In screen printing, keeping a handle on inventory is key to smooth operations. This involves balancing customer needs with storage space and budget. You’ll want to have staple blanks like garments and inks on hand, but also anticipate popular requests or local trends. A well-managed inventory ensures you can take on jobs quickly without running out of vital materials. Carefully tracking each stage of production with versatile production tracking software is ideal for streamlining processes and lowering labor costs. OnSite is product management software designed to assist you with your complete backend operations to increase profitability and improve customer service.

What to Track with Product Inventory Software

To lower costs and identify bottlenecks, it’s important to track all product information including costs accrued through the production process. The more detailed your records, the more in-depth your report analysis, allowing you and your staff to make informed decisions. These represent just some of the product information you may track:

1. Product Identification (SKUs): Assign distinct identifiers to each product to simplify tracking and ensure accurate stock counts.
2. Description: Include any pertinent information about the product such as size, color, materials, etc.
3. Barcode Integration: Leverage barcodes to expedite accessing work order information via a Touch Screen module in OnSite.  Barcode scanning also assists with labor tracking in OnSite.
4. Supplier Records: Maintain a comprehensive list of your suppliers. Include their contact information, lead times, and any specific terms or agreements. Effective supplier management is crucial for smooth operations.
5. Costs: Cost tracked over time will change the status of each product as it travels through different stages. The end cost used to calculate the sale price should include labor and overhead on top of the cost of materials used to create the product. Costs for some products can also change over time as the cost of acquiring materials fluctuates.
6. Designs: Associate designs with specific products or custom orders and retain design details for future orders.

FAQ:

Q: What strategies can I use to minimize overstocking or stockouts of screen printing materials?

A: There are three different approaches you can use to balance orders with demand. One is the just-in-time approach which is popular for custom orders. Materials are ordered as the customer order is placed to minimize inventory on hand. Automated reordering paces your purchase order creation with sales. A reorder is triggered when stock levels dip to a predetermined Min Max level. Physical inventory auditing ensures inventory on your books matches what’s on your shelves to bring data up to date.

Q: Why is accurate inventory management crucial for small screen printing businesses?

A: Effective inventory management helps control costs, improves cash flow, and prevents lost sales.

OnSite product inventory management software facilitates screen print shops in balancing their strengths with the challenges they face, adapting to industry trends, and guiding them to invest in efficient management practices to thrive in this dynamic field.

Small Business Mistakes and Failures to Avoid

In the decorated apparel and product decorator industries, it’s easy to make mistakes. That’s true of any business or your personal life. In hindsight, it all seems so obvious, but the real key is to look ahead and find out how to avoid mistakes and do it right next time. Here’s a list of the most common small business mistakes and failures for you to avoid:

Number 10: Weak leadership

Keeping a tight rein is important, whether you’re in the middle of the storm or things are going down Easy Street. Don’t be dictatorial, but keep things where they should be so you don’t have to crack down later. Give your employees clear direction on how they should behave. Is it OK to run the press while chatting on the cell phone? Can you check Facebook while on the clock? How about coming in “just a few minutes” after lunch? Write down your company policies and make a clear employee handbook out of them. These are the company standards you should hold everyone in the firm to. And most important: lead by example. Do what you preach, don’t just say it, and you’ll create the right culture in the company.

When you need to decide, be strong, think it out, and make the right choice. Everyone’s watching, so make the tough choices you need to so it doesn’t cause problems further down the road. Get advice – consult HR pros, lawyers, or a person advisor if you need to.

Number Nine: Nonstop Business

Don’t risk overworking yourself or your employees – that’s asking for mistakes caused by sheer exhaustion. In a small business, everyone has to wear several hats, so when things get busy, it pushes people hard. If you’re running a week or two of fourteen hour days, you’ll need to get help.

Don’t push your people over the edge – schedule 5-10 minute breaks throughout the day to recharge. Make being on the job fun too – urge your folks’ creativity, and laughter, have cookouts, bring in pizza and ice cream (not necessarily at the same time). Get your folks inspired!

Number Eight: Who are you?

One of the things that makes a decorated apparel company (or any company) great is they’ve found out who their core business target market is and they know how to reach them. The top shops only market to a few core types of customers, and everything else is icing on the cake. Be focused – you can’t appeal to everyone, and the attitude that you can is an invitation for randomness and failure.

Decide what one or two customers you should go after. Find the sweet spot – type of art, type of shirt, multiplied by this many pieces and locations. If that “perfect” order would work times 500 or 5,000, focus on that to cull and replace all those junk orders that are draining time and effort. Define who your ideal customers are, then go after them.

Number Seven: Marketing Mess-ups

Marketing is key, whether you’re wondering where the next order is coming from or the shop’s running around frantically to keep up with what you have in the hopper. One of the goals of good marketing, in fact, is to break the feast or famine cycle. You can’t do it after hours or in a few spare minutes on the job with a Facebook post or two – it takes time and effort. All this is closely tied to point number 8 above – you can only market well once you’ve determined who you’re marketing to, so invest the time to learn who they are and how to reach them.

Find out who your target market is, how they buy, and what appeals to them. Develop your method through doing your homework and a lot of trial and error. Refine and tweak your message, frequency and distribution channels. It’s a full-time, ongoing job and will need a good investment of time and possibly money.

Work your website, social media, blogging, and email list to reach your customers. Track what your customers are doing online – and what your competition’s doing. Find out who your strongest competitor is and what they’re doing right. Find out what channels they’re using – you don’t have to reinvent the wheel, just take your message out to the same channels your competition’s using.

Number Six: Not knowing and understanding your competition

Keep tabs on the competition. What are they doing? Hiring, buying new equipment, redesigning their site, offering discounts? If you don’t you risk them taking a huge bite out of your business. Don’t copy their price list – just understand how they work, what problems they have, and anything else you can glean to stay ahead.

The key, though, is to define who your ideal customer is and what is critical to them. Fulfill their needs, and competition won’t matter. If you don’t keep up with your critical customers, your competition will eat out your business.

Number Five: Irresponsibility for Mistakes

Mistakes will happen. A misprinted color, UPS makes a mistake and the shirts won’t be there in time, you put the embroidery on the wrong sleeve. Whatever happened, what matters is what you do about it. Don’t try weaseling out of responsibility. Admit the mistake, make it right, and find a solution. The industry’s built on reputation and trust. Back your work and take care of your customers – you’ll build a large, loyal stable of clients, even if it’s financially painful or means working weekends and nights. And your reputation’s not just word-of-mouth anymore – the internet can make it so much faster to spread the good, the bad, or the ugly about you.

Number Four: Hey, how hard could it be?

A word to startups – folks, this job ain’t easy. Printing or embroidering a shirt isn’t easy work. Just diving off the cliff, buying some equipment and trying to print or embroider goods is plain reckless. It’s incredibly hard for inexperienced people to understand how many steps there just to decorate a shirt. Regardless of whether the job calls for embroidery, digital printing or screen printing, the result is always a mix of craftsmanship, art and science.

So if you’re just starting out, get all the advice you can from the right people and do your research. Write a business plan, go to a trade show, take classes, talk to suppliers. Would you hire yourself? Know what you’re doing. “Fake it until you make it” won’t get you far.

Also, another few words for startups: think ahead and plan carefully. Write out a detailed business plan and put that learning mentioned above to good use. Make sure you have the startup capital you need to begin. Find out the best legal protections and know your taxes and tax write-offs. Start small and don’t overdo it.

Number Three: Financial irresponsibility

Keep your eye on the ball financially. Most shops fairly small and the owner is often the accountant too (and sales rep and customer service person and…and…) So who do you pay when you owe everyone? How did you get into the mess in the first place. If you don’t know how to do the books, hire or outsource them.

Just a bit of trouble can throw you off. You get a large order, the customer can’t or won’t pay on time and land in receivables. You still have to pay for the shirts and employees, not to mention ink or other supplies if you had to order them. Whatever you do, don’t leave bills or employees unpaid. Once you get that reputation, it’s hard to get that trust back.

Number Two: Cutting Prices

When times get tough, many shops drop their prices to try to stay in business. Trouble is, once you treat your hard work as a commodity, your customers will expect that low price from then on. Don’t be foolish. Say no to people or demands if they make the order not make financial sense. In some shops, half their jobs don’t make any money for them. Just staying busy doesn’t mean you’re profitable. Find out what the costs of doing business are (labor, materials, and overhead) and setting a goal for how much money you need to make based on those numbers is how to build a price list.

Figure it out. What does it cost you to print or embroider something? Are you giving free screens, digitizing or other stuff away? How much is that really costing you? Could you be charging for that? Many shops charge for those plus art, rush jobs, bagging, drop-ships, and fulfillment or whatever tasks are on the order. You could be missing a giant pile of money on the table.

So it is it better to be moderately busy with highly profitable work, or insanely busy with work that barely pays you anything?

Numero One: The Inexcusable

What’s the biggest blunder? It’s often the owners not understanding the business and getting in over their head. The main issue? You, the owner, have to be there on the floor and understand what your employees have to deal with, not just sit in an office and look at balance sheets.

You must understand the nuts and bolts of the business to succeed. You have to know what it’s like to set up and print a three location, 5 color per side order for 85 shirts or change a thread color for every shirt in a 500 piece order. Oh–and the both jobs must ship today. Talk to the people who do the work and understand their effort, stress and pain points.

Whatever the size of the operation, company leaders control the firm’s culture, how things work, and the standards of operation. Even with a good management team, it can all fall apart if the owners aren’t committed to and present in the business, as the owners will make financial or policy decisions based, not on reality, but on tunnel vision and the need to extract money from the company. Short-term thinking seldom produces long-term positive results.

Have clear expectations. Ready, Aim, then Fire – don’t shoot from the hip first and ask questions later. Let your employees know what they’re aiming at and keeping clear, constant communication open is key. If the shop’s busy but there isn’t the expected ROI, and the owners aren’t happy but don’t communicate, well – that’s why shops go out of business and used equipment dealers always have a full inventory of items to sell.

So avoid these pitfalls and build up your business. Enjoy the ride!

The role of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems has expanded over the last few years from specific areas such as manufacturing, procurement, or HR to software packages for the entire business. In part, this means executives to end users involve themselves with the process of implementing and operating ERP software, not just IT.

With the added complexity, many companies find transitioning from existing systems to a new ERP time-consuming, costly, and risky. According to Panorama Consulting Solutions, an ERP consulting firm based in Centennial, Colo., over half of ERP implementations take longer than expected and/or cost more than budgeted, while less than half of ERP implementations met the expected benefits, and a mere 17% had more than eighty percent of the expected benefits. This doesn’t have to happen, however – you just need to take the right precautions.

Part of the problem is expensive software customization to make the software custom-fit the business. However, customization gets expensive quickly and may not meet expectations. This makes it important to choose the right starting software, to begin with, so customization can either be lived without or kept to a minimum.

Often, the problem isn’t the software; it’s how the software’s implemented. Here, we list eight best practices for ERP implementation:

The Eight Best Practices for Successful ERP Implementation

Thoroughly understand business processes and key requirements

This step is indispensable – you must understand what your current processes are and how you can improve them to evaluate and select your ERP system. Once your team fully understands your business processes, define and rank key business requirements as early as possible; it will make the rest of the project go much smoother.

Prioritizing business requirements is just as important as defining them

There is so much information available during the evaluation phase of implementation that it’s easy to get lost nitpicking over low-level processes or details, leading to “analysis paralysis.” A better way: Define priorities based on two goals: one, satisfying immediate business needs – the ones that affect normal business processes – and two, longer-term strategic goals. Defining business requirements is not a one-time deal resulting in a static set of requirements for selecting software. Instead, it’s ongoing and refined regularly to keep up with the changing needs of the company.

Then, and only then, make sure that the ERP software’s technical capabilities match the defined business requirements. Don’t just focus on the technical aspects of ERP software, but instead on what requirements are most important to the business. Software features or functionality that don’t line up with company business needs are wastes of implementation resources, time, and money that are better spent on software customization, training, or other, more profitable parts of the project.

Build a business case for ERP with a positive ROI

Unless you are a small company with only one or two decision-makers, a project as big (and expensive) as a new ERP system will need a comprehensive business case to prove its worth and “sell” it. A good case turns on tangible business benefits based on defined requirements and gauges success based on key performance metrics; facts are always harder to dispute than opinions. The case should address the concerns, needs, and objections of all project stakeholders. Involving the key stakeholders in creating a business plan can also be a strong way to build support for the new system.

A compelling business case assesses current system performance against expected post-implementation performance. Laying down key performance indicators (KPI) allows progress measurement during implementation and ensures a tie to real changes in performance. These metrics can also be used to check ERP software vendors and select which software modules match business requirements.

The question “Is software customization needed to meet a business demand?” often comes up during the implementation process. A business case with a positive ROI allows stakeholders to consider the merits of customization on the same basis as the original implementation. Your team can gauge investments in customization by whether they fit the requirements defined in the business case, based on performance metrics that are measurable, rather than “gut feeling”.

(For those of you who are in the promotional products or decorated apparel industry, you don’t have to worry about customizing a generic ERP system – check out ShopWorks OnSite for a ready-made ERP system built just for the industry.)

Ensure proper project management and resource commitment

Another indispensable part of ERP implementation best practices is having a dedicated project manager who’s involved in both planning and ongoing management. In addition, the company must also commit enough resources to the project before, during, and after implementation.

Don’t over-focus on whether the needed resources come from inside or outside the company – don’t rely entirely on your internal team, since you need ERP experts and business process re-engineering. Ideally, you should augment the internal team with people who have done ERP implementations before. However, make sure your internal organization is actively involved in the implementation because they will own the project once the implementation phase is over.

Strong project controls and governance are also needed to carry out an ERP system. Develop formal risk management and mitigation plan upfront that includes ongoing reviews of project phases throughout implementation, with the full participation of all inside and outside resources.

Gain executive and organizational commitment

Any ERP implementation is practically doomed if it does not have the full support and commitment of the company leadership. Company leadership support is arguably the most important factor in a successful ERP implementation; without this support, ERP initiatives will risk being “starved” for corporate funds and resources. High-level leadership is responsible for setting company business strategy and direction, so they should make the most important decisions about what the ERP system’s role is in running the business.

Lack of executive participation in an ERP project can also have legal consequences. Simply delegating a complex, huge project like an ERP implementation to someone outside of the executive team and walking away is a recipe for disaster.

The broad scope and duration of most ERP implementations can also cause changes in familiar workflows or business processes for people throughout the organization, whether they are directly involved in the implementation or not. Therefore, it’s important to gain broad company support during all phases of an ERP implementation. Finally, regular project reviews with the executive team or the project steering committee will keep them informed of project progress. It will also give a forum so that the right decision-makers can deal with issues that arise.

Recognize the value of early planning

In any ERP implementation, there is no substitute for careful planning; in fact, planning should begin during the earliest project phases. A project dragging out frustratingly longer than expected – a common complaint of companies that do ERP implementations – can partly be due to poor planning. Companies get excited about the benefits of implementing ERP and tend “dive in” without a fully developed plan. Don’t expect that hiring a consultant partway through the project because of planning failures early on is a quick fix solution.

The project plan should have time built into it for requirements definition, key performance measures, vendor evaluation, and choice. The best plans have buffers built into the schedule to account for testing, data migration, and unforeseen events that occur in every implementation. Companies that invest in comprehensive, upfront planning often have shorter implementation times and spend less money overall than less-planned efforts.

Focus on data migration early in the implementation process

Many companies tend to focus on software testing and configuration and put off dealing with data migration until late in the implementation process. Successful ERP implementations put data migration into the project plan as early as possible. A company’s data is one of its primary assets and issues with migrating data between legacy systems and a new ERP system can have a sizeable negative impact on business operations, especially problems exposed late in the process.

Once your team determines the scope of the data to be migrated, activities such as data scrubbing and mapping are independent of the larger implementation process. Similarly, your team can work on forms and reports without relying on the rest of the implementation. It’s also a good idea to include a data side into conference room pilots and testing processes so that you can test both data within the software and business processes simultaneously.

Your team must also decide how much historical data you should bring into the new system. Many companies just save everything and don’t make decisions about what information to save and what information to archive. Some companies must keep data to comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act; others worry about the threat of e-discovery and legal penalties. Nonetheless, all companies should set up a data retention and storage strategy. At the very least, you should de-duplicate the data to migrate. The old computer axiom, “garbage in = garbage out,” applies here; even a new ERP system won’t fix corrupted data.

Invest in training and change management

ERP implementations don’t just affect systems and business processes; they also involve people who may find it difficult to change roles, processes, and behaviors that they may have learned over many years of work. Employees can’t just change their behavior during the relatively short duration of an ERP software implementation. Managing change is a constant, ongoing process that should start on day one and continue throughout the implementation to the end-user training at the close of the project.

Change management is crucial to the success of an ERP initiative. You need to introduce your employees to the new processes and job roles over a time period so that they can accept and internalize these developments. Neglecting this aspect of implementation or putting it off until late in the project may result in organizational resistance to the new system, even to the point of jeopardizing the project. To be effective, training should concentrate on business workflows and how these changes affect job roles and the people who do the work.

Know why you’re implementing ERP

Successful ERP implementations are clearly defined and have a set of attainable goals. The companies that carry them out have done the work of defining requirements, establishing metrics, and building a business plan that clearly articulates what benefits the company expects from the implementation.

Some companies tend to look at what others or their competitors have done with ERP, especially if the company leaders have earlier experience with an ERP system at another enterprise. Indeed, companies should learn from others’ experiences, but to have a successful ERP installation, you need a clear vision and articulation of the needs unique to each firm.

In the promotional products or decorated apparel industry and looking for an ERP system to meet your needs? Demo Shopworks OnSite today.

Apparel Pricing Wars

A common aspect of the decorated apparel industry are pricing wars. You know how it goes: That “other shop” across town slashed their prices, suddenly drying up your business. What do you do?

The knee-jerk reaction, of course, is to drop your prices or offer the “Next Big Sale”. After all, we Americans like the idea of saving a buck (even if the vendor raised the price five bucks before dropping it one). That’s partly why we’ve shipped all our manufacturing overseas – we’ve been trained to want cheap, cheap, cheap and view saving a buck as almost a form of competition.

Before you bend over backwards to drop your price, though, stop and consider some things first:

First, make sure it’s a case of apples to apples. The other shop might not be offering the same stuff in the same way as you – they might be offering cheaper garments, lower-quality inks, omitting costs from the estimate such as screens, etc. Or, they might be a leg up on you and have been efficient enough to drop their operating costs – and thus offer a better deal while still making a good profit.

Whatever you do, don’t treat your hard work as a mere commodity like gasoline or coal or pig’s ears. You’ve spent years working on perfecting your methods, picking inks, learning the printing process – and you’re going to give it all away cheap?

The three solutions to this are:

1. Decide who your ideal customers are – the perfect balance between your business skills and talents. It could be summer camps, restaurants, schools – whatever. Then you can focus on what makes you unique.
2. Evaluate your business. What are you offering that no one else does? Better overall quality, a unique printing technique, better art, faster production, cost-effective delivery, efficient tracking processes? If you’re lacking in an area, make a plan on how to fill the gap.
3. Measure it all – find out what your exactly what overhead is, the time it takes to do something, plug any financial leaks in the company, and analyze your past sales. Then you’ll know where to tighten ship and focus on customers and jobs that matter – and won’t sweat it when a low-dollar customer walks out the door.

Use all the above to define a value proposition on why customers (particularly the customers you want) should choose you over the competition, and broadcast it to the world.

(One way to monitor your efficiency and increase it is to use a small business ERP system to track your orders and exactly where the money and time is coming from and where it’s going. Shopworks OnSite was designed to do just that – read more about OnSite here.)

Small Business Marketing Tips & Solutions

Expanding your business can seem like a daunting, insurmountable task, if you don’t have experience with doing so. Whether you are just starting out, or you have sustained your business at a smaller size for several years, here are some simple tips that can help you grow your business now:

• Attend Industry Events: Industry events and tradeshows give you an excellent opportunity for networking with potential partners and competitors. Business doesn’t always have to be a competitive industry — often partnering or sharing information and experience with other companies can lead to a mutually beneficial business relationship.

• Host Your Own: If you haven’t liked any of the events you have visited recently, and you can’t find any in your area, team up with other nearby businesses to host an event in your area. This can range from a small trade show, to a farmers-market type of event that you invite customers to on the weekend.

• Use Email: Create a weekly email that updates your customers on your products and services, and any specials you are hosting. This is a good way to keep your business in your customers’ minds and keep them apprised of the goings-on in your company.

• Give Things Away: Handing out freebies is an easy way to generate mass amounts of goodwill toward your company. Whether you are offering a free product if customers spend a certain amount, or if you are handing out calendars or other small token gifts, your customers will remember the generosity.

• Support a Charitable Cause: By supporting a cause, whether it is a local charity, or a certain day, such as Earth Day, you raise goodwill in the community. Even though you need to spend money, up front, you will make more, in the long run.

• Software Solutions for Business: Invest in a good Apparel ERP or print estimating software to help consolidate the business processes within your company and to cut down on confusing paperwork.