National Clothesline

Last month, I gave you an assignment. I asked you to become very familiar with your shirt equipment and to familiarize yourself with “tweaks” that may have been applied to the shirt unit.

How close to “factory spec” is your machine? Have timings been adjusted? Pads and covers modified? Duct tape applied?

In order to decide whether or not you need new shirt pressing equipment, we need to know if your current equipment is really broken or it is simply a victim of deferred maintenance. (That’s a polite way of saying that repairs needed to be done, but someone just blew them off.) And too often, band-aids are applied and the real repair is never done.

I am guilty of applying band-aids. When I had my plant, I can think of numerous times when a machine broke during the middle of the day and something had to be done so that the press could limp along for a few more hours. The key is to be sure that you fix it, for real, as soon as possible. That means at break time, at lunch time, at the end of the day, on Sunday or as soon as the part comes in.

I have seen a folded hanger shoved into a buck to act as the sleeve spreader. I have seen duct tape used to suppress an air leak. I have seen a rag placed over a leaking steam trap. One of my favorite “fixes” is as follows (you’re going to think that I am making this up).

You know how the sleeve measuring device on an Ajax ABS sleever stays where you put it? You are supposed to line up the beam of light with the seam on the sleeve. When you align the two, the measuring arm stays put and the presser proceeds to index the machine to begin the pressing cycle.

Well, on this particularly well-broken machine, the measuring arm didn’t stay put. Gravity did its thing and the arm always rested downward.

The remedy for this was really stupid-simple. On the side of the cabinet is a bolt and friction nut. This nut only needs to be tightened slightly and then the measuring arm stays where you want it to stay.

That adjustment is good for a very long time. I’d venture to say that it is good for years.

Well, at this particular plant, nobody knew about the nut that needed tightening. So, instead, someone daisy-chained a bunch of rope-ties from the sleeve-measuring arm, ten feet up to a ceiling joist to keep gravity from doing its thing.

Could the arm be moved up and down to allow for variances in sleeve length? Of course not. What was the point of this “repair?” I don’t know. But I warned you that you would think that I am making this up. It’s a true story.

But this is an example of a repair that could have been done for exactly $0. And I have more.

When I implement the Tailwind System, I expect a certain level of productivity. It’s not such a pipe dream. I never expect or bank on stellar productivity. Just typical productivity, not much more.

There was this older body press where the buck actually had to be pushed into the pressing position by the presser every time.

Well, this wasn’t going to make me look too good since I expect that my clients are going to get the best productivity numbers in the business.

This isn’t going to happen for a client who has a shirt presser that must push the buck in by hand every time. On this machine, the transfer cylinder was leaking like a sieve. I fixed it for free with 20 cents worth of Teflon cord to work as an o-ring.

You are probably quite sure that this doesn’t describe you, but it might. Surely it cannot be that I simply happened upon the three poorest shirt units in the history of the world during their darkest hour. Some of you out there have equipment that isn’t as bad as you may think it is.

So the task du jour is to take a long hard look at your equipment and decide what needs to be done in order to bring the machine up to spec. The challenging part of this is that you might not know what “spec” is.

I’m not sure how to help you there. Sometimes I see machines that are so neglected and decrepit that what they do barely resembles what they are supposed to do. Still, we need to get some idea of what it will take to make it do what it is supposed to do.

Let’s pretend that we have a well-worn three-piece Ajax unit. Let’s start by looking at the sleever. Consider every single part that needs replacement. Even cosmetic parts. In fact, I want you to take the attitude that this is going to cost way too much and that buying a new shirt unit is the only way to go and you want to be able to blame me for it.

Don’t estimate the cost of the parts. Find out what they are for sure. Look at the cuff clamps.

I bet that they are worn in two ways. First, they don’t actually hold the shirt and secondly they don’t release automatically during the press cycle.

I bet that you could rebuild those with a pocketful of little parts and save a bunch of money.

For your estimate, get the cost of the entire cuff clamp. What you want to do is get a high estimate. The broken cabinet latches? Get them on the list. That plastic shelf at the bottom of the sleeve bucks… how long has it been cracked and broken? Put that on the list of parts that need to be replaced.

How much would it cost to replace every air control valve on the machine? The point is to get a good idea of exactly what it will cost to bring the machine back to near-new condition.

So why replace the cosmetic items like the plastic shelf and the timer knob? Assuming that we go ahead with this and actually do refurbish the press, you want to smile when you look at it! You want to feel good that you have extended the life of this machine for a few years. You want your presser to be happy! You want her to smile.

If and when you buy a new shirt machine, it will come fully equipped with unbroken plastic parts and knobs on the timers and shiny new paint. We want to come as close to that as possible. It will be a tough call when it comes time to make a decision.

Do you spend five grand to fix what you have so that it will last an unknown amount of time longer? Or do you bite the bullet and jingle up $50,000 for something that will be around for 15 years?

Tough call. Really. But it is important that you consider it because I have seen so many machines over the years that look like they have a foot in the grave but in reality are not that bad at all.

The last point is an important one and one that will really throw a wrench into your decision-making process. Shirt units don’t last forever anymore for a very good reason. Yes, its true that most things aren’t built like they used to be built, but in the case of pressing equipment and shirt pressing equipment in particular, you don’t want them to last forever.

You don’t want to replace your shirt machine because you have to. You don’t want to replace it because there are parts hanging off it. You want to replace your equipment to take advantage of the innovation that the new units offer that ultimately offer a better product and better service to your customers.

There have been countless innovations that improve quality and productivity. When you buy a shirt machine that will allow you to press shirts faster, for example, what will the savings be?

If you invest in shirt equipment that will allow you to press 55 shirts per hour rather than 45, you could easily save eight cents per shirt. At 500 shirts per day, that is going to work out to over $800 per month in cash savings. How’s that for complicating your decision?

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