National Clothesline

The memory of my management mentor is still vivid. My interactions with him were in the restaurant business over 30 years ago.

He’d say certain things that,

perhaps because of his style or my impressionable age, have stuck with me for years. I guess that the two phrases that I’ll soon utter and discuss today are not his alone; I doubt that he coined these bits of wisdom, but I don’t recall hearing them from anyone else.

“You never have time to do it right, but always have time to do it over.” Far and away my favorite. “The best is always cheapest, in the long run.”

These thoughts become even more profound if you braze them together, sort of. “If you do things in the right way, in the first place, you won’t have to redo them later and, in the end, you will have saved money by saving time.” Consider these examples:

“The best is always cheapest, in the long run.” Let’s say that you buy new shirt equipment based on price. Perhaps it was a deal “too good” to pass up.

But is it the right machine for you? When buying shirt equipment, the upfront cost of the equipment has little to do with it. Whatever machine you buy, it should be an investment that will process at least one million shirts. Let’s use that as a benchmark.

The equipment can cost (for example) $38,000 or $55,000. If you are budget-minded, you’ll probably opt for the former, but suppose it is the wrong machine for you?

The difference in price is less than two cents per shirt. I assure you that you will waste more than two cents per shirt this year in five to ten different ways. If the equipment that you bought at a discount under-produces, for instance, it may save you two cents per shirt at acquisition, but cost you an astonishing 3.8 cents more per shirt, for as long as you have the equipment.

That’s $38,000 over the life of the machine.

You can’t press 50 shirts per hour with the bargain equipment that you bought, but 42 is almost as good. I wonder. Let’s do a little bit of math.

One employee at $10 per hour (let’s assume that this includes payroll taxes and related expenses) presses 50 shirts per hour.

The cost per shirt for pressing (only) is $10 per 50 shirts, or 20 cents per shirt. If you buy the wrong equipment (that can only press 42 shirts per hour) because it is $17,000 cheaper (or 1.7 cents cheaper per shirt), the math looks like this:

One employee at $10 per hour (still assuming that this includes payroll taxes and related expenses) presses only 42 shirts per hour.

The cost per shirt for pressing (only) is $10 per 42 shirts or 23.8 cents per shirt.

How does it make sense to get the wrong machine?

It costs almost four cents more to press a shirt on equipment that cost two cents per shirt less to buy.

The best, and seemingly more expensive equipment, costs less. The best is always cheapest in the long run.

If you buy a shirt unit that does a lousy job but saved you $10,000 upfront, have you saved anything when you realize that you need a second touch-up person? And that’s a perfect segue into “You never have time to do it right, but always have time to do it over.”

How much sense does it make to do a poor job on the shirt unit so that someone else can touch it up? It amazes me how often this is accepted as a way of life. It isn’t a touch-up person’s job to do the presser’s job over again.

Admittedly, you will need touch-up in every shirt laundry. This is because touch-up exists to do the parts of a shirt that the equipment can not do.

But then, by definition (mine anyway), you should not touch up pressing maladies that are caused by improper pressing techniques or by defective equipment.

Well, that needs clarification. A customer can not pay the price for defective equipment or poor pressing performance, so the pressing defect must be rectified somehow, but it must be done in conjunction with fixing the real problem.

An example: A touch-up person tells you (communication is absolutely vital) that the sleeves have wrinkles in the cuff area. Once management confirms that the presser is failing to follow a particular procedure, the employee must be retrained at once!

It is amazing that we often don’t have time — or the need — to do something right the first time, but we make time to do it over. We will train and reprimand the touch-up person for the sleeve pressing defect, but we must fix the real problem.

The same goes for equipment defects. Touch-up will be your safety net that prevents sub-par quality from reaching the consumer, but it must not be a replacement for fixing the real problem.