Screen Print Department

Primary Functions

1. Organise Workload to ensure date required priorities can be met
2. Organise workload to fully utilise print press capacity
3. Initiate and undertake print processes, capturing timings for set up and print run durations
4. Decorate garments items per qtys per orders
5. Account for finished items, scrap and numbers processed
6. Capture family Images of printed items
7. Locate screen-set for wash / res-use as applicable
8. Establish destination for finished goods (stock, despatch)
9. Monitor production runs to ensure date commitments can be met ; re-allocate print runs across presses if needed
10. Communicate to Production Admin if date required commitments cannot be met due to external factors (missing stock / approvals etc)

Inputs

Outputs

Current Processing Flow

Organise Workload

Note: The process of organising workload begins before a shift starts and is reviewed and updated throughout the shift as underlying information and availability statuses update

1. Process lines "To do" for the screen print department are scheduled by production management according to the following attributes
   

2. • • Estimated Print Date

     • Machine

     • Shift

3. That is for each machine and shift pattern within the print shop, a series of print screen processes that should be printed today are grouped
4. The aim of the scheduling from production management is to allocate print jobs across the machines / shift to fully utilise print capacity and ensure that print processes are undertaken in good time to allow the customer's required date of the order to be met
5. Within the sets of print jobs allocated to a machine for a given day, the print manager prioritises the relative order of when print jobs will be undertaken in the shift by assigning a priority number - with 0 being the highest priority
6. Priorities are determined using a series of additional information
   • The date and time of when the final produced goods must be completed / delivered (the shorter the time between now and this point raises the priority)
   • The availability of the assets required to undertake the process (priority is lowered if the required assets  - stock / art approvals - is outstanding)
   • The number of additional processes that are required on the job order (generally, the higher the qty of processes still to do on a job will raise the priority as logistically job duration before completion lengthens)
7. Where the date required equals the estimated print date, the process is highlighted in red to indicate it must be done today.
8. The print manager continues this process until all print jobs for all machines for the forthcoming shift have been prioritised
9. As part of this prioritisation process, the print manager may re-balance the workload by moving a print job from one machine to another
10. As an additional check to ascertain total workload for the printshop for the shift, the print manager can review the scheduling tool to calculate the total number of prints for the estimated print date by shift  by machine. This provides an reasonable indication of the workload for the shift.

Initiate and undertake print processes, capturing timings for set up and print run durations

1. For each print press in the printshop, the corresponding highest priority print screen process job is selected
2. The blank garments required are collected from their storage location, and located besides the print press.
3. The Pre-Run Check process begins, and it's time/date of starting is recorded as is the status of Pre-Check beginning.
4. Print shop staff set up the job on the print press according to the technical specification (i.e. screen and ink sequence)
5. Pre-run checks are completed and a test sample garment has been produced and approved, staff record the end status of the Pre-Run Checks
6. If problems are encountered within the pre-run check phase and they cannot be resolved <=20 mins, the print job is abandoned (job marked as paused) and the next highest priority for the press is selected and set up.
7. Assuming no problems are encountered, the duration of the pre-run checks is recorded for MIS as is the name of the Print Shop staff member with authority to sign off the print run as checked.
8. Simultaneously, the actual print run begins, and it's start time is recorded for MIS as well as production status of in progress.
9. Mass printing of the job occurs
10. At the end of the production run, staff record the end time / date   and thus the duration of the run for MIS purposes
11. There are two scenarios as to what happens next

12. The production status for the print process job is now complete
13. Print staff remove the stencil set from the machine and prepare the next priority print job for placing on the machine  - i.e. to maximise print throughput jobs are "daisy chained"

Account for finished items, scrap and numbers processed

1. If the print job is not the final process for the job - go to step 6 . However, if the print process was the final process line for the job-  that is there are no other uncompleted processes left, then the print staff would capture the produced items
2. Specifically two sets of information is captured
   1. Per process line, the number of processes successfully applied, and (if applicable)the numbers scrapped
   2. Per specific garment created (i.e. per printed SKU) the quantities successfully produced, and (if applicable) the numbers scrapped
3. Additionally, the printshop staff will upload a family group picture of each garment type created (garment family is defined as same garment type, colour and design)
4. Once this data is recorded, the printshop staff mark the data collection process as completed, place the completed goods into a trolley, and record the specific trolley location against the record
5. The trolley is then physically moved to the despatch area for further processing
6. Where the print process is not the final process on the job, data entry is not done, but the following  steps occur
   1. the qty of each print screen process successfully applied per position/process line is recorded.
   2. If it doesn't exist - a family group picture for the produced goods -[ per step 3)] is uploaded
   3. The produced goods are recorded as located in a specific trolley and located to the other processes team to await next the processing lines

Monitor production runs to ensure date commitments can be met ; re-allocate print runs across presses if needed

1. During the course of a shift it can become apparent that print presses are either running ahead or behind schedule
2. If ahead of schedule, the print manager can add future scheduled and ready (i.e. all assets available) to todays shift
3. If running behind schedule, the print manager will attempt to rebalance the workload and assign unstarted jobs to presses that have capacity
4. Alternatively, if all presses are at full capacity and it still becomes apparent that scheduled workload cannot be completed within the shift, the print manager will contact production administration to liaise with the client to establish whether any action can be taken, for example:  push back the required date, establish whether any splits have not been communicated, or other measures to realign the print requirements versus the printshop capacity. Significant managerial effort is applied to monitoring the production runs, with the ability to identify, manage and resolve potential missed production deadlines a critical skill.

Schematic for Print Shop