National Clothesline

The Clean Show 2009 will be upon us in four months. When you go, you will surely see all sorts of shirt units, some unlike any you have ever seen before.

It seems that over the last ten years or so, there have been more innovations in shirt pressing equipment than at any other time in the last 50 years. Many foreign manufacturers have tried to make inroads into the US market. That surely must be a challenge.

Anyhow, this month, let’s try to decide whether or not you need new shirt pressing equipment. You need to make this decision before going to the show and I am going to try to help you make it.

If you go to the Clean Show without doing your homework (regardless of what you want, need or think that you need) you will come back more confused than you were before going.

Perhaps more importantly, you may come back not having bought anything when you should have, or as a worst case scenario, you may have bought the wrong thing for the wrong reason.

I first learned to press shirts in 1978 on a Unipress BASF-A. I was 20 years old then. Somehow, I think that that same machine is still out there somewhere pressing shirts. I broke a rib rebuilding that machine in 1987. Well, let’s just say that they don’t build them like they used to.

If your shirt machine is more than 15 years old, it is definitely time to start learning about what is on the market.

This does not necessarily mean that it is time to buy a new machine, but that investment is inevitable and, unfortunately, may not be as far down the road as you wish it was.

A lot has changed in the industry during the last 15 years so get your ticket to N’awlins and start doing your homework.

Acquiring knowledge in advance is critical. (And this, by the way, is the best reason in the world for always going to the Clean Show.)

If your shirt machine, or any other piece of equipment, buys the farm and goes to that big drycleaning plant in the sky, you will need to replace it.

And in a haste to replace that equipment promptly, you are always liable to buy the wrong thing.

That is when people buy the shirt unit that their equipment distributor just happens to have on their warehouse floor because somebody else ordered it and canceled. It is probably precisely the wrong thing for you, but you don’t know.

But you did save a thousand dollars. Hmmm.

When you get to the show, every machine that you see will be better than yours. The quality of the shirts will be better and the operator will be faster (and happier).

Remember this, and don’t forget it: good shirts and happy, productive employees are a result of good management. They are not a byproduct of a new shirt unit.

Well, actually, on second thought, they do come in the box with a new shirt unit. When you open the crate that your shirt unit comes in, there is a book in a manila envelope. It’s the instructions. Follow them.

In that book, there really is all you need to know about how to install your equipment, set it up, and use it. You really start off on the wrong foot if you are doing your own modified version of these specific instructions.

It completely amazes me how many people modify the installation: (“One-inch black pipe? We got ½" copper. That’s good enough!”); the machine timings and settings (“Those engineers don’t know how to press shirts. We gotta make them work right.”); the layout (“The people that write these books never worked in a plant.”); the equipment design (“These regulators are a waste! They just slow everything down. I always take them out.”); and the padding (“They really cut corners when they make these machines. 30 oz. flannel! This machine needs 80 oz. flannel so that it lasts!”).

So if you are having a tough time with your shirt unit, consider how much it has changed from the original factory specs over the years. If you are having trouble with production or quality, you may be wrong to blame the presser or the equipment. The cause of many issues may be the man in the mirror.

Equipment is not going to run your business. If you buy a shirt unit because you have unhappy, unproductive employees doing lousy shirts back at the plant, you will make that problem measurably worse because you will now have unhappy, unproductive employees doing lousy shirts, plus you will have $40,000 less in the bank (or a significant monthly bill to pay).

Sometimes, maybe even many times, unproductive employees doing poor quality work is a direct result of bad management rather than bad equipment. Throwing equipment at the problem probably is not the solution.

On the other hand, it could be just what the doctor ordered.

Next month, we will go over your equipment with the proverbial fine-tooth comb and decide whether you should invest in new equipment or invest in a wheelbarrow full of parts to fix your existing equipment.

But this month the lesson is that equipment doesn’t run a business. Managers run businesses.

If you buy a new shirt unit to fix your quality problem, you might be very disappointed. If you buy a new shirt unit to fix your production problem, you will be disappointed.

There are a couple of pressers in Chicago that do 125 perfect quality shirts per hour on an Ajax Classic. These guys will kick butt on any shirt unit that they press on.

There is a cranky young lady in Alabama that presses 23 shirts per hour on the same model machine. Don’t think for a fleeting instant that the introduction of any machine will turn this presser into a rock star.

Laziness? Carelessness? Metabolism? Whatever! I will subrogate the diagnosis to someone else.

What is an absolute fact is that the manager that accepts 23 shirts per hour from a presser is at least 80 percent of the problem. He will also accept substandard production from the same presser on a supposedly faster machine.

So between now and the next time you read my column, become familiar with your shirt machine and be aware of — and correct — any deviation from what the manufacturer intended. We’ll talk more about this in March.

“If you do what you always did, you’ll get what you always got.”