Images magazine Digital Edition April 2018

TIPS & TECHNIQUES www.images-magazine.com 36 images APRIL 2018 Erich Campbell is an award-winning digitiser, embroidery columnist and educator, with 18 years’ experience both in production and the management of e-commerce properties. He is the partner relationship manager for DecoNetwork in the USA. www.erichcampbell.com At this stage, there should be no questions that aren’t covered in the provided information. The production department should have the initial sample from the digitising approval and match the initial garment run to that sample. As well as the production itself, