Tips for saving time and money in your print shop

Below are a few points from Dave Roper, managing director of Screen Print World, on how you can save money in your print shop as the cost of living crisis bites.

As we all know, times are tough, and unfortunately, they will only get tougher through winter. Many of us have concerns or worries about our business operations with the cost of living and energy prices going up.

Therefore, we have put our heads together to come up with plenty of tips and tricks to help you save money, time, resources, and energy when screen printing. Hopefully, you might make use of one or two and it will help ease the pressure.

Ink room

• Use standard ink colours, avoid spending time on mixing pantone colours, unless the customer pays extra to cover your time and the resources of course.
• Use finer mesh counts where possible, this will decrease your ink usage.
• Order in bulk when you can. Although you are spending more initially it will save you money over time. When you spend more money, you may also be eligible for free shipping, so there’s another cost saved.

Screen room

• Use an LED exposure unit rather than an old 3 phase unit, saves a heck of a lot of electric!
• Use a dip tank for reclaiming screen. This saves time and labour, plus it’s far better for the environment. It will also allow you to clean multiple screens at a time.
• Use products that can do two jobs at once. For example, some cleaning products will clean the screen and remove stains saving both time and money.
• Never use packing tape on screens, it takes much longer to remove.
• Use the sun (if it’s out) to dry your screens.
• Top and tail your design on screens – you could potentially get up to four designs per screen.

Print shop

• Keep your print shop and equipment clean – this saves time on cleaning spoiled garments from ink marks or dirty hands.
• Be prepared and plan. Order in advance to prevent rush orders which saves on next day postage.
• Plan your print shop layout. Think about the flow of work. You don’t want to be walking too far between each step of the process.
• Look after your machines, regular servicing and a few minutes care at the end of the day will prevent downtime and costly repairs in the future.
• Save time cleaning pallets and cover them with pallet mask instead.

On press

• Use water-based glue instead of spray tack, it’s cheaper to use but also will not damage your machine or lungs.
• Use a spot cleaning gun to save garments marked garments. These are a life saver if you have a small misprint or ink mark on a garment that is otherwise ok.
• Cut up used T shirts or misprints to use as cleaning cloths.
• If you’re not printing turn off all equipment. It’s a simple one, but people seem to still leave machines switch on which will cost more and more as it totals up.
• Use an automated quartz flash dryer that switches on and off automatically rather than an IR Flash which is permanently switched on – these quartz flash dryers are far more economical to run and more efficient in flash drying on press.

In general

• Cross train your staff so skills are shared throughout the print shop. Saves time in the long run if help is needed in other departments.
• Pay your staff what they are worth, it takes about six months for a new employee to settle in which is six months of you teaching and not doing your job!
• Buy nice or buy twice, cheaper isn’t always the best route. You might end up spending more over time if you don’t invest correctly in the first place.