Impressions - June/July 2014 - 24

Having the ability to quickly set up an automatic press is critical to being
a successful contract printer. At Anderson's shop, a 12-color job can be torn down
and a new one set up and running in less than 10 minutes.
One key to being
successful in contract
is to choose a niche you
know well. Being located
in Nashville made country
music merchandise a
natural for Anderson, who
has been contract printing
for large tours for more than
a decade.

every time when loading, they're netting
fewer shirts at the end of the hour than if
they'd slow it down, not rush and hit each
pallet. So efﬁciency isn't deﬁned by how
fast the press runs; rather, it's how many
shirts get put on every pallet on a rotation
on a big-volume run.
One great thing about contract jobs
is that once you get a design worked out,
eliminate the bugs and get the client to
sign off on it, you're rolling. That means
you can start making money. Unlike custom jobs, you're not faced with downtime
from constantly having to stop to ﬁgure
out the quirks of the print or image.
On the ﬂip side, you especially have
to be ready and able to deal with quick
changeovers. In my shop, there are times
when we have to stop in the middle of a
run because, for example, a music merchandising customer calls and says an artist on tour has run out of a size. This may
necessitate taking down the job we're running, setting up the rush order, and printing and shipping it red label.
To minimize the impact of this on
our production schedule, we have to be
able to set up a job, take it down and
get it back up and running with minimal
24

Impressions | June/July 2014

downtime - particularly since we're
working with just two automatic presses. Thanks to our cross training, when a
changeover is required, usually three or
four people are taking down all 12 colors
on the press, then getting a screen for the
next job and setting it up. This enables us
to tear down one 12-color job, set up another and register it, and be up and running in less than 10 minutes
Production scheduling for contract
printing also is different than for custom
jobs. In addition to equipment, stafﬁng and
supplies, there are other variables to consider. In our shop, we begin by determining
what we have to do with the artwork. How
many proofs, samples and thumbnails will
the customer need to see? How long will it
take for us to get approvals?
Then, we ﬁgure out how much time
will be involved in making the separations
and screens, running samples and getting
them approved. We do a printout from
our scheduling system and put the schedule on a board for everyone to see. But it's
a process, with jobs being moved to other
slots as needed.
Sometimes timing is such that we have
to go back to a customer and ask which

Cross training is another must in a contract
shop. It allows employees to swap out for breaks and
lunch without losing momentum.
job should take priority. Occasionally, we
have to explain that we can get him a certain number of shirts for one of the jobs,
but not the full order. When this happens,
we stop the job we're running, set up the
other job and run part of it, then go back
and complete the ﬁrst job.
Typically, this solves the problem. Usually, we have adjusted things so we're
comfortably ahead and can satisfy the
customer and don't have to outsource the
work to another shop. After spending the
past 36 years developing the shop's reputation, we don't want to risk having work
that we've subcontracted not being at the
quality level associated with our name.
impressionsmag.com

http://www.impressionsmag.com

Impressions - June/July 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Impressions - June/July 2014