentally responsible with our waste? Who orders UPS labels for shipping/receiving? Who do you think has to wield the plunger like a sword at least once a week because we have a phantom crapper who clogs the production toilet with their football sized turds? The answer is...yours truly.
Brandt, would you tell Shelly that she's got no idea how good she's got it not having to deal with what you do on a daily basis? To her face and expect not to get Homered in the junk? If in fact you both don't share ownership which I don't know.
You are batting a 1000 on assumptions about me. Yes actually I would and have, same token I don't exactly know what its like to deal with she deals with either but Shelly is wearing a lot of hats. Legally I own Graphic Disorder 100%, but consider it at least 49% hers. I also believe she wouldn't want to be me, just managing our social media is enough to send someone to the loony bin and she has bluntly said she wouldn't want to deal with all I do. That said I dont feel I have a hard job, but often time consuming. Makes it tough to run around doing processes so running the business can easily get in the way at times of working IN the business. Works vice versa too, but as we have become larger and people depend on sales I have to make sure that keeps going number one.
For all the responsibilities that one owner says he has that outweigh the sad employee, their are 10 employees that will say they do way more on a daily basis than an owner of said business. Responsibilities are different, but work is work and most shops our size don't operate or stay in business without employees doing a ton of work that the owner doesn't want to do or doesn't have time to do. I concede there are certain things that need to be done by the owners, but to diminish someone's responsibilities or workload simply because they don't have "owner" on their business card or desk plate is one of, if not the most ridiculous comments Sam has ever made.
Now for all you owners who do a ton more than your employees do, I commend you, but you probably wouldn't come on the forum and try to insult your employees or other non-owners because you have a lot more on your plate than they do.
My situation isn't that unique. I bet there are tons of regular ole employees that make just about every decision the high and mighty Palomar Sam makes.
I certainly wasn't exactly trying to insult you. A employee doing "more" doesn't mean that is harder to do deal with than being a owner. They are 2 very different things IMO.
I stand by my point:
I would say if all I had to worry about was screen printing and those processes my life would be exponentially easier. I think most business owners would agree with that.
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I don't have time to catch up to all of page 13 here, but regarding proofing; we print out proofs to a laser printer first before we go to film; wouldn't that be a common practice to avoid wasted screens on a DTS?
Steve
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I know I am done. And one final note. I really wish I only had one department to worry about.
now on to the 18th job that I will be doing today.
I passed 18 about two hours ago and I'm in a different time zone, poor me. Hey Tony, how much have you done today? Oh wait, you don't own the business so it doesn't matter to some reading this thread but I'd like to know anyway.
Alan please take this as a friend just making a observation. You are doing a lot of chest thumping lately and its not your style. We get it that your better than Sam. I doubt anyone would debate that.
But remember some shop right now printed more today than you might all month. Just sayin'.
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Time to put this thread to bed?
I can't tell - is this an incredibly ironic subtle pun reference given the mention of a certain someone two posts above? ;-) If you have no idea what I'm talking about...nevermind, but I'm guessing it was intentional?
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Man...Does anyone else notice how expensive screen tape can be?
;D
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I know I am done. And one final note. I really wish I only had one department to worry about.
now on to the 18th job that I will be doing today.
I passed 18 about two hours ago and I'm in a different time zone, poor me. Hey Tony, how much have you done today? Oh wait, you don't own the business so it doesn't matter to some reading this thread but I'd like to know anyway.
I don't like to give out production numbers but we did okay seeing as it is the slow month. Printed a photographic sim process 9 color sample posted earlir today (sorry for the bad pic).
As General Manager for Transcolor I oversaw two facilities; one in Georgia, the other in Los Angeles. 120 employees, belt printers, allover machines and some serious firepower. Owner was in Maryland and I only met him twice. Responsible for sales, production, accounting, finishing dept etc. Certainly felt like an owner. But I don't think I'll ever be one. I'd probably suck at it.
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I certainly wasn't exactly trying to insult you. A employee doing "more" doesn't mean that is harder to do deal with than being a owner. They are 2 very different things IMO.
I stand by my point:
I would say if all I had to worry about was screen printing and those processes my life would be exponentially easier. I think most business owners would agree with that.
Man up and call it what it is. For a long time, when confronted with a request for facts, Sam and now yourself take digs on Inkman
and now Alan for not being owners. And when you get called on it ya'll try and pass it off as something else. That's pathetic and cheap
for a whole slew of reasons and you need to stop doing it. Man the eff up.
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I know I am done. And one final note. I really wish I only had one department to worry about.
now on to the 18th job that I will be doing today.
I passed 18 about two hours ago and I'm in a different time zone, poor me. Hey Tony, how much have you done today? Oh wait, you don't own the business so it doesn't matter to some reading this thread but I'd like to know anyway.
Alan please take this as a friend just making a observation. You are doing a lot of chest thumping lately and its not your style. We get it that your better than Sam. I doubt anyone would debate that.
But remember some shop right now printed more today than you might all month. Just sayin'.
Weighed and measured, nod emoticon. I do try to keep my feet on the ground but at times you lose perspective. PS, Sam's still an ass.
