I once trained a couple new to embroidery who had just bought asinglehead machine and all the accoutrements. As I tried to explain certain production techniques that large shops use, I told them how the operators in these shops are often on a production incentive. I made the comment, “So they get paid by the piece.” The husband stared at me incredulously and said, “So do I.”

This owner/operator fully understood that like a machine operator in a large shop who works on a production incentive program, the more work he can produce on his machine, the more money he makes. The only difference, really, is the type of work the two shops do.

Big shops are geared for high volume. They churn out thousands of pieces of the same thing repeatedly. One job can easily add up to more than 1,000 pieces. This means there is not a lot of changeover, and when there is, there is significant downtime on the machine.

By contrast, smaller shops have less production capacity and specialize in smaller order sizes. Changing from one job to the next is more than an everyday occurrence: It happens several times a day. Therefore, while production efficiency is important to large and small companies, the focus is different in each instance.

Large shops will focus on getting the work on and off the machine between runs. The small shop’s focus is on getting the work set up and ready to run between jobs. That is not to say that small shops shouldn’t worry about keeping the machine running efficiently once a job has begun. That remains just as important as it is to a high-production outfit. But small shops have to be even more agile in changing from job to job than the bigger shops.

When it comes to changing jobs, there are three areas of concern: Switching from flat goods to finished caps, threading the machine and getting the design into the machine. Let’s look at each of these and learn some techniques to minimize downtime between jobs.

CAPS TO FLATS

A lot of energy has been put into developing machines that take less time to switch between caps and flat goods. Some brands take more time than others, and different models of the same brand can vary as well. Those of you looking to buy your first machine should consider this issue.

However, for those already in business, there isn’t a lot you can do to affect the amount of time your machine requires to switch back and forth. Even if you have the easiest machine to change, there are still differences in the way flat goods and caps are sewn. Following are two tips to help you with this problem.

One scenario depends on how much equipment you have. Many people who have multiple machines will set up one machine to sew caps and another to sew only flat goods. This doesn’t mean that in a pinch you can’t use one for the other purpose. It simply means you don’t change both machines back and forth all the time. There are a lot of advantages to this, like fine tuning the machine for the type of work for which it is set up.

Obviously, for single-machine shops, this isn’t an option. In this case, it is important to group your work, and I don’t mean just by customer. It is more productive to run them by the type of job.

Let’s say you have three orders. One is for caps, a second is for shirts and the third includes both shirts and caps. Instead of running the jobs in that order, try running the shirt order first, then the shirt portion of the third order. After this, change over to caps and run the rest of the third order and then the first, cap-only order.

Instead of changing over two or three times, you changed only once. The same principle applies to any attachment you use. If you have a bag clamp on the machine, consider running all jobs or portions of orders that need the bag clamp at the same time.

CHANGING THREADS

Ever wonder why machines have so many needles today? It isn’t necessarily so you can run designs with more colors in them. The main reason is to reduce changeover between jobs by increasing the likelihood that you will already have the color you need on the machine, which means you won’t have to re-thread for that color.

To maximize this benefit, keep your most commonly used colors on the machine at all times. Even if you only have seven needles or so, you should still be able to keep black, and maybe white, on the machine most of the time. I keep black, white, red, royal, beige, yellow, green and metallic silver on the machine virtually all the time. I also work my needles to keep other colors I use frequently on the machine.

The way to do this is to place the most common colors (i.e. black and white) on the needles that are the hardest to thread. This will usually be in the center of your thread rack, with the other colors surrounding them. The reason is that you are not planning on removing them any time soon. The cone will only be changed when it runs out.

Put the next most-used colors around these colors. They are a little more accessible, but not the easiest. The spots on your thread rack that are the easiest to access should be used for the colors you will change most frequently.

Along the same lines, another way to reduce downtime between jobs is to prepare the next job while the current one is running. In terms of thread colors, this could mean tying the thread off for the new job on unused needles while the old job is still running.

DESIGN PREP

How you get your design to your machine varies from brand to brand. Many machines still use floppy disks, some use compact flash cards and others use serial cables, USB connections and even Ethernet cables on a Local Area Network (LAN). Many have more than one way to get the design into the machine. I prefer to use some cable connection — serial, USB or LAN — to transfer the design to the machine.

Even some older machines can be cable-linked to a small office computer network (or a single desktop PC). They may require special connectors, cables or adapters purchased from either the machine distributor or the software company, but these solutions are always quicker than writing the digitized design file to either a floppy disk or flash memory card, and then carrying that over to the machine to load it in.

No matter how your designs get to your machine, the key to streamlining the process is what I call design prep. This means to prepare the design to run as much as possible before it is loaded into the machine. All design prep can be done while the previous job is running. It is simply a matter of thinking through what you will have to do once the design is loaded into the machine and how much of that you can do in your software on your desktop computer, as opposed to doing it on the embroidery machine itself.

For instance, when running caps, the first thing you do after the design is loaded is to turn the design upside down. Why not turn the artwork upside down in your software before you even get it to your machine?

Speaking of setting up for caps, one thing I do is to realign my origin points for caps. Instead of making it centered left to right and up and down, I set it to be center, bottom. That is, centered left to right, but at the bottom of the design. This way, once it is rotated for caps, all I have to do is move the needle as close to the brim as I can possibly sew.

What’s more is you can mark this spot on your machine so that every time you sew caps, you move it to that mark and it is lined up for caps. No figuring and guessing how far away from the bill you can get to do a particular design.

Another design prep technique is to set the needle assignments before sending the design over to the embroidery machine. This doesn’t work in every situation, but where it does, it is a big time saver.

Programming colors at the machine is laborious. If they are preprogrammed, you load the design in and go. Of course, this is made even easier if you leave certain colors in the same spots on the thread rack all the time as previously discussed. You will want to have those “permanent” needle numbers memorized.

Your machine may not be designed to crank out thousands of pieces a day, but you can do something the big boys can’t do: be flexible. Following these techniques can increase your flexibility and productivity on small runs.