To be successful in the decorated apparel industry these days, it’s all about the need…the need for speed.

Marshall Atkinson, owner of Atkinson Consulting and co-founder of Shirt Lab, knows this as well as anyone. Having worked in and consulted for various shops over the past 25 years, Atkinson has seen how technological advances and an increasing demand for rush orders has accelerated the decorated apparel industry. In order to stay relevant and profitable, speed and efficiency are vital.

In a fast-paced seminar during ISS Atlantic City, Atkinson shared his secrets behind increasing production work flow speed, teaching decorators and shop owners how to produce more products per day with greater quality than before.

“Hire for attitude, train for skill.”

Your employees play a major role in maintaining efficiency in your shop. During the hiring process, Atkinson says he looks for people with a background in sports or the military because they understand teamwork. He also looks for people who make him smile. “We work in a super stressful environment, so being able to laugh is very valuable,” Atkinson says.

“Try doing without a production meeting.”

Instead of wasting time each morning going over the day’s goals, Atkinson says to train your employees on how to look at the system on their own and make good decisions. The benefits of properly training your staff include everyone understanding their roles, expanding their skill sets, decreasing errors and everyone achieving a sense of job satisfaction. “You should have three people in your shop who can do everything,” he says. “The shop owner should be able to do everything, and so should your second-in-command. But when they get sick, you’ll need someone else to fill in. Employees also lose leverage when multiple people can do their job.”

“Get organized.”

The number one thing you can do to increase shop production is organization, Atkinson says. “Leadership is about making sure people have everything they need to do their jobs. Faster workflow starts with company culture. The mindset has to be doing whatever you can to help your colleagues downstream. Each department prepares for the next department’s task.” Atkinson recommends using check-lists to stay on task, as well as logging errors and do-overs to track missteps to determine solutions. He also suggests investing in a shop management system to make things easier.

“You can’t manage what you don’t measure.”

In order to figure out how efficient you can truly be, you have to measure your velocity and capacity. By measuring the average time it takes for you to complete each process, Atkinson says, you’ll be able to set expectations. Then, you’ll be able to measure how much you can accomplish in a day. Of course, you’ll also be able to determine how much time is wasted in a day. “Down time is cancer when it comes to efficiency,” Atkinson says. “Go in one day and without telling anybody, find out what time the first shirt hits the table. Keep track of how long breaks and down time last – you might employees spending two hours each day screwing around. That adds up. Get control of your shop back and hold everyone more accountable.”

“Maintain good communication.”

The most important date to remember for an order is the ship date. “Buffer dates don’t work,” Atkinson says. “They’re a crutch.” He urges shops to have production finished the day before the ship date, so you’re not stressing and susceptible to mistakes. If the ship date does need to be pushed back for whatever reason, it’s up to the sales team and customer service to inform the customer. “Be proactive and reach out as soon as an issue arises,” Atkinson says.