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It's Ok EB I do not let arrogant statements get to me. I know what I need to know and that's who counts the most. I do not go to work just to get a pay check, I truly actually love our company. I strive to make it better and make it grow. I do not see it as a pay check at all I see the future and my future is with this company. I bet you I am just as compassionate about this company as the owner is. I am not an operating owner nor will I ever want to be. Just like tony said I know I would suck at it. But if I owned a company I would want people exactly like me or Alan or Tony managing the business.
This is in no damn way trying to take away the responsibility and stress that is on the shoulders of the owner. But I will be damned if I ever went to work for someone who held that title over me to earn respect, that's not how you earn my respect at all. The owner of our company is not just the owner he is also an employee he receives a pay check since it is an LLC. He treats all of us here as fellow employees even tho he is still the top dog. We all as a team work to make things better and earn more money. It is a mutual respect. I would never want to deal with the taxes he has to day to day and he would not want to deal with 90% of what I deal with day to day.
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I certainly wasn't exactly trying to insult you. A employee doing "more" doesn't mean that is harder to do deal with than being a owner. They are 2 very different things IMO.
I stand by my point:
I would say if all I had to worry about was screen printing and those processes my life would be exponentially easier. I think most business owners would agree with that.
Man up and call it what it is. For a long time, when confronted with a request for facts, Sam and now yourself take digs on Inkman
and now Alan for not being owners. And when you get called on it ya'll try and pass it off as something else. That's pathetic and cheap
for a whole slew of reasons and you need to stop doing it. Man the eff up.
Its a whole different weight on your shoulders as a owner and a whole different level of responsibility. That doesn't discount or even suggest I work harder than him at all, didn't say that so don't pretend as if I have. I have been a employee, I have been a owner. No matter how hard the work was as a employee, none of it compares to being a owner TO ME. It's not even in the ball park in my opinion. You want to make it more than that because you love the drama, you'd argue with me if I said the sky was blue.
I have been SUPER clear. I stand by my point:
I would say if all I had to worry about was screen printing and those processes my life would be exponentially easier. I think most business owners would agree with that.
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I know I am done. And one final note. I really wish I only had one department to worry about.
now on to the 18th job that I will be doing today.
I passed 18 about two hours ago and I'm in a different time zone, poor me. Hey Tony, how much have you done today? Oh wait, you don't own the business so it doesn't matter to some reading this thread but I'd like to know anyway.
Alan please take this as a friend just making a observation. You are doing a lot of chest thumping lately and its not your style. We get it that your better than Sam. I doubt anyone would debate that.
But remember some shop right now printed more today than you might all month. Just sayin'.
PS, Sam's still an ass.
I fully agree. I still admire his excitement for his business. I lost some of that in recent time buried in the day to day.
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Posts are somewhat searchable here, I can point out several instances where you and Sam make an insult
to specific people out of not being an owner. You can own up and change and leave that garbage off the forum or
you can continue to try and deny that it was a dig to begin with. Either way it's not cool man.
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I don't take digs it is the truth. they are different. again Business Owners have the entire weight of the business on them all the time. I am a 100% commissioned employee just like Mike's owner. I legally have to pay every employee but I am not paid if there is no money there. Oh yeah if the business folds an employee just goes and finds another job, while in the meantime an owner just lost most likely everything they had or might even lose what they don't have yet depending on how the business is set up and what is attached to said business. Is it a put down I don't think so it is a reality. I do not deny that Mike and Alan have great passion for their employers but tell them they won't get a pay check for 2-3 months I will bet my bottom line they would not be working there! I know when we started out I didn't get a paycheck for months living off a savings. would an employee do that? hmmmm nope. so yeah there is a difference. is it a put down, well if you want to take it that way then I guess it is.
It also goes to knowing what the ENTIRE picture is and I know that both of their bosses do not SHARE everything so they cannot possibly know every detail about the business.
sam
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Posts are somewhat searchable here, I can point out several instances where you and Sam make an insult
to specific people out of not being an owner. You can own up and change and leave that garbage off the forum or
you can continue to try and deny that it was a dig to begin with. Either way it's not cool man.
I am sure you can find all types of things to take out of context. If you read into it, then that is on YOU. If I haven't chosen words the best because I am in a hurry so be it. I don't walk around on egg shells in fear of pissing someone off because they might take it out of context or not like me. Hell ive probably intentionally been an ass to someone after a shot at me. If someone can't understand the extra responsibility and tasks a owner has vs just a employee I find that interesting.
I stand by my point:
I would say if all I had to worry about was screen printing and those processes my life would be exponentially easier. I think most business owners would agree with that.
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I don't take digs it is the truth. they are different. again Business Owners have the entire weight of the business on them all the time. I am a 100% commissioned employee just like Mike's owner. I legally have to pay every employee but I am not paid if there is no money there. Oh yeah if the business folds an employee just goes and finds another job, while in the meantime an owner just lost most likely everything they had or might even lose what they don't have yet depending on how the business is set up and what is attached to said business. Is it a put down I don't think so it is a reality. I do not deny that Mike and Alan have great passion for their employers but tell them they won't get a pay check for 2-3 months I will bet my bottom line they would not be working there! I know when we started out I didn't get a paycheck for months living off a savings. would an employee do that? hmmmm nope. so yeah there is a difference. is it a put down, well if you want to take it that way then I guess it is.
