Acceptable percentage of mistakes / redo's

[gunshy]

Sorry for the strange title for this thread, I couldn't think of a better one.

We all realize that we are not in the business of making widgets that are all the same, all day, everyday. If that were the case then mistakes would be very low.

For most of us, almost all of our jobs are custom, using many different types of print material and substraights. Custom Large / grand format printing is overabundant with opportunities to make mistakes, weather it be in design, printing, fabricating, installation, or it could be your printer decided to hiccup mid print.
Just yesterday we had several large prints on expensive material that had to be redone because one letter out of several thousand had bad kerning.

Do you have an acceptable percentage of mistakes/ redo's in your shop? Is it 5%?, 10%?, or more? We all try to minimize mistakes but there will always be human and printer error.

Is there a report that shows industry/shop averages? I would love to know how my shop stacks up.

 

[wedosigns]

 

[rjssigns]

We figure a percentage into every estimate as a general rule to cover Oh S%$^ts! Most times we come out on the good end, other times not so much. We treat it as an average since it is a moving target. Every shop will probably have a different strategy.

 

[Gino]

Waste and mistakes are a normal ingredient in any business. We figure in a low percentage and if we don't need it.... it's like a free pass. When we do need to cash in on it... at least we had figured it in to all of our jobs beforehand. Takes the sting out of jobs that go bad...........

 

[d fleming]

As a beginning screen printer many years ago, I was told that 10% over on a multi color job was the average. They always put that many more shirts to be printed in the pile. Didn't take very long for me to have a large box of unprinted shirts next to me to be turned back into inventory. Then comes the day you print an entire order wrong and realize it on the next to last print. Or you get too quick printing coro and turn 100 signs into one very thick one by stacking before full cure. Nothing like screwing up a 20' banner either. Sooner or later the "oops" monster bites us all.

 

[FireSprint.com]

To answer your question directly, we sit around 5-10%. Of course we could call it 3% and ship a bunch of crap, but we choose not to.

To REALLY answer your question... What's important is that you look to measure a system of constant improvement. Your shop, your customers, your employees, your equipment, your materials all go into a big equation that might be completely different than an "Industry Average"

I mean this respectfully, but by looking for an industry average, you're heading down a path of self destruction. Instead put together a meaningful SIMPLE metric that you can track regularly and look to continuously improve on. Lexus has it right "The pursuit of perfection"

For us, we track sqft of substrate wasted vs sqft of substrate shipped. This doesn't count for ink or time or anything else, but it gives us something easy to measure that we can all be involved in and see our improvement or decline over time.

 

[StarSign]

This is something we track and it runs at 5% +/-

 

[anotherdog]

Continuous quality control. If a mistake happens, it's an opportunity to look at the process that caused it.

We have really reduced mistakes by following the production rules. I doubt I could even call it 2% when the rules are followed.

That said, when we get a rush job and we have to ignore some of the rules (second person checking everything and signing off in both design and production) it can go right off the rails (5-10%) We usually add a margin to cover such errors in rush production.
I'm the first to admit to mistakes when in a rush.

Oh and add to that the times when its a customers mistake, but for good clients we eat the costs.

 

[SignProPlus-Chip]

Measure twice, and cut once all around.

Mistakes always happen, but a little extra care should keep it to a minimum.
A place I used to work would reprint things almost on a daily basis. Drove us guys on the install end of things crazy.

All I have to say is make sure your production person can read a ruler, it helps.

A lot.