Impressions - March 2018 - 27

Many of the roadblocks your shop may face stem from one vital step
in the order fulfillment process: order entry.
Today, there is an increased demand for reducing turnaround times,
and the key to meeting customer expectations is to develop a better
order entry process. The quality of this step is crucial to the speed and
success of every department in your shop to follow.

TRAINING
One of the most overlooked aspects of order entry is the training component. You may hold instructional sessions on how to deliver customer
service, but that should just be the starting point.
Start with the link between the information entered and the work
that follows. These instructions are crucial. Information shouldn't be
dumped into form fields, but entered in a way that will make sense
to everyone.
The most critical piece of information on an order is the ship date.
This is the date that the order must leave the building, and it should
drive a greater sense of urgency than anything else on the form.
How is that ship date chosen? Is someone mindlessly selecting a
date without considering capacity? If so, what are the consequences if
you overbook your production? Accurate production scheduling stems
from making good decisions at this stage, which requires thorough
order entry training.
Another important aspect of training is teaching employees how
to obtain quality order information. If an employee enters incomplete
information into your system, it can create many problems later.
All too often, for example, art instructions look like this: "Do
something cool. Logo to be blue, large on the shirt. Add a motorcycle
underneath the headline 'Thunder Road.'" Notes like these leave a lot
of unanswered questions, such as: "What is the definition of 'cool'?
What Pantone color should be used for the blue? How many inches
is 'large'? Can we use any font for 'Thunder Road?'"
Unanswered questions could mean many revisions before a customer
approves the art. Dialing in the effort on the front end for quality art
instructions pays off when you only have to design the image once.
Are you tracking your first-time art approval rate? If it is not

Quick Tip
Want a better and more accurate production
schedule? Spend some quality time training
your front office staff with tasks in production. This means they work for a day or two in
receiving, checking-in product. Have them pull
and stage jobs by equipment. Show them how the
information they put into your system actually
works out on the production floor.

above 85%, you need to spend some time rethinking this part of your
order process.

THINK AHEAD
It's important to think ahead when gathering art information for a
work order, but these details aren't the only aspect of the order that
could impact others.
At the order entry stage, thorough information input for production,
post-production, shipping and even invoicing matters as well.
Are you managing the expectations of your customers by discussing
these in advance? For example, are you stating that the top of a fullfront design is normally placed 3 inches down from the bottom of the
collar? Or how designating commercial or residential addresses prevent
chargebacks from freight carriers? Also, are you even taking the job if
the customer is 60 days past due on his account?
Your order entry staff can't be made up of mindless zombies that
only key in information. They need to be detectives looking for clues
of challenges that could affect your shop down the line.
A work order is like a blueprint for constructing a house. Things go
much smoother when the details are given. Speed increases when nobody has to stop and ask: "Hey, what does this mean?" Training your
staff to provide accurate information is key.

It's crucial to spend time in
the work evnironment and
talk to your crew.
MARCH 2018

P.27

Impressions - March 2018

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