When taking a holistic look at the printing industry, one might think that this business is fairly simple. Yet, since products are custom made to exactly the customer's specifications, complications do arise. Bottlenecks occur. Misprints happen. To your family members and peers, you are simply t-shirt printer, what could possibly go wrong? Deep down you cringe thinking of the 200 different complications that may arise when producing an order. You have been in situations when disaster strikes, and often times you might find yourself reacting to problems, by implementing new rules into your shop as things come up. Instead of creating solutions to problems that have caused you precious time and money, let's take a look at 10 easy ways to manage your workflow. ----------- Try Printavo: https://www.printavo.com

1. 10 Tips For
Better Screen Printing
Workflow Management
Printavo – Simple, online shop management software
www.printavo.com

2. Introduction
When taking a holistic look at the printing industry, one might
think that this business is fairly simple. Yet, since products are
custom made to exactly the customer's specifications,
complications do arise. Bottlenecks occur. Misprints happen. To
your family members and peers, you are simply t-shirt printer,
what could possibly go wrong?
Deep down you cringe thinking of the 200 different complications
that may arise when producing an order. You have been in
situations when disaster strikes, and often times you might find
yourself reacting to problems, by implementing new rules into
your shop as things come up. Instead of creating solutions to
problems that have caused you precious time and money, let's
take a look at 10 easy ways to manage your workflow.

3. Write out your workflow
- Seems simple enough, right? If you asked each of your staff
members to write out your shop's workflow, you will find that
everyone will do it a little differently. It is imperative that your
workflow is on paper.

4. Create Departments
- Your shop should be broken down into different departments
using statuses directly related to their role. There could be a
sales, art, pre-press, production, and shipping department.
Make it personal for your business.

5. Get your team communicating
- Each day your team should huddle and go through their
workflow and how they will manage jobs. The same way nurses
communicate with doctors before surgery, make sure you have
open communication channels.

6. Cut down the multi-tasking
- When your staff has too many things to do, mistakes happen,
and efficiency goes down. Create simple focused tasks that are
oriented to each department.

7. Embed tasks under each department
- Each department should have clear and defined tasks. Make it
dummy proof and have your team check them off for each job.

8. Keep a digital trail of your entire order
- Paper gets lost. We live in the cloud! Get your shop there and
make sure you have a digital record of all communication with
the customer.

9. Track time
- Take a few orders every week and see how quickly they went
through different departments. Figure out where bottlenecks
are and evaluate them.

10. Reward your team
- Create an incentive for jobs that are handled properly and on
time. Similar to how a shop handles safety in manufacturing,
create a chalkboard that reads "it has been (this many days)
since a misprinted job!"

11. Figure out costs
- Break down costs associated with each department so you can
find your cost per impression. By figuring out these costs, you
can allocate or move around labor to speed up different
processes.

12. Be experimental
- Your workflow will never be perfect. Be flexible, nimble, and
willing to change it based on how well your workflow is
operating in your shop. If things do not go right, spend time
changing, adapting, and testing the new workflow. You might
find those strange nuances in your shop that work better for
your business. Try things out!