How to Keep an Organized Print Shop Floor

No matter the size of your apparel decorating or promotional products company, a successful business is one that maintains an organized print shop floor – utilizing tools and developing procedures for keeping order throughout a complicated printing operation. By examining standard practices and committing to an ongoing process of improvement, progressive shops seize every opportunity to get better at what they do. Adoption of apparel decorating software provides the standardization necessary for an organized shop – streamlining everyday business processes to meet the unique needs of garment and screen printing manufacturers.

What are the Benefits of Organizing Your Shop Floor?

1. Less wasted time – Since product locations are documented within print shop software, employees spend less time searching for inventory, returns, order information, priority orders, etc.

2. Fewer work-related injuries – A well-maintained shop reduces hazards in the work environment, allowing employees to complete jobs quickly and safely on the warehouse and production floor.

3. Increased production – Streamlined and automated processes and improved workflow make the print shop more productive and able to meet customer deadlines.

4. Overall effect on reputation – Being organized reflects positively on the quality of the shop’s products – encouraging repeat customers and positive reviews.

Arrangement of the Print Shop Floor

Assign stations to each part of the process in your operation, having related areas grouped such as staging, cleaning, screen burning and barcodes. Create a smart workflow and eliminate unnecessary running for employees by arranging the production floor in the order of job completion. While a few steps may seem insignificant, over a long period they can add up to hours of lost employee time. Ensure that there are clear paths between staging locations and adequate space for movement to ensure safe employee navigation. There are also several considerations to keep in mind when organizing your space:

Using the warehouse management system (WMS) application within print shop management software to organize a print shop’s warehouse with bins and staging locations allows the optimal pick path for stock picking to start a particular job when all items arrive. This can be especially helpful in times when there is a high inventory volume and when items are being received from multiple supplier warehouses with various lagtimes.

• Customer supplied inventory – When a customer is sending items to your shop that involve multiple PO’s, it is important to track these items and prevent them from mixing with your regular inventory. An ERP solution allows the printing of a label to match the location of the item within your warehouse.

• Returns – If a customer cancels an order while it is still in-house, printing business software manages the pulling of the item out of staging so that it is not taking up space in the production line – identifying its location in the warehouse for its return to the vendor.

• Priority Orders – An ERP directs rush orders to a marked cart or staging location to ensure quick processing in advance of other orders in the scheduled production queue. 

• Mis-shipments – Business printing software in conjunction with a documented workflow provide the procedures to effectively handle goods that are incorrectly sent from the vendor – shipping the incorrect items back and ensuring the correct items are reordered. Without an effecting tracking mechanism, items can easily be lost.

• Returned Pre-Decorated Items – Depending on a company’s policy, the storing of pre-decorated returned items allows their disposal at a later date – including selling on-site, via the website or donating to charity. If misprints occur in production, issuing urgent stock picks and PO’s to replace items to reprint and complete the order occur within print shop software. 

An organized print shop floor provides a variety of benefits to increase the profitability of apparel decorating shops. Aptean Impress ERP software can show you how to make that happen. Contact us for a personalized demonstration today.