It also goes to knowing what the ENTIRE picture is and I know that both of their bosses do not SHARE everything so they cannot possibly know every detail about the business.
sam
To be fair Alan probably has a really close idea of most inner workings since he's married to the family. I would guess Alan would also work without a pay check if it was down to that at least for a period of time. I don't know Mike well enough to make that assumption.
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I don't take digs it is the truth. they are different. again Business Owners have the entire weight of the business on them all the time. I am a 100% commissioned employee just like Mike's owner. I legally have to pay every employee but I am not paid if there is no money there. Oh yeah if the business folds an employee just goes and finds another job, while in the meantime an owner just lost most likely everything they had or might even lose what they don't have yet depending on how the business is set up and what is attached to said business. Is it a put down I don't think so it is a reality. I do not deny that Mike and Alan have great passion for their employers but tell them they won't get a pay check for 2-3 months I will bet my bottom line they would not be working there! I know when we started out I didn't get a paycheck for months living off a savings. would an employee do that? hmmmm nope. so yeah there is a difference. is it a put down, well if you want to take it that way then I guess it is.
It also goes to knowing what the ENTIRE picture is and I know that both of their bosses do not SHARE everything so they cannot possibly know every detail about the business.
sam
wait a second..you are worried about tape? really who worries about tape costs? oh that's right people running the F**KING BUSINESS.
JUST SAYIN.
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:o
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You know what kind of people are really awesome? The kind that make underhanded insults at folks
and then get called on it and then start trying to explain away their insult in the first place. You didn't choose
the wrong words in a hurry, you intentionally tried to insult someone in a shady azz way. Man up.
We are all fully effing aware of the difference between an employee and an owner, don't insult our intelligence.
What I am not entirely sure of is what makes one a better person than another? If I had to judge from this
thread alone, the employees are kicking the owners asses in terms of being a decent human.
Ya'll act like we're some jonny-come-lately around here. Like we've never met the kid that claimed he could
jump ten feet high and when asked to demonstrate resorted to obfuscation and politics and eventually insults.
Ain't nothing new. Neither is the kid that insults you then calls it something else. Totally lame. Weaksauce.
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really EB...I have always said that there is a difference and if people take offense to that well too effin bad. Mike and Allen try to act like they know what it is to be the owner ( which they are not have never been ) so they do not know what it is like.
does being an owner make anyone better? I don't know. But I do know that I never said I was better because I was the owner I have always said they don't know the WHOLE picture. and guess what they never will til they are the owner.
I take offense to anyone who thinks they can walk in my shoes and Mike had already made it clear he could not. so how is that an insult to him? he just can't do it. he said so himself.
I don't think that some see a difference. the are leaders and followers in this world and there are some who just want to skate by in life. I am not one of them. I have always been upfront and people know where I stand. I am not sorry that you feel the way you do. remember I was offering numbers and people still told me no way. well lets see what happens now that more and more people are getting DTS. they are going to start to show that my numbers are in line with theirs and I will expect everyone to make a public apology till then I really don't care. my sole purpose in business is to make money so my employees can live a better life and make a real wage that they can live on.
So, in closing I don't care what a lot of people think, I care that my employees are taken very well care of and guess what they are. Unlike Alan who no matter what he does has unhappy employees. and I hope that that said employee does not end up like a cancer in his shop since I have seen that many many times. the difference is I CUT THAT CANCER out and make sure it does not infect the shop!
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From another thread on the board. hmmmmmm
We think ROI will arrive somewhere around next fall or into 2015.
from Ron P in the DTS forum....look it up...so that makes it about 11-15 months? hmmmmmm
guess I am not so full of crap afterall huh kids.
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Seriously Sam you do not know sh I t. First of all I have dedicated more years to this company than you been in business. Second of all it is just as much my future as the owners. You better bet your arse I would stick with the company through any rough times. If I had to work some where else part time I would. Next I actually know every aspect of the financials I have a small piece of the company which required me to review everything before agreeing. You truly do not know everything about business if you erroneously mistake your own companies experience as being the same for everyone. You have made it clear many many times you hate employees, you look down on them as all being the same and none can ever be your equal.
The reason I would suck at being an operating owner Sam is not because I could not do it, no it's because I would hate it and that would make my performance suffer. I prefer to work in the business to use your term, you prefer to work on the business. It does not make you any better than me it is just a personality difference.
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From another thread on the board. hmmmmmm
We think ROI will arrive somewhere around next fall or into 2015.
from Ron P in the DTS forum....look it up...so that makes it about 11-15 months? hmmmmmm
guess I am not so full of crap afterall huh kids.
heres the whole post...
Hi Sam
Our ROI will be different as there are more moving parts to this puzzle than just this piece. The moving parts are too many to list - I'll mane a few....
Just one of the moving parts was proper screens for this. We spent about $25K on that alone (all during the the year). It has put us in a "no tape" arena. Just that savings, all by itself, saved us around $8-10K this year. No more film (BIG one) - 8-12 rolls a week - you add it up. There are more hard pieces of equipment on the way as well.
We think ROI will arrive somewhere around next fall or into 2015.
I'll keep everyone aware of our progress....
