The Screen Print Column
How to know when you need to upgrade
You might be at a crossroads: upgrade to automation or create a new printing process entirely. You don’t know what’s best, but thankfully Dave Roper, owner of Screen Print World, may have the advice needed.
signal. Automatic presses commonly run 200 to 400+ prints an hour because the pallets index and print automatically, station to station.
Quality drifts over long runs. Manual printing depends on consistent pressure, angle, and speed from a human, run after run. On long jobs, fatigue sets in – registration wanders, ink deposit gets uneven, and misprints climb toward the end of a run. If spoilage on runs over 100 to 150 pieces is becoming a real cost, that’s automatic-press money you’re currently losing to waste.
You’re quoting long turnarounds or turning away big orders. If you’re saying no to 300+ piece jobs, or your standard lead time has stretched past two weeks because of press availability, you’re leaving revenue on the table.
Know when to upgrade your kit G
rowing a screen printing business eventually forces a decision: keep running manual presses, invest in automation, or add a completely different printing method like DTF or DTG.
These aren’t the same decision, and mixing them up leads to spending money on the wrong upgrade. Here’s how to read the signals correctly.
Start by diagnosing the actual bottleneck Before pricing out equipment, figure out what’s actually limiting your business right now. The three most common bottlenecks are: 1. Throughput – you can’t physically print enough shirts per hour to meet demand.
2. Order shape – your orders are shifting toward small quantities, one-offs, or complex/full-colour art that screen printing handles poorly.
3. Labour – you can’t find or keep enough skilled manual printers to run your stations.
Each bottleneck points to a different fix. Throughput points to automatic. Order shape points to DTF/DTG. Labour can point to either, depending on which one reduces your dependence on skilled hands.
Signals you need to upgrade to automatic You’re capped on volume, not sales. A skilled manual printer tops out around 30 to 50 shirts an hour on simple jobs, less on multi-colour work. If your sales pipeline could support more volume but your press time can’t deliver it, that’s the core
| 54 | August 2026
Hiring and training printers is getting harder or more expensive. Automatic presses need one trained operator, not a printer per station. If staffing manual stations is a constant struggle, that’s a labour argument for automation, independent of volume. Rule of thumb: once you’re consistently running 800 to 1,000+ shirts a month, or regularly turning down orders in the hundreds of pieces, the extra throughput and reduced labour cost of an automatic typically pay back the investment within one to two years compared to staying manual.
Signals you need to add DTF or DTG Small and one-off orders are draining your time. Screen printing has real fixed costs per job – burning screens, mixing ink, dialling in registration – that make sense at volume but hurt on runs of 1 to 25 pieces. If you’re constantly quoting or fulfilling small custom orders and losing time or margin to setup, DTF/DTG removes almost all of that setup overhead.
Customers want full-colour, gradient, or photo-realistic designs. Multi-colour screen printing means more screens, more registration work, and higher cost per design. DTF and DTG print unlimited colours and fine photographic detail in a single pass. If your incoming design requests are trending toward complex full-colour art instead of simple one to three colour logos, this is a strong signal.
You need to print on demand without holding inventory risk. DTF/ DTG suits online stores, small-batch drops, and personalised items (names, numbers, custom text) where exact quantities aren’t known ahead of time. If you’re sitting on blank screens and mixed ink you rarely reuse because every job is different, that’s exactly the problem DTF/DTG solves.
You’re already buying DTF transfers from a supplier. If you regularly purchase pre-printed DTF transfers and just heat-press them, track that spend. Once your monthly transfer cost exceeds what a printer would cost over roughly 12 to18 months, it’s cheaper to bring it in-house.
www.printwearandpromotion.co.uk
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