A Digital Printing Network
Time is money
My question is how long should a job take. We all know time is money, so I am a little worryed that jobs are taking to long to produce. So I had 70 sweatshits with a name down the sleeve. A helment with a number in the helmet on the other sleeve. Both cut out of thermal film. A logo on the front that is print and cut out of vivid print. This job took me 16+ hours. So how long would it take ever one else? Thanks -Candy
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Butch on -
16 hours seems a little excessive, but did you work straight thru, answer the phone, take lunch? Time is easily lost and you think you've spent a long time on something when actually you haven't. Design, cutting weeding, printing weeding would have used the most of your time ,the pressing should have been no more 5 min. per garment. Did complete each garment (press) before going to the next? Sometimes you can save time by doing the repetitive steps first (front logo on all).I have thought myself that I had spent to much time on a job but stepped back and traced my steps. A lot of what I was counting was lost time. If your shop is a one person operation try working after the shop closes. No interuptions helps with time management.
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Permalink Reply by Joseph Tovar on -
Hi Candy,
I guess one question I have is, how much did the job pay? If you minus your material and divide your time into your profit, was it worth it? For example..lets say all your materials were about $7.00/ea and you sold the sweaters for $25/ea. That's a profit of $1260. If it took you 16 hours, then that's $78.75/hour. That's seams pretty good to me.
As for me, I spend waaaayyy to much time lining things up on garments. Instead of just eye-balling it, I pull out a ruler and measure things too many times to make sure everyone is in the exact same place and straight. I hate doing that, but I'm afraid to eyeball it and start to drift a little each time. I'd rather have them all identical, but I still think I spend too much time doing that.
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Permalink Reply by irving donaldson on -
I agree completely with Butch and Joe's approach. It seems in our business we are usually happy to cover our expensives. The important thing is to figure how much you are worth an hour and once you subtract out your real expenses then you can figure whether the job was worth it. Unlike some professions, they can tell upfront how long thngs will take. With what we do we usually don't know until the job is finished. With that methodology we generally are setup for a loss. So we go back to - did we at least cover our expenses. Usually volume works for us, for by the time we hit 10 we should have develop a system to make the rest easy.
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Permalink Reply by John Brehm on
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I attached a form I made up to help me. I use it for new large jobs. It comes in handy when the client comes back a year later wanting the same thing. I can see what it cost then and go from there. It also helps for similar jobs.
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TIME SHEET.pdf, 13 KB
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Permalink Reply by irving donaldson on
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John I looked at your sheet and it is a great recap. Is it possible to walk us through how you use it to help you - thanks - I understand the filling in the blanks but more on your thought process and your post analysis to help you with future jobs.
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Permalink Reply by John Brehm on
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To quote Butch " Time is easily lost ". I keep this form next to me when working on a large or unusual job. That way if a custemer comes in or the phone rings, I put down the finish time and start when I get back.This way I know exactly how long each process took and my total costs compaired to my estimate for the job. It may not help the job you are working on but will help with future estimating. If I get a similar job and I can refer back to see my times. Putting hind-sight to good use.
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Permalink Reply by irving donaldson on
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Great thanks for your thought process and what I consider lessons learned - it will definitely fill in the gaps.
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Permalink Reply by Candy Mattingly on -
Thanks for EVERYBODYS feed back! I am sure I had interuprtions though out the job. I really like the sheet John put up on the site. I want to use it to see where and if I am lossing time. The job paid roughly $1200.00, but I don't get to figure out my cost untell time primits. That Sheet from John might help. Like Joseph said I might have made $78.75 hr. So that wouldn't have been bad. Thanks Again for all the replies!!
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Permalink Reply by Ken Wagner on -
I argue this very point with my designer employee almost weekly. She spends way too much time designing the job until she feels it looks right to her. I've told her she is not the customer and most customers would be just as pleased with a design done by me, although not nearly as nice looking as hers, in a quarter of the time. Time is money and you have to justify in your mind if the customer is willing to pay for your work. You also have to figure how much are you paying yourself for your time. If you have an employee helping then you know what you pay them. For instance, say your are paying yourself $10 an hour. You spent 16 hours on the job thus $160 in labor. Then you have to figure material costs and ink. Say 6 sq. ft. of material. Okay, not knowing your cost on this we'll figure it cost you about $10. So now we're up to $170 for the job. Then you have to add in the sweatshirt costs which we'll say is $8 per shirt or $560. We're up to $730. Now you also have to pay for electricity...and so on and so on. You get the idea. Maybe you did okay on your job but you have to figure all your costs before starting. Judging how long a job will take to do is the hardest part since it is not fixed like paper or ink costs. This will take time to learn averages by doing other jobs. In time you'll be able to look at something and guesstimate the time it will take. Good luck.
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