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Here's a little gas for the fire ;D
I am a partner in our business. Our company hasn't grown every years for twenty five years because I'm one of the owners...directly at least. My company grown because of constantly trying to become better, making more mistakes than you can imagine, and learning from them! Listening to mentors and rookies alike. Most importantly I think, is molding employees to be what we need.
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so Mike you are an owner now?
i never said i hate employees i hate things they do but i dont hate them
and good night
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Little further up that thread Ron says he does 300 screens a day. I'm not what you call a math genius, but I reckon that amounts to about ten shitloads of eight color jobs a day on that Diamondback of yours Sam.
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...I saw that after I posted I have done a little reverse-engineering ROI math in my head, but this will hafta wait til the morning I also still would like to hear specifics about tape usage
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really EB...I have always said that there is a difference and if people take offense to that well too effin bad. Mike and Allen try to act like they know what it is to be the owner ( which they are not have never been ) so they do not know what it is like.
Crawl down off that cross man. I've met scads of owners that don't show the dedication Alan shows on almost every post. I also know a few select guys who put as much heart and soul into their jobs as any owner out there, I've got one working for me. He doesn't even need the money and yet beats me in the shop every day he works, and takes the job home with him every bit that I do.
Those cheap-shots are an incredibly small thing to do.
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Oh yeah if the business folds an employee just goes and finds another job, while in the meantime an owner just lost most likely everything they had or might even lose what they don't have yet depending on how the business is set up and what is attached to said business.
Are you saying you would lose everything you have if your business folds?
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I don't think he's trying to say they don't have any less passion for what they do on a daily basis, just that there is difference between running a shop and owning a shop. This is my second venture, I was young and dumb on my first manufacturing business and failed 3 years into it. I'll tell you straight up loose everything you have plus a bunch of you parents money that believed in you and you'll know the difference between owning and not.
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You know what kind of people are really awesome? The kind that make underhanded insults at folks
and then get called on it and then start trying to explain away their insult in the first place. You didn't choose
the wrong words in a hurry, you intentionally tried to insult someone in a shady azz way. Man up.
That's how you have it in your head anyway. If you want to believe that it doesn't shock me. Unfortunately that doesn't make it true.
We are all fully effing aware of the difference between an employee and an owner, don't insult our intelligence.
What I am not entirely sure of is what makes one a better person than another? If I had to judge from this
thread alone, the employees are kicking the owners asses in terms of being a decent human.
Where did I say that being a owner makes someone better than another, do you make this up as you go? It doesn't. It's a drastic different set of responsibilities though and STRESS. Ive been clear, when you are a owner you have a lot of other things on your plate, if I could just focus on screen printing and those processes my life would be much more simple here at the shop. Some of you have described your "owner's" involvement and that sounds nothing like my situation so I comment in context to MINE and many owners and employees ive met and seen in action. There are exceptions to the rule of course.
If you judge someone's ability to be a "decent human" from a drama thread on the internet then I find that interesting. You don't know the first thing about me and what type of human and I am other than what I let you know on the internet. Remember that.
Ya'll act like we're some jonny-come-lately around here. Like we've never met the kid that claimed he could
jump ten feet high and when asked to demonstrate resorted to obfuscation and politics and eventually insults.
Ain't nothing new. Neither is the kid that insults you then calls it something else. Totally lame. Weaksauce.
I certainly have been clear on this one as well. I don't exactly believe Sam's numbers. That doesn't change the fact that is works for his business and as noted here by other ACTUAL USERS the quality of life from a machine like that in a shop may be underestimated. Those are the points ive made, I haven't defended his actual ROI numbers though.
If you think I have a problem owning up to actual insults you are mistaken. Truth is YOU just want everything I say to be an actual insult when much of it frankly isn't.
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really EB...I have always said that there is a difference and if people take offense to that well too effin bad. Mike and Allen try to act like they know what it is to be the owner ( which they are not have never been ) so they do not know what it is like.
Crawl down off that cross man. I've met scads of owners that don't show the dedication Alan shows on almost every post. I also know a few select guys who put as much heart and soul into their jobs as any owner out there, I've got one working for me. He doesn't even need the money and yet beats me in the shop every day he works, and takes the job home with him every bit that I do.
Those cheap-shots are an incredibly small thing to do.
For sure, but as a employee in my previous life I know I "thought" I knew what it would be like to be a "owner". Boy was I wrong. Have any of you considered it's insulting to have people who are not owners acting like they know what that's like? That's not a "dig" at Alan or Mike at all in fact. It's just a reality. Alan and Mike are the cream of the crop I am sure as far as employee's go and they are a HUGE part of the business. Some might even say MORE important than a owner. But that doesn't change the fact that they do not at all know what it's like to be a owner unless they actually are one. I have 6 employees here that are amazing people and employees, this shop does not work right with out them, at all. They know this because I make it clear in communication and it PAY. I assume Alan and Mike are both receiving that type of treatment as well.
