Improve Profits with an In-House Shop Tune-Up

Taking a look under the “hood” of your shop and analyzing workflow procedures and operations can result in a smoother-running, more efficient business. August 02, 2010
By Greg Kitson, Contributing Writer

When there’s a one-time problem in a particular area of your shop, you probably don’t need to worry about it too much. For instance, if a customer service representative forgets once to get a customer’s written approval on artwork, chalk it up to a memory slip.

However, if there’s a recurring problem in your company — whether it’s a frequent failure to get written approval on artwork, a production person constantly using an incorrect ink mixture or a manager neglecting to keep enough T-shirts in stock — it’s definitely time to take a closer look at the process. In other words, it’s time to evaluate your workflow.

Prior to conducting any workflow analysis, you must have a firm process in place. There’s no way of knowing if you’re doing a task correctly if there is no “correct” way of doing things in your shop. That said, part of any shop’s standard operating procedure should be to have a flow chart for key processes documenting the entire workflow — each step involved in every key process.

You may think it would be easy to get carried away with the documentation of these standard operating procedures. For instance, you may think a chart explaining how to tape a box is taking things a bit too far. However, a simple instructional piece showing employees that they should use only one strip of 3-inch packing tape instead of three strips can save time and money over the long run.

When employees know how to do something — and more importantly, why they should do things that way — they have a greater sense of ownership in the process. We make it clear to our staff that we have a certain way of doing things, and we expect them to learn that way. Over time, after they’re comfortable with that process, they may discover a better, faster or cheaper way of doing things — and we want their input. If their suggestion doesn’t work, we take the time to explain why it doesn’t so that we don’t discourage them from offering future ideas.

Showing employees written documentation about workflow also helps them see the steps that happen before and after their individual tasks. Thus, they get a much better sense of how their work affects the entire process.

Getting Started
Admittedly, the task of writing out all of these steps can be overwhelming. After all, there’s so much to do that you may be wondering where to start. The answer: Start where the problems are occurring. Where in your shop are things getting backed up? Screen making? Shipping? Purchasing? Wherever this bottleneck occurs is your starting point for documenting workflow.

For some people, especially entrepreneurs, writing down a process is extremely difficult. You may not see the value in it; you may just feel that you don’t have time for it; or you may reason that you have all of the information in your head, and that’s good enough for you. However, even if you can somehow keep all of this information straight in your memory, you’re only one person — and you can bet that others in your shop don’t have the same flawless memory that you apparently have. Besides, there’s just something about writing a process down that makes it more tangible and real.

These flow charts should be housed online rather than in print because they’re works in progress. If you printed an employee manual based on these flow charts, you’d go through reams of paper; every time a process was tweaked, you’d need to reprint the manuals. Our shop stores its flow charts online in what has become a virtual training center.

At first, it’s time consuming and even a bit tedious to actually sit down and say, “OK, this is how everything works. First we do this, then we do this,” and so on. However, there’s enormous value in creating this virtual warehouse of knowledge. For starters, the information becomes institutional instead of tribal, meaning it’s documented and part of the company instead of living only in the minds of employees. Further, when a new employee starts, he can review these flow charts and learn your shop’s workflow on his own.

Audit And Review
If your shop has its workflow documented, and your staff fully understands and follows these documents, then your shop should be running perfectly every day, right? Well, not exactly. Even when you have established processes in place and all employees know them, things will eventually go wrong. When they do, you need to conduct an audit and review, which means carefully and methodically evaluating a particular process in your shop. For instance, auditing and reviewing how your shop handles art approval would consist of looking at the individual steps in the process — from greeting customers to getting their sign-off — and determining if the process as a whole can be improved.

As soon as we notice a problem in our shop, we gather everyone involved and determine what happened. We walk through the process as it should be performed, then we talk about how the process was actually performed. Perhaps someone simply skipped a step because he was in a hurry. Maybe an employee needs to be retrained. Or maybe the process no longer works smoothly due to a recent software upgrade. The point is that an audit and review will help you find and fix the problem.

Whether it’s the owner, office manager or production manager, the person in charge of a process should immediately gather those involved to evaluate the situation. For instance, a press assistant might be told to put a screen on the press, but he does so without making sure the artwork has been approved. If that happens, the assistant, as well as the person who told him to put it on press — and that person’s supervisor — all should be involved in the audit. In other words, you want a few people upstream and downstream from the problem. Approach those involved tactfully, of course, not in a way that says, “You guys screwed up and you’re in trouble.”

As an owner or manager, you should always be looking for faster and more efficient ways to do things. After all, that’s a large part of how you wring more profits from your existing business. This mindset of continuous improvement will do more than just help you handle current jobs as efficiently as possible — it will help you find ways to handle new processes.

For instance, you may not offer team personalization because you figure it’s too much of a hassle. Your perception is that you’ll have to maintain 1,000 die-cut letters worth 2 cents apiece, and you just don’t want to fool with it. But maybe your perception is wrong. To find out, get out your trusty whiteboard and start sketching out the process involved while keeping an eye on the profit potential. By understanding how you’d actually implement this process, as well as what kind of revenue it could create, you’re able to make a sound business decision about whether or not it’s truly right for your shop.

Part of the audit and review process should be a careful analysis of whether you’re doing things in the best, most efficient manner possible. For instance, receiving an order may involve an employee unloading a box from the UPS truck, inspecting the box’s contents and taking it to the appropriate area, whether that’s near the presses or next to the embroidery machines.

But what if your computer isn’t near the load-in area and the employee has to greet the UPS person, walk over to the computer and get the paperwork, and return to the box and check it in? He has just wasted a number of steps, which translates into time and money. Perhaps you need to purchase another computer that resides near the loading area.

Such a mindset not only helps you evaluate the workflow process, but it also helps you determine your purchasing needs. For instance, if a production person told you he needed to purchase a new computer, you might simply say, “No way, especially not in this difficult economic environment.” But if you have ample information gleaned from an evaluation of the workflow, you could determine how much time is being wasted with the extra steps taken for each order, and whether a new computer will eventually pay for itself by eliminating wasted time and energy.

Constantly evaluating our workflow helped us make a hugely important discovery a couple of years ago. We found that we had a serious bottleneck in our screen-making department. We had maxed out the number of screens we could make per day; without going to a two-shift operation, we simply couldn’t get any more screens made. We added direct-to-screen capabilities and as a result, our shop’s productivity immediately soared. This constant, critical eye on workflow allows you to work smarter, not harder — and, most importantly, to increase efficiency and profitability.

Greg Kitson is founder and president of Mind’s Eye Graphics, Decatur, Ind. For more information or to comment on this article, e-mail Greg at greg@mindseyeg.com or visit mindseyeg.com.



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