Issue link: https://nbm.uberflip.com/i/1451379
G R A P H I C S - P R O. C O M 2 0 2 2 A U G U S T G R A P H I C S P R O 4 7 G R A P H I C S - P R O. C O M 2 0 2 2 A U G U S T G R A P H I C S P R O 4 7 one-color design. How many of you are running back-to-back jobs and cannot afford to leave the screen registered on the press when a misprint occurs or you find an issue with the order you just printed, so you have to wait to reset when the replacement apparel shipment comes in? You're shutting a larger press down long enough to reprint smaller quantities, which can cost you a minimum of 30 min- utes to one hour on average – and depending on the manual or automated press you own, you could have printed a minimum of 40 to 150 shirts in an hour versus a smaller quantity of reprints. I suggest at least having this tabletop press locked and loaded with the reprint screen in it, so you can focus on keeping pro- duction moving. So, when your shipment comes in, you simply get it running right away without stopping your other presses. Say this happens at least twice a week for 52 weeks a year and costs you one hour a week. If you use the tabletop press instead, you have now made your larger press more profitable. You just gained 50 hours more that year on your press at a minimum of 40 shirts an hour, which gained you a minimum of 2,080 more shirts printed. Now say you charge $6 at minimum for each shirt, and that equals $12,480 more dollars in revenue by not wasting the time to set up your larger presses for a one-color reprint shirt. Now imagine the number and profit made from an automated press that puts out many more shirts per hour. RUN THE NUMBERS Most shops never look at a single-color/single platen press for production. Our company has always owned at least one at all times. ese size presses pack a punch for production. ey usu- ally never take up more than nine square feet of production space. ink about that production footprint. You can print on average no less than 40 pieces per hour and some products you can print upward of 100 pieces or more per hour. Run the math! 40 pieces per hour × $6 per piece = $240 per hour × 40 hours per week = $9,600 per week × 52 weeks = $499,200 100 pieces per hour × $6 per piece = $600 per hour × 40 hours per week = $24,000 per week × 52 weeks = $1,248,000 No matter if you are a new shop or large shop you can see the value in these presses. Your average screen-printing employee will earn $14 to $20 per hour. e lower their error rate and how much they can run per hour is what you should look at to pay them a fair rate. As a business owner, I have always been fascinated by produc- tion and square footage and figuring out ways to maximize the value or floor plan to net the highest profit margin per square foot. Tabletop presses are not as valued as much as they should Even if you do not produce with a one-color/one-platen press, simply using it as a training tool is priceless.