I think the point is that it's really easy to preach how awesome your processes are when all you do is screen print and work on the screen print processes. That's not a insult as much as some want it to be either. I've said it a few times now, if that's all I had to do I bet you id be a crap ton better at it myself. That's not to minimize Alan or Mikes or anyone's work. It's just a FACT that work is always more efficient when you can focus on just that. When you start throwing Taxes, Payroll, this widget isn't working, come approve (every) embroidery file that is running, pay the bills, make a proof for 10 people today, the product in our store is wrong, the shipping software is down, the server isn't backing up, my email doesn't work, the phones are down, my monitor died, there's no hot water, it's cold in here, there's ice on the step, unlock the UPS door, rep is here, someone is here selling insurance, would you like some girl scout cookies, and so on and boy can it sure get in the way of actual "work" or "working on a process". Trust me it isn't all roses being a "owner". I am not the type running out early or showing up late. I am here first, generally by 7am often before 6 and even sometimes before 5. Because I am always trying to get ahead to help. I am often the last person out of the building as well. I know many owners NOT like that. Hell to be honest with you I could afford to replace myself and sit at home and collect a check. This sounds amazing but id be bored in a week and id be back. So I don't.
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From another thread on the board. hmmmmmm
We think ROI will arrive somewhere around next fall or into 2015.
from Ron P in the DTS forum....look it up...so that makes it about 11-15 months? hmmmmmm
guess I am not so full of crap afterall huh kids.
Entry level auto, 12 months, 50K. I bet Ron does more than 20 screens a day since he goes through 8-12 rolls of film A WEEK. You didn't go through that much film in a YEAR and you want to hitch your hooptie to Ron's bus, that's funny as hell to me. But I suppose you'll tell us that you are now doing 40 screens a week and you just landed a 500K piece job so your ROI will actually be 4 days.
And you said that you'd bet that I'd leave my job if I didn't get a paycheck...Do you care to make a wager on that and if so, go ahead and pay me right now because 09 was not good and there were months were we had to do without. Man, I just don't know if you don't care to read but a few things that I type or if your just...well, I don't want to throw insults but I'm just about out of other things to say. Thing is Sam, there is no way in hell you care more about your business than I do the one that I work in and if you do, then your obsessed and slightly off your rocker. Plain and simple. If you did even close to what I do on a daily basis then good for you man, you're a hard working SOB if you can keep up with me, but something tells me you wouldn't last a day in my shoes. There's an arrogance about you that oozes out of your pores and I'd love to sit down with people that have worked for you and still work for you, that will be the measure of your success and how much you really do around Palomar.
Oh, and I "owned" my first business when I was about 10 years old when you were probably still picking and eating your boogers and in the last 25 years I've somehow managed to rise to the top of whatever it is that I chose to do, and I've owned plenty along the way. I don't take kindly to someone who obviously thinks he's better than others because he "owns" a business yet has to exagerate so many things he says on a forum so people will respect him.
Luckily we don't have to worry about not getting paid right now because we're doing pretty good.
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And to clarify, if you think all I do is worry about screen printing stuff all day and fix only screen print related things then your reading comprehension is not so good or you aren't reading. That's not my problem if you don't read replies and still try to argue that Mike and I just deal with one tiny section of the business. I'm the mechanic, plumber, motivator, screen printer, production manager, job quoter, fixer of ALL THINGS UNDER BOTH BUILDINGS, and somehwere along the way I've managed to learn enough about screen printing to put out a crap load of awesome work, more I might add than the guys saying all I do is screen printing stuff all day.
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I guess you guys will understand what I do when you reach our level of volume and wear the hats I wear. :)
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really EB...I have always said that there is a difference and if people take offense to that well too effin bad. Mike and Allen try to act like they know what it is to be the owner ( which they are not have never been ) so they do not know what it is like.
Crawl down off that cross man. I've met scads of owners that don't show the dedication Alan shows on almost every post. I also know a few select guys who put as much heart and soul into their jobs as any owner out there, I've got one working for me. He doesn't even need the money and yet beats me in the shop every day he works, and takes the job home with him every bit that I do.
Those cheap-shots are an incredibly small thing to do.
For sure, but as a employee in my previous life I know I "thought" I knew what it would be like to be a "owner". Boy was I wrong. Have any of you considered it's insulting to have people who are not owners acting like they know what that's like? That's not a "dig" at Alan or Mike at all in fact. It's just a reality. Alan and Mike are the cream of the crop I am sure as far as employee's go and they are a HUGE part of the business. Some might even say MORE important than a owner. But that doesn't change the fact that they do not at all know what it's like to be a owner unless they actually are one. I have 6 employees here that are amazing people and employees, this shop does not work right with out them, at all. They know this because I make it clear in communication and it PAY. I assume Alan and Mike are both receiving that type of treatment as well.
I think the point is that it's really easy to preach how awesome your processes are when all you do is screen print and work on the screen print processes. That's not a insult as much as some want it to be either. I've said it a few times now, if that's all I had to do I bet you id be a crap ton better at it myself. That's not to minimize Alan or Mikes or anyone's work. It's just a FACT that work is always more efficient when you can focus on just that. When you start throwing Taxes, Payroll, this widget isn't working, come approve (every) embroidery file that is running, pay the bills, make a proof for 10 people today, the product in our store is wrong, the shipping software is down, the server isn't backing up, my email doesn't work, the phones are down, my monitor died, there's no hot water, it's cold in here, there's ice on the step, unlock the UPS door, rep is here, someone is here selling insurance, would you like some girl scout cookies, and so on and boy can it sure get in the way of actual "work" or "working on a process". Trust me it isn't all roses being a "owner". I am not the type running out early or showing up late. I am here first, generally by 7am often before 6 and even sometimes before 5. Because I am always trying to get ahead to help. I am often the last person out of the building as well. I know many owners NOT like that. Hell to be honest with you I could afford to replace myself and sit at home and collect a check. This sounds amazing but id be bored in a week and id be back. So I don't.
