SGIA Journal Garment Edition Spring 2016 - 23

everybody, but internally you can build
your own standard operating procedures to
help you manage through the production
of the big and small or the transfer with
screen print or the digital with embroidery
or those kinds of things.
Shell: Syd, from the dye-sub world, I know
you had your own shop. I would imagine
color is a big issue, but are there other
things you can elaborate on?
Northup: Printers being down, I can't
tell you the amount of calls and people
that don't know how to maintenance
their own printers. Whether it's a prompt,
a printhead, color inconsistencies, not
monitoring their heat press. Not doing
daily test files or monthly test files to
make sure that their heat presses are using
the heat temperature strips to make sure
their heat press is consistent, losing that
heat. New fabrics, guys are getting new
fabrics and they do different things on
heat presses.
Whether it's rotary or f latbed, the
color changes and they don't understand
that they may need to change color, or
time, temperature and heat. It's just the
automation part of it on the frontend,
the software end, bringing a file. Imagine
your company getting 2,000 files over a
weekend. How do I put that in through my
workflow, through my software, instead of
importing every file one at a time? We've
tackled a little bit of that, but that sheds a
light on three or four problems that I see
out there and what I had when I had my
print shop.
Shell: Charlie, you've been in a couple
shops. What do you see?
Taublieb: A few. The biggest thing is
documentation. Getting in a good-looking
print today is a wonderful thing. Can
you do it again tomorrow? Can you do it
again next year? Do you have deep enough
documentation? It's rare to go into a shop
where they really know how to come back
and do it again. There's a lot of stuff that's
been added to automatic presses to allow
to do more of that.
If you have an old machine, you might
not have it on. You'll have to improvise.
We go into a shop like Andy Anderson's.
The thing that amazed me is, I know a
couple years ago he posted a thing where
he got a reorder 19 years later and nailed
it because he had proper documentation.
Most screen printers can't go 19 minutes
later and duplicate the job. How much do
I document? The answer is, beyond belief
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- if you want to be able to come back and Shell: How many of you do that, crossdo it again.
train your employees? That's a big thing.
Like Tiffany said, it helps people invest in
Shell: How many of you folks document the company and it helps them get more
everything besides the generic stuff, the involved.
screen tension, coding methods?
Rader: We get a lot less complaining too,
Taublieb: How many of you document, less blaming the other person when they
have a calibration bar that you record what understand what each job entails.
you've held on screen per color? One.
Audience Member: When you say holding
Shell: How about ink formulas, color them accountable, do you mean financially?
matches, things like that? Do you have a
written formula?
Rader: No, that's their job. If they're not
doing a good job and actually looking at
Audience Member: I have a question. the print or looking at the embroidery and
We have several departments. We've got finding mistakes, they're not doing their
the embroidery, heat press, screen print. job. It's a disciplinary to me. It's an issue.
How do you keep the quality? Do you Maybe they shouldn't be an employee
have a quality control person that works anymore. If they don't have the capability
each department or do you leave that on of doing their job, I don't want to pay them.
the manager?
Audience Member: Do you meet with
Rader: We have quality control. Every them?
employee in our place is quality control.
Everybody should know what they're Rader: Again, everybody messes up.
looking at. Everybody should be able I'm not saying that we're cracking down
to pinpoint if something is wrong with because you missed one pinhole for a
a print. They do this for a living. They couple dozen shirts. If it's a consistent
should be able to tell that. Holding your problem, then yeah.
staff accountable is huge. Now, should
a manager maybe take a final look at it? Shell: I know shops too that offer
Yes, but by that point in my opinion it's incentives. If you meet a certain production
too late.
quota or something like that, you get -
If you're not holding your staff
accountable while it's in production, then Rader: If spoilage rate is too low, you do
you just ruined however many garments that. We do. When we have good weeks
or substrates that you're having to go we'll have pizza parties.
over. I would say we have lists. We've got
a checklist in every department for every Winters: Just to add on that, quality is
employee on what they're supposed to be an attitude and a culture. It's a level of
looking at.
expectation that you can put on the said
The top ones are the ones that are managers, the said operators, the said
important at the station that they're at. catchers, whoever is doing whatever. I
The loader that's on my press, he's making suppose that learning this business from
sure that the shirt is centered correctly reclaiming screens to where we're at
and flat whereas the unloader is making today, the attitude is different from years
sure that we don't have any pinholes. As ago. We used to split production from
long the screen room is doing their job, quality. You had production manager and
we shouldn't. The catcher is making sure a quality control manager. They shared
everything looks good and looks like equal responsibility or equal hierarchy, but
the approved sample. I would say every it took the two of them to make a decision
employee needs to be held accountable.
on whether it's good enough, ship it or go
faster to compromise quality. Who makes
Shell: Do you cross-train?
those decisions? Today it feels like there's
more of a balance in that and it's that same
Rader: Yes, especially in the screen print person or that same group or it's everybody.
shop everybody has done every job from It's that culture that Tiffany spoke of that
catching to loading. I take that back. Not everybody is held accountable.
everybody can load, but if you work in
I think it's the only way to do it because
my shop, you've cleaned screens. You've we had wrestling matches with quality
cut off the dryer. You've packaged. You've versus productivity. You have to have it as
shipped.
a balance. It can't be one versus the other.
SGIA Journal ■ Spring 2016 | 21

SGIA Journal Garment Edition Spring 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of SGIA Journal Garment Edition Spring 2016