Step 3B- Creating Your Embroidery Machine Production Schedule

Transcription

1 Step 3B- Creating Your Embroidery Machine Production Schedule Welcome to Step 3B of 9 Steps To A Profitable Embroidery Business. This is the last lesson in Part 1 of Organization And Planning For A Profitable Embroidery Business! In Step 1 you created your Financial Baseline and started planning out each week. If you do not have a current starting point, it is very hard to create a plan for improvement. In Step 2 you started setting up your systems for order processing and production processing. In that lesson you also started timing out all of your processes. In Step 3 we created a good floor plan for your embroidery work room and started creating Step by Step Instructions for each process in your business. I know that this is moving fast and is a lot of work, but work that is very necessary if you are going to have an organized, profitable embroidery business. Our next step which is actually part of Step 3 is going to be a lot easier and less work. The lesson is a little shorter but extremely valuable and one that you are going to really appreciate. Before we actually begin, I am repeating this again, Make sure you create your plan for the Week and Each Day of the Week! You MUST take the time at the end of the week to create your Goals & Plans for the next week! Creating Goals & Plans do not work if you do not work them! If we do not write down our goals, we do not act on them! 1

2 Your main goal is something that is going to move your business forward! You need to be asking yourself every single day, Is what I am doing today helping me to work towards achieving my goal? Busy work does not count! It MUST BE MOVING YOU TOWARDS YOUR GOAL! In this part of Step 3 or as I like to call it, Step 3B I am going to talk a lot more about timing your jobs and ways to save time with your processes and then I am going to show you how to schedule your production with a spreadsheet that I have created. To time your processes accurately, use a stop watch or a digital clock. If you have a time clock, use that! I have found this to be the easiest and most accurate way to time color changes, trims, changing needles, threading the machine after a thread break, hooping and etc. I am also going to show you how to plan out all of your production so that it will run smoother and go faster. First I want to talk more about timing. You must time out your processes to see if you are actually making any money on them or not. I cannot emphasize this enough. Do you have to time every job? No, but you must time enough to be able to get an average of all of your times for each process and then you must time periodically through each week on the different processes. To me, it does not make sense to do a job and not time it. I time every single job from the start to the finish. I do not always time out the selling process at this point but I know how long it takes and have that added in. I keep my selling process as simple as possible to avoid any wasted time. To time the running time, I have found that a digital clock works a little better for me. I have a small digital clock right above my machine so that every time I load the machine, I can see it. I write down the time when I press Start. When it is finished, I remove it from the machine and load the next item and press Start. I then write down that time. This will give me the total time of loading, running and unloading the machine all at one time. I do this for each run that I do with each job. I also time setting up the machine, changing threads and 2

3 loading the design. It has become an automatic reaction and it takes only seconds of my time. All machines are different, depending on the make, the model, the year and how many heads. The single head machines will run faster and I have found that all of the process times are faster as well. This is why it is so important to use your own figures and start your timing on your particular machine. If you have several machines you will want to time each one and then you will use an average figure from all of them for your final figures that you will use in your forms. When you are first timing all of your processes, it really does seem like it is taking a huge amount of time, but actually it is only seconds for each step. You will time your color changes from the time the machine stops until it starts again. There is a slowing process that actually occurs before it stops. Pay attention to this and see if there is a significant difference. If there is not, then don t count it. If it slows down a lot before it actually stops, add this to your seconds time. By timing all of your jobs in the beginning you can arrive at an average that you can base your stitch count pricing on. I know that it seems to be a pain for you to keep doing this, but you will soon get used to it and every movement becomes automatic. It is always a challenge to see how fast I can get a job done. The faster I go, the more money I make. I want to talk about some time saving tips and then I will go into the process of how your will figure out your production schedule. Time Saving Tips: Keep your thread colors for a design on the closest needles to each other on the machine to save color change time. Example: If you are using 4 colors in a design, put those 4 colors on needles 1, 2, 3, and 4. This gives you the shortest travel distance for the movement of the machine; therefore you are saving color change time. Organize each one of your work areas to save time and money. Have all of the tools that are used in that area or with the process stored in that area. You may have duplicate tools, this is OK. I have scissors in my area where I cut backing, where I trim off the backing and on my machine. These are 3

