Impressions - September 2013 - (Page 30)

everyone to come in anyway at a certain time or state explicitly that employees should pay attention to the game and come in directly after the team wins. The earlier everyone arrives, the better. Have a chart with everyone’s cell phone numbers just in case. 7. Make sure your management team knows to arrive ﬁrst at the shop. There may be some confusion or a challenge that needs to be handled and you want the brain trust in place early. 8. If you don’t normally have a second shift for printing, running your crews all night can be difﬁcult. Make sure you have clearly communicated when breaks will occur, and you can even plan on bringing in refreshments (such as coffee) to make workers feel appreciated. One trick is to bring in relief crews early in the morning (like 4 a.m.) to take over. This keeps your momentum going and prevents unnecessary mistakes from occurring when weary workers stop focusing on details. 9. Either have someone from the screen room available to come in with the print crews, or have extra screens burned just in case you experience problems. You don’t want a 3 a.m. disaster if a screen rips and you don’t have a backup plan prepared. 30 Impressions | September 2013 For non-skilled work, such as adding hologram stickers, building boxes, etc., think about bringing in other people from your company to help. Sometimes, it really illuminates the labor-intensive tasks in production for customer service reps, salespeople or accounting when they share the workload with fellow staff members. I’ve also used temporary workers from an agency (and they work great), but nothing beats building the “all-in-this-together” camaraderie like pulling an all-nighter. 10. If you have a lot of local interest in the outcome of the game, you may consider hosting a non-alcoholic tailgate party at your shop with your staff to watch the game together. Primarily, this gets your crew in the shop early so you don’t have to worry about stragglers, but it also helps curb any issues with staff partying a little too much during the game and then coming to work. I’ve talked to reps with hot-market companies and they have seen their share of printers that have had issues with inebriated employees. Don’t let this be you. Be a leader and talk about this with your staff so they know your expectations. CLIENT RELATIONS Your customer may have someone (or even a whole crew) on site to oversee production. This is normal. Here are some thoughts: 11. All hot-market contractors will give you a spreadsheet containing information on what they need printed. These usually are broken up into the designs they need printed and the time the freight pickup will occur. These often are in two-hour increments, starting at 2 a.m. Accompanying the spreadsheet will be color proofs with color call-outs for each design so you will know which design can be printed on each press. 12. Most contracts have, as their base, the number of presses that the customer is contracting to use, with impression speeds usually calculated at 300-350 per hour. There also should be language regarding defect and misprint percentages. Essentially, the company is paying you to have your crews ready to go as soon as the game is over. All presses should be ready to print, with screens registered, shirts pulled and everything perfect. If your team loses and impressionsmag.com http://www.impressionsmag.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Impressions - September 2013

Impressions - September 2013
Contents
First Impressions
From the Show Director
FYI
Product Gallery
ISS Conferences
Outdoor Outfitting
Beat the Heat
Today’s Textile Ink Options
Shop Spotlight
Shop Spotlight
Embroidery Technique
Embroidery Production
Tech Tips Embroidery
Screen Printing Production
Screen Printing Graphics & Design
Screen Printing Technique
Online Directory
Tech Tips Screen Printing
Digital Decorating
Classifieds
Ad Index

Impressions - September 2013