The Dye Sub Column
You want it when? Resolving the on-demand / short-run dilemma
Have you ever had a customer spend an hour placing a highly-detailed custom order only to announce that it needs to be filled by lunchtime? At one time this type of situation was a rarity, but now it’s the norm. Andrea Evans, international marketing manager at Sawgrass, explains how to make the most of this situation.
the last possible moment. Average order size is also decreasing with customers even turning a traditionally large volume order into a series of small orders over an extended period of time to improve cashflow.
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You may not like these disturbing trends, but there’s not much you can do about it. If you increase fees for rush orders, customers are likely to go elsewhere, and if you put higher surcharges on smaller quantities customers may seek alternatives.
So, what are your options? Welcome to the world of on-demand or short-run production, which is fast becoming the new normal for product decoration and customisation. Whatever you sell the concept is the same; produce smaller runs quicker and still turn a profit. To effectively modify your business model to embrace this, you first need to ascertain current production time with your current equipment. Focus on downtime factors such as job setup, which can eat a hole in your profits when dealing with smaller runs. For example, with a one-hour average to set up a logo for production, but only 15 minutes to produce it, you would spend one hour (of downtime) for every job, regardless of the size of the job. On a large run, you can easily recoup the setup time, because your equipment will stay busy producing revenue for an extended period of time.
On the other hand, if you suddenly were reduced to four piece orders, you would spend an hour of setup for an each hour of production! What if you were able to reduce average setup time to 15 minutes or less? You could reduce production downtime and turn more orders quicker, regardless of order size. You need to start focusing on processes to meet this challenge.
Sublimation is ideal for on-demand/ short-run. Setups for full-colour, highly detailed designs are relatively quick, at around 15 minutes. Combined with average transfer printing time of 30 seconds and heat press time of one minute, you can see just how quick and easy it is to produce something.
| 26 | January 2020
ith financial constraints, people are reluctant to spend money so hold onto it until
Though it’s an ideal on-demand/ short- run solution just by its versatile nature, maximising your sublimation efficiency begins with your equipment choices, so if you are considering adding it to your business, you need to base your decisions on production efficiency, not just the initial price tag.
For a sublimation printer, there’s a tendency to focus solely on the price, but you should think carefully about the size. An A4 printer will obviously be cheaper, but you might find that selecting an A3 printer will give you more flexibility, and the ability to print multiple images on one sheet of paper, increasing productivity and reducing per item production time and cost.
You’ll also need a heat press that offers a pressing field equal to or greater than your maximum paper size. A balanced and accurate temperature is critical to the sublimation. Typically, the outer edges of a heat press will be slightly lower in temperature than the core area, which limits your true production area. This will vary with brand, but with the better quality brands you should have reliable heat out to within one inch of the outer edge on all four sides. Remember to match the printer and heat press size to maximise both the printing and the pressing aspects of production. Yes, larger printers and presses cost more money, but in the long run you
should be able to recoup that investment in reduced production costs. If it takes an average of two minutes to press and print something, then two products done separately would take four minutes, whereas done together the production cycle would be two minutes, or half the time. This will add up over the long run… significantly!
It gets better
But it gets even better. Small products, like coasters, can yield huge time-savings when you print and press in multiples, even with different designs on different coasters. In other words, it’s not just about doing one larger order, but potentially several small orders in the same production cycle.
Additionally, sublimation startup costs are relatively low with ready-to-print systems starting at about £350 (not including heat press). You won’t need to break the bank to keep up with your customer’s demands. Of course, larger systems will cost more money, but even at the top end, sublimation comes in way under the cost of many of today’s popular digital printing systems. And, with its ability to decorate so many unique substrates, sublimation has potentially the best ROI of any production system in the marketplace. Small or large, sublimation is a viable resource to keep the orders flowing.
www.printwearandpromotion.co.uk
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