4 the same type and size, but I do not have to leave the area to get my tools. This saves a lot of time by the end of the day. I talked about this in Step 3. Keep each area as neat and orderly as you can. Sometimes it is hard, but it takes time to move stuff out of the way so that you can work. You want to avoid this as much as possible. Keep the thread for each machine as close to the machine as possible. If you have a lot of machines you must have your thread in a central location but as close to the machines as possible. If you can afford it and have the space, you should have the thread for each machine behind that machine. I also talked about this in Step 3. Keep all of your threads stored and marked by color. This will save time looking for thread colors. Order your backing in cut sizes if you can and store it on a shelf close to your hooping area. You will need several sizes for this to work. Your two main sizes are 7.5 inch and 6 inch squares. It will probably be more economical to order rolls of backing and cut the other sizes. When you backing comes in, cut enough for many runs of the other sizes that you need. Do not wait to cut it as you need it; this is a huge waste of time. Always keep it cut ahead. Create a job folder for each job or design. This saves a lot of time when you have repeat orders. You do not have to go back and search through the computer for the instructions. They are all in the folder. This is a huge step in organization and time management as well. Make sure that you use the Embroidery Room Worksheet to keep track of all of the information on your jobs. This worksheet will be filed in the job folder after the job is finished along with the design number and stored for the repeat orders. I have people say to me, isn t that redundant when we can print out the sheet with the colors on it from the software? No it is not. You will have more information on it than just the colors. You also have the colors of the garments that you embroidered that particular color sequence on. This is huge to keep track of and not always possible in the software. It will take you much longer to find your information or 4

5 figure out what it is that you are supposed to use in a repeat order if you do not use this Embroidery Room Worksheet. I have been in many shops where there are no records kept at all and when a customer wants a repeat order, they have to bring in a garment in order for this to happen. This is totally unprofessional. Your customer will not have the confidence in your as a professional if you do this. Create a Design Folder in My Documents on your computer and store your designs in one location. Do not have them scattered all over your computer and do not save them inside of your software. You can create customer folders inside of your Design folder and organize all of your designs this way. It is a huge timesaver. If you have a lot of designs for the same customer, you can create folders inside of your customer folders in categories. Keep track of where your needles are on the machine. Having a system in place is very important for keeping track of your needle changes. If you have a single head, this is simple and very easy to do. I have a form called a Needle Replacement Sheet that I have designed for this purpose. It has 15 lines on it for 15 needle bars. Each time I change a needle I write on the line corresponding to the number of the needle bar the date, size & type of need and why I changed it. This gives me a complete record of all of my needle changes. I have this sheet lying on the left top back portion of my machine table. It is completely out of the way but a good reminder each time I change a needle. If you are having too many thread breaks on one needle bar, you have a record of that and it gives you the correct information if you need to talk to a tech. It is much easier to pinpoint a problem. If you have a multi-head machine, you will need to keep it in a Machine Maintenance binder and you will need one for each head on the machine. I have found that by stopping production early on a Friday afternoon to do all of my weekly maintenance pays large dividends the following week. It really helps to start the new week out on Monday morning knowing that all of my equipment is in tiptop shape and I can begin production immediately without the fear that my machine is going to break down right in the middle of a job. 5

6 The first thing that you should do every morning before you start production is to remove the needle plate and the bobbin case. Brush or blow out the Rotary Hook and the Knife area. Oil the hook. This is done by placing one drop of oil, and I do mean one drop of oil on the rail of the hook just outside of the bobbin case. (I use a small needle point applicator for this) Replace the needle place and bobbin case and you are ready to begin. Do all of your sew outs on fabric that is as close in texture and color to that of the finished product. I have found by cutting up squares from old garments that my family has discarded works very well. Instead of giving them away, I cut them in various sized squares and store them in plastic boxes labeled: T-Shirt Fabric, Sweatshirt Fabric, Woven Fabric, Terry Cloth and Fleece. When it is time to do a sew out, these fabric squares are very handy. Having the fabric cut into squares and stored in these boxes is a huge time saver. If your garments are packed in plastic bags, remove the bags and check the sizes. The size tag on the outside of the package is not always the size that is marked on the garments. Sometimes they are even obviously sized wrong with the wrong label. I have had jackets that were marked Med when they were obviously X Larges. Just be on the lookout for these types of issues. It is too late after you start embroidering your design. The manufacturer will not take them back once they are embroidered. When you are editing a design and it needs to be run off again, copy only the part of the design that needs to be resewn onto a new page in your software. Make sure that you complete your editing first before you copy that portion onto the new page. This way you are not spending time running off the entire design when you only need to run off a small section. This is a huge time saver. You must be careful to include any embroidery that is sitting underneath the area that you are editing in your design. Example: If you are editing small letters that are being sewn on top of a fill area, then you must include the fill area when you are sewing out the new sample. 6

7 When you are working in your design software, do not work in the 3D mode. This uses up a lot of memory and takes much longer to create your design. Only put it in 3D mode to see what it will look like. Immediately go back to the other mode to continue working. There are ways that you can set up your needles in your machine to save a lot of time. If you have a 15 needle machine, put ballpoint needles on half of the machine and sharp needles on the other half. What I do is I have the first needle on my machine set up for metallic thread. Needle No. 1 is always for metallic thread. I do not ever have to stop and change the needle and the tension is set correctly. Needle No.2 is set up for 60 weight thread for tiny letters. That has a ballpoint needle in it because I usually am doing small lettering on knit shirts. The next 6 needles I also have ball point needles in and the last 7 I have sharp needles in. It is much easier and faster to change a cone of thread than it is to change needles. Creating Your Embroidery Machine Production Schedule Creating your Embroidery machine Production Schedule is very simple and does not take a lot of time when you follow my system. First of all I give you a spreadsheet with formulas in it for starters. This is huge in creating your production schedule. First of all, you will have listed on your Master form all of the jobs that you have in house. Each night as you are Creating Your Daily Plan you will have a copy of your Production Schedule to go with it! You look at your jobs that you have ready to go. Your designs are all ready, you have the customer s approval for the design, you have all of the supplies and garments and you are ready to get that job embroidered. Here are some factors that you must c0nsider as you are putting your schedule together. Colors used in the design Hoop Sizes Fabric types so you will have the right needles in the machine Stitch count 7

8 Date Due My fabric types and my colors are the most important factors to start with. I want to have the right needles in the machine and I want to have the right colors on the machine so it will go quicker and you will save time between jobs if you have designs that use the same colors. There is less set up time for the machine between the jobs. Next is the fabric type because again, I want to have the right needles in the machine. It is much easier and faster to change the thread than it is the needles. Before you can start scheduling your production accurately, you must have your times in place. This is very important. The ones that you find in the machine scheduler when you get it are mine. You will be adding your times into the formulas. I will show you how to do that. You can work with mine for now but you will need to get them changed when you have an average of your times. The important one to concentrate on right now is the hooping. Time hooping several different types of products and keep a record of each one. You can then add all of them up and get an average of the total. This is what you can put in your form for the hooping time. Here is a picture of the spreadsheet. You can see the different columns and how I have them all laid out. You will put in the Design Name, number of heads you are working on, your Stitch Count, the No. of Color Changes, the Number of Trims if you have that information, and it will automatically add up how long the total job is going to take you to get done. 8

9 You will use this form to add your jobs to after they are logged in and even before they are ready to be embroidered. That way you always know exactly how many jobs you have in one location. When you have the design ready you will add the stitch count, number of colors and trims to the scheduler and then you can actually schedule it for production. This will also give you a running total of how many hours of work you have at all times. This is an excellent tool to use. If the jobs are taking a lot longer than what it is telling you they should on the spreadsheet, then you need to do some investigating and find out what the issue is. Now I want you to take your Embroidery machine Scheduler form and add all of your jobs to it and start using it as is until you have your actual times done accurately. Also keep working on your Step by Step Instructions that we talked about in Step 3. These Instructions or Process Manuals are going to take some time to get together, but as you are doing each process, have that paper and pencil next to it and write it down. Homework for Step 3B Download your Embroidery Machine Production Scheduler Add all of your jobs to the Production Scheduler In our next lesson, Step 4 of the 9 Steps To A Profitable Embroidery Business I am going to teach you how to start of the process of creating your pricing structure! Attachments Embroidery Machine Production Scheduler Needle Replacement Sheet Written lesson Audio 9