Brandt I have already agreed there is a difference between an owner and what he does and what a manger does. I do not doubt it for one second. I see what the owner here does every day, we discuss all the time taxes, bills, fees, paper work paper work paper work and I can tell you I do not envy him for one second. Thats one of the many reasons I strive to take as much of the work load off of him as I can. Him as an owner invested his money and credit in to this business, I invested my personal time and life in to it. We both are invested in to the company but with different sacrifices. Fortunately we are an LLC so his liability is minimal unless he was negligent or has guaranteed any of his personal worth on the business.. I can tell you tho that is not the case. If the business failed he would be safe except for losing a job. This is not to diminish the sacrifice of an owner at all its just my way of saying if you make your business successful enough you can eventually be off the hook personally if things failed.
Whether i am ceam of the crop or not I do not know, I know the best I can offer is 100% effort. I am not as capable as Tony but with me I am as loyal as can be and think of this job as not just a job but a future and refuse to allow the company to stagnate.
Every single one of those things you listed in the second paragraph are actually what i do every day and then some. I am not just managing printing I am managing every single order that comes through here and i am also managing the building and every thing in it. These are all things the owner counts on me doing so he can concentrate on both sales and the financials. Your doing this stuff your self because you are still young in the business but judging from your success you will grow to the point where you will hire a production manager and you can work solely on your business. Trust me you will be greatly satisfied when the day comes where you can walk in to work and not have to worry about proofs, ink colors, toilets, and whatever crap.
BTW I make a salary my check is the same week after week. Yet I work a ten hour day five days a week. If I work the weekend it changes nothing. For instance I will be spending a long weekend here soon fixing a broken head on our 12 head. It does not benefit my pay check it benefits the company and in the long run it pays out. I take work home just about every day. I do not leave at 5 and forget this place it is just as much part of me as my children are.
Now for something a little more light hearted. This thread has brought out some of the best sayings I ever heard from Alan. Alan where you a stand up comedian in your previous life?
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And to clarify, if you think all I do is worry about screen printing stuff all day and fix only screen print related things then your reading comprehension is not so good or you aren't reading. That's not my problem if you don't read replies and still try to argue that Mike and I just deal with one tiny section of the business. I'm the mechanic, plumber, motivator, screen printer, production manager, job quoter, fixer of ALL THINGS UNDER BOTH BUILDINGS, and somehwere along the way I've managed to learn enough about screen printing to put out a crap load of awesome work, more I might add than the guys saying all I do is screen printing stuff all day.
Read em, again given all you've listed if that's all I had to do, id consider my life much simpler than what I do now and I didn't say screen printing was "tiny" section of the business. Didn't even say it was easy. It sounds fun, I actually admire it. You think its a jab, its not at all. It's a reality. Your not running the complete business, you have a more focused level of involvement allowing you to excel at that. It's clear your business is doing well because of your focus. Be proud of it, its great. But don't discount what the owners or people that are doing the work for the owners that you don't have to do are doing. It's important work as well you know.
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I guess you guys will understand what I do when you reach our level of volume and wear the hats I wear. :)
How many years has SRI been screen printing?
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I guess you guys will understand what I do when you reach our level of volume and wear the hats I wear. :)
How many years has SRI been screen printing?
Almost 8 years.
And Mike, I was wondering if anyone was reading some of those because personally, I think it's some of my best work. If I got one to laugh at them then it was worth it.
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Brandt I have already agreed there is a difference between an owner and what he does and what a manger does. I do not doubt it for one second. I see what the owner here does every day, we discuss all the time taxes, bills, fees, paper work paper work paper work and I can tell you I do not envy him for one second. Thats one of the many reasons I strive to take as much of the work load off of him as I can.
This is great, this is what you should do and I am sure he is happy to have you. I don't pretend all of the ownership stuff is harder then just being a employee, it's probably not. Its more stressful though IMO and its often a lot to deal with when its "on top of" helping in the business.
Him as an owner invested his money and credit in to this business, I invested my personal time and life in to it. We both are invested in to the company but with different sacrifices. Fortunately we are an LLC so his liability is minimal unless he was negligent or has guaranteed any of his personal worth on the business.. I can tell you tho that is not the case. If the business failed he would be safe except for losing a job. This is not to diminish the sacrifice of an owner at all its just my way of saying if you make your business successful enough you can eventually be off the hook personally if things failed.
Whether i am ceam of the crop or not I do not know, I know the best I can offer is 100% effort. I am not as capable as Tony but with me I am as loyal as can be and think of this job as not just a job but a future and refuse to allow the company to stagnate.
100% is a lot more than many give. When you find employees that stop watching clocks and only care about the work they are doing its a great thing. I have been lucky with our hires. I think we have a complete team of that.
Every single one of those things you listed in the second paragraph are actually what i do every day and then some. I am not just managing printing I am managing every single order that comes through here and i am also managing the building and every thing in it. These are all things the owner counts on me doing so he can concentrate on both sales and the financials. Your doing this stuff your self because you are still young in the business but judging from your success you will grow to the point where you will hire a production manager and you can work solely on your business. Trust me you will be greatly satisfied when the day comes where you can walk in to work and not have to worry about proofs, ink colors, toilets, and whatever crap.
You aren't kidding, every time I remove a process or something from my day to day my life gets a bit easier. Thats my point in all of this. I know we all do all sorts of things for our business out side our "titles". I just felt it was interesting that some seemed to act as if a owner isn't carrying the largest weight on the shoulders. LLC or not. Failing is failing no matter what the legal title is and nobody wants that to happen. Day in and day out I try to be the largest help where we need it the most. Sometimes thats sales, sometimes it's embroidery, some times its screen printing. Who knows what I will be doing when I walk in each morning as we are still a young business in respect to screen print and embroidery. We don't have all the answers and I assure you Alan and you probably have a more efficient set up. I don't doubt it for a second. But I argue that you both have a more focused task list in front of you so fixing issues and creating better processes is easier for you to do than it is for me at this stage in my business and that doesn't make you better than me or the other way around. Just makes us in different places right now.
BTW I make a salary my check is the same week after week. Yet I work a ten hour day five days a week. If I work the weekend it changes nothing. For instance I will be spending a long weekend here soon fixing a broken head on our 12 head. It does not benefit my pay check it benefits the company and in the long run it pays out. I take work home just about every day. I do not leave at 5 and forget this place it is just as much part of me as my children are.
I have always felt you had the companies best interested in mind and you have been in a good employee I don't doubt it for a second.
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I guess you guys will understand what I do when you reach our level of volume and wear the hats I wear. :)
How many years has SRI been screen printing?
Almost 8 years.
Thanks, so 8 Years to hit roughly 1 million in screen print sales. I think this puts me in a real good mood about where we are.
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I guess you guys will understand what I do when you reach our level of volume and wear the hats I wear. :)
How many years has SRI been screen printing?
Almost 8 years.
And Mike, I was wondering if anyone was reading some of those because personally, I think it's some of my best work. If I got one to laugh at them then it was worth it.
Sorry Alan but I have to steal the Peanut Butter and cow shat one from you. And definitely the "Who do you think has to wield the plunger like a sword at least once a week because we have a phantom crapper who clogs the production toilet with their football sized turds"
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Yep, nothing to it. Think you have fun toys now, just wait, it gets better.
First time I heard the peanut butter reference I about choked on a frito pie I was eating while sitting on top of a 36 story building in down town Fort Worth. If I would have gotten that food lodged any tighter in my air hole I was going to be dead because no way I could have gotten down in time. I was the only person within about 20 floors because the building was shut down and we were doing the asbestos abatement management for that place.
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Yep, nothing to it. Think you have fun toys now, just wait, it gets better.
First time I heard the peanut butter reference I about choked on a frito pie I was eating while sitting on top of a 36 story building in down town Fort Worth. If I would have gotten that food lodged any tighter in my air hole I was going to be dead because no way I could have gotten down in time. I was the only person within about 20 floors because the building was shut down and we were doing the asbestos abatement management for that place.
Well if you jumped you would have reached the bottom floor in a few seconds and that sudden stop surely would have dislodged the frito. And as a benefit you would be with in reach of help since the sudden stop probably has some nasty side effects.
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You know... I haven't really paid much attention to this owner vs employee debate but it just occurred to me, I have been having this discussion with myself at exactly the same time but just didn't relate the two.
I was reflecting as I drove the other day on how well tuned my shop was running from an administrative side. My guys can get jobs done from start to finish... from answering the phone and quoting them to getting them out the door and taking payment... even balancing the books. Only thing I currently HAVE to do is sign the check.
This led me to thinking, I sure hope my guy doesn't get to thinking "why do I need him, I can do this whole thing" which led me to think "What exactly do I bring to this operation that he couldn't do and why doesn't he just start his own?"
I honestly don't have much of an answer for that. Other than having the crazy notion that "I could open a screen printing shop and make money" or the time it took me to find the right places to research all of the equipment and techniques. Maybe that is the X factor... but that is also exactly what guys like Mike and Alan have as well. Yeah, there is the number crunching to figure out when is the right time to make the decision to pull the trigger on these things, but again, this is exactly what this discussion is about and apparently these guys do that as well.
Could my guys do what I do? Probably, but in this case they won't. BUT that is mostly because they are young and aren't at that point in their life yet.
Maybe there is an X factor that makes business owners business owners and employees employees.
I just hope I can keep my employees happy enough to not start thinking "I can do this, why do I need him"... because the truth of the matter now is that I couldn't do it with out THEM!
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Kevin I would say the evolution of an employee to an owner is nearly as old as prostitution. It is the risk you will have to take with your employees. If you want to employee people with enough ability and intelligence to manage the place the risk will be even higher. But as I said earlier I truly do not desire ever to be on the owners side of things. Its not something I desire as a job I prefer working with my hands and using my brains on machines etc. Plus a huge difference between me and the owner his college education is in business mine is not. He is business davy and the best part his connections are huge. Its his connections that earns us most of our clients. I would not have that if I left and started my own business. I would surely struggle and possibly fail.
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Kevin I would say the evolution of an employee to an owner is nearly as old as prostitution. It is the risk you will have to take with your employees. If you want to employee people with enough ability and intelligence to manage the place the risk will be even higher. But as I said earlier I truly do not desire ever to be on the owners side of things. Its not something I desire as a job I prefer working with my hands and using my brains on machines etc. Plus a huge difference between me and the owner his college education is in business mine is not. He is business davy and the best part his connections are huge. Its his connections that earns us most of our clients. I would not have that if I left and started my own business. I would surely struggle and possibly fail.
That's a great respectful post about a owner right there. That's nice to see.
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So you're saying we're all in this together? Your job or position is whatever you make it to be. I could do a lot less around here and I could do everything under the sun if I had to. Just because people don't do something doesn't mean they can't. I just work my ass off and do what needs to be done. Nobody else is lining up to fish dookie out of the toilet, I had to cut one of them up with a gardening hoe for christ sake and pull it out with tongs!!!! Nodody else around here is hanging on to a rickety old ladder 30 feet in the air to change a bulb in production but that doesn't mean the other people around here are doing nothing. I just spent the last hour trying to fix another job we shouldn't have been printing in the first place, but customers want what they want and sometimes you can't talk them out of it so you find a way to do it. Before that I had to figure out what the hell UPS and Fedex are doing with all our stuff. It's a mess and it's not just screen printing stuff.
Some people do whatever needs to be done, some people do what they are told, and then there are the ones that tell everyone else what to do and take all the credit when things get done.
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Just because people don't do something doesn't mean they can't.
Who said it means they "can't"?
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Since nobody answers most of the questions I pose I think I'll sit a few more out. It's not fun having a conversation where one has to be accountable to questions asked and the others don't.
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That's usually what people resort to when they have no valid points to make, attack the source, ignore 99% of a post to concentrate on a spelling or grammar mistake, create strawman arguments, etc.
lame.
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The spelling one is always funny to me.
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The spelling one is always funny to me.
That sentence is grammatically incorrect.
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The spelling one is always funny to me.
That sentence is grammatically incorrect.
;)
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so what questions have I not answered. I seem to have asked a few and just glossed over....
but hey thats what people do.
sam
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Think of all the time wasted bickering in this thread. What kind of ROI will one get out of reading it? In the time it would take to weed through the BS one could have printed 500 shirts and made that DTS payment for the month.
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only if you were turning that 500 piece job away
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only if you were turning that 500 piece job away
Is that not the truth tho? Or investing on speculation healthy?
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Ever wondered why people always talk about Winners and Losers, and not Winners or Losers? I just burnt some time looking through the last seven or eight pages of this thread, and it looks to me that there are lot of posts dedicated to trying to make someone else a loser, just so the writer can come out on top as the winner.
IMHO, I think this forum, and the great members that congregate here have a lot more to offer the garment textile decorating industry than what’s been shown. Just wondering if I’m the only person hoping that the Moderators eventually shut this thread down?
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It has kinda wandered way off the track.
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Perfect post Peter and it should be deleted, at least the drama portion of it.
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agreed brandt, there seems to be too much bashing each other in this thread
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You mean, put it to bed?!
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agreed brandt, there seems to be too much bashing each other in this thread
At some point that has to be addressed or it will never end though.
Creating or contributing to drama is really the same thing at the end of the day, myself included.
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I agree with Peter 1000% about how much talent there is in the group here, and how sad it is that otherwise talented people put aside time to read this all, (much less write it,) but I'm not so sure about canning the thread being the 'solution'--it's not like this is the first thread like this involving the same dynamics.
Although I don't see it helping the public when people post attitude, condescension, and insults on threads like this of their own volition, deleting it so there is no history of the childishness is likely to really help only those who were acting childishly...
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I'm all for locking this thread. No substantive content for the last dozen pages and it keeps showing up on my unread thread list :D
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...and then there are the ones that tell everyone else what to do and take all the credit when things get done.
Hey hey hey... leave me out of this!
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The spelling one is always funny to me.
That sentence is grammatically incorrect.
He did that on purpose of course. ;)
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The spelling one is always funny to me.
That sentence is grammatically incorrect.
He did that on purpose of course. ;)
That a girl, get another shot in.
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I don't see anything disruptive about this thread.. Only passion among good folks.. Things to consider from different perspectives.. The case may or may never rest.
Posted with Tapatalk
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I don't like the thought of locking it or ripping it up. If I look bad then I should be accountable for it. I for one think that those who choose to read this should be able to decide whether or not there are worthy posts to learn from or if it's garbage. We're a group of passionate people who like our industry but sometimes people fight. Sometimes people smash each other in the damn mouth because that's what humans do every once in a while. It don't make it right but groups of people don't always get along. IN MY OPINION trying to cover up the crime is no better than doing the crime.
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The spelling one is always funny to me.
That sentence is grammatically incorrect.
He did that on purpose of course. ;)
That a girl, get another shot in.
If the shoe fits dog.
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I agree with star child and Alan.
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The spelling one is always funny to me.
That sentence is grammatically incorrect.
He did that on purpose of course. ;)
That a girl, get another shot in.
If the shoe fits dog.
You know it home boy.