High Volume with a Heat Press

How To Maximize Efficiency For

High-Volume Heat Seal Production

as published in January issue of Printwear magazine

 

 

Learn what it takes to tackle the largest of heat press jobs efficiently and profitably.

 

By Bob Robinson

 

Many decorators associate heat seal production with mom-and-pop shops doing lettering and numbers on a dozen sweat shirts or letterman’s jackets for local schools. However, while that’s certainly an effective, profitable way to use heat seal technology, the process is definitely capable of more — a lot more. In fact, for the right kinds of jobs, and with the right processes in place, decorators can whip out some seriously large jobs using heat seal applications.

 

Why Bother?

On a single heat seal machine, a decorator can realistically do about one garment per minute, on average. That’s a rough estimate, of course, given the assortment of variables that can affect production output. So why use heat seal technology for high-volume jobs? There are a number of reasons.

 

One of the chief advantages of using transfers is that you don’t produce the job until it’s ordered. You don’t commit a garment to a design until the point of sale because no pre-production is required, meaning that transfers allow you to tackle huge orders without making an equally large financial commitment until the order is made.

 

Further, some jobs are simply not well-suited for screen printing, such as those involving substrates like nylon — something that you can easily tackle using heat seal applications. Sometimes a heat transfer is the only practical way to decorate an item because of its unusual shape or what it’s made out of. If the job requires any type of mass personalization such as names, etc. heat-applied applications may be the only way to go.

 

 

Get Equipped

Tackling high-volume heat seal jobs could mean running anywhere from a dozen- to three-dozen heat seal presses. You’ll want presses that automatically open, as they minimize the time the operator needs to stand at the press. While these few seconds might not amount to much on small orders involving only one or two presses, they add up to lots of time — and lots of associated labor costs — with larger jobs.

 

An air swinger type press (a swinger style press that automatically opens) on a stand is generally more comfortable for operators because it requires only depressing 2 side buttons to engage the press (no handle to reach for). A clam press, which is generally placed on a counter or table, may require a stepstool for shorter employees. Air presses are roughly $3,000 for a 16” x 20” unit. You can find them as large as 22” x 22”, but a 16” x 20” is likely to handle the vast majority of jobs you’ll be doing.

 

Unlike clam shells, swinger presses accommodate a wider variety of substrates because of the ability to thread the garment onto the platen, which is not possible on a clam shell. In other words, if you are loading a T-shirt, you can pull the shirt over the air swinger platen in much the same way as you load a shirt onto a screen printing press. The bottom half of the shirt hangs loose. On a clam shell, you generally have to put a Teflon pillow inside the T-shirt as both top and bottom layer of the shirt have to be positioned on the platen and heat pressed.

 

However, clamshells have their place for certain applications that are extremely repetitive and simple. Some high-volume shops have rows of air swingers and a few clam shells to handle small, simple jobs. Both types of presses also can be fitted with custom platens that are designed to do a specific job such as umbrellas, tote bag pockets, or sneakers. This also can speed up production.

 

Suppliers offer plenty of other options besides clam shells and swingers, including cap presses, oversize presses, and other specialty equipment. Basically, if there’s a substrate out there being decorated with any type of volume, you can bet there’s a heat press that can handle it. Whether or not you need one or more of these out-of-the-ordinary presses depends, obviously, on the types of jobs you’re getting.

 

Get Organized

High-volume production requires an efficient shop layout. Remember, your goal is to shave off critical seconds from the production process, so you want to reduce or eliminate the number and length of steps required to produce each garment. While it’s true that heat press applications are generally fairly straightforward, they still require the same type of organization and oversight as any production environment. A production manager should evaluate each job prior to production to determine its most efficient path.

 

Upon receipt, garments from the supplier should be laid out flat and verified by size and color. Hang a decorated, finished sample shirt in full view of the press for operators to use as a reference, indicating critical measurements. For instance, if a logo must be placed a half-inch away from a seam, demonstrate this on the garment — and on the work order, of course — so that everyone is applying the logo in the same place.

 

Once they’ve been verified, the easiest way to sort and stage the garments for decoration is usually by size and color. Often, you’ll have different transfers for different garment sizes and colors, so sorting this way allows you group similar transfers. For instance, one press operator might be doing all of the smaller transfers for youth sizes, while another does transfers on the 3XL garments. If a shirt has transfers in multiple locations, generally, each transfer should be applied by a single person, and then moved down the assembly line for another person to apply a transfer in the second location, and so on.

 

By the way, it’s a good idea to assign someone other than a press operator to the garment sorting/staging process. This way, you’re ensured of having at least two sets of eyes — the sorter and the press operator — verifying the garment size and color prior to decoration.

 

At this point, the garments are ready for the focal point of production — the operators at the heat presses. Because they’re the main point of decoration, the presses all should have everything required for the operator within arm’s reach. Put a small table to the right of the press (for right-handed operators). Blank garments should be within reaching distance behind the operator, and you’ll need an area to stack the finished garments.

 

As garments are completed, they can be stacked into a cart, such as a Rubber Maid plastic cart. Stack them flat, so that you can inspect the garments through the cart; if they’re rolled up or folded, you miss the opportunity to examine them later. The cart then makes its way through the rest of the production process — from decoration to quality control/folding and shipping.

 

Get Efficient

Your production manager should constantly evaluate the efficiency of jobs, especially for those taking place across the course of several days. It may be that a particular application requires an additional person, for instance. He also may discover that press operators don’t have everything they need at their fingertips, and they’re taking steps away from their work area wasting critical time.

 

In evaluating efficiency, you also must keep in mind the accuracy and quality of a job, of course. It doesn’t do much good to produce at record speed a job that isn’t going to meet the quality standards of you and your customer. That said, press operators should be trained to check for quality right at the press; this is absolutely the best time to catch a mistake. For instance, they should make sure they’re not scratching the plastisol ink transfers or applying transfers crookedly.

 

You’ll also want someone to spot check garments as they’re packed into boxes for shipping, just as an extra quality control step. Checking every single garment at this stage of production would be practically impossible — which, again, is why it’s so important that the press operator critically evaluates everything he produces.

 

Another way to boost efficiency: Keep production logs for every job detailing all of the particulars: dwell time, run size, production per press operator, and so on. Give each operator a simple log that he uses to track how many garments he did per hour or day. You can then bundle these logs together by job and enter the information into a spreadsheet.

 

Over time, you’ll see what it costs your shop to produce a particular type of job, and you evaluate pricing accordingly. You also can better evaluate your shop’s capacity, and you can establish production benchmarks, in terms of how long it generally takes to produce a job, and you can then strive to meet or exceed those standards.

 

This type of detailed documentation may seem unnecessary for what is a relatively straightforward production process. However, such information is critical for the kind of production efficiency and analysis required to successfully tackle high-volume jobs with heat seal applications. By doing your jobs efficiently and intelligently, you’re ensuring that they’re done profitably.

 

Bio

Bob Robinson is a sales and education representative for Imprintables Warehouse, a full line distributor of heat-applied products including equipment and supplies for cutters and digital print and cut technology, heat press machines, digital transfers, and software. His production experience ranges from small custom orders to high volume garment decorating for the past 12 years. For more information, contact Bob at bob@imprintableswarehouse.com or visit the Web site at www.imprintableswarehouse.com.

 

You can see the digital version of this article as published in the January issue of Printwear at:

 

http://emags.nbm.com/pw/20090101/full/pageflip.html

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