Impressions - August/September 2024 - 47

sions of these different processes and practice them to achieve a
method with the smoothest flow. Ask yourself, " Where do I feel
resistance? Where could things be done more easily, flowing from
one part to another? "
Using this as a guide can not only greatly improve the process
itself, but make a huge difference in terms of wear and tear on
operators. Pay close attention to what you are doing over the
course of your next production run. After 100 shirts, stop and
see if you are feeling tight in places or tired overall. This can be a
clue as to how to adjust your position or the environment to get
whatever friction points may exist out of the way.
A good way to think about training repetition is to visualize
each repetition as a step up a ladder toward your goal. As with
martial arts, if you try to rush your way through these repetitions,
especially in the beginning, you will invariably end up taking steps
back down as well. The reason for this is you won't be learning
to do things with a natural smoothness. This in turn will result in
your final processes not being as effortless.
To really get a process down, even something as seemingly simple
as loading, stacking or folding shirts, can take a while to master at a
slower, careful pace. When you feel like it comes naturally without
a lot of concentration, you can start to add in a little more speed.
The weird thing with learning techniques this way is that often
you will achieve very high speeds in the end without pushing
things at all, simply because the job is now so much easier.
Reassembling your processes
The real power of this approach becomes evident when you put
together multiple processes after evaluating and then mastering
the best practices for each of them individually. If you have seen a
person who has mastered the art of loading and printing manually
and then watched a beginner, the difference can be shocking: not
only in terms of speed, but in the way the newbie will often finish
the order exhausted and with everything around them covered in
ink. This is where a good screen-printing trainer would say, " It's
Even a procedure as seemingly straightforward as
loading blank T-shirts can be improved through
a combination of study and practice. Photo by
guruxOx - stock.adobe.com
okay, slow it way down and try to smooth out your movements.
Watch where you can make each step easier and then get into
a rhythm before you try to go faster. " The speed will come as a
result of becoming more proficient as the body figures out what
to do, not before just by pushing it.
Less waste will come as a natural occurrence of smoother processes
in many of screen printing's other steps as well. Take for
example, cleaning out screens after a long print run. This task
may not be as glamorous as printing, but doing it thoroughly and
efficiently is critical. Something as simple as defining a series of
best practices for this necessary task will directly affect the rest
of the steps after, it not only for an entire day but the week. If
you own or run production at a larger shop, consider the impact
a well-trained cleanup crew could have on every station. When
someone feels comfortable with the process and can flow through
it, not only will there be far less mess, but the results will be big
timer saver for everyone involved. 
Thomas Trimingham has been helping screen printers for more than 25 years
as an industry consultant, artist and high-end separator, and author of over 180
articles. If you have feedback or wish to comment on this article you can reach
Thomas at: ttrimingham@yahoo.com.
A critical step that works in martial
arts-and business, as well-is to
take the constituent parts making up
a process, like shirt loading, and break
them down into a series of intentional
moves based on what you find are
your best practices and then learn
them through repetition
Aug./Sept. 2024
P.47
http://stock.adobe.com
Impressions - August/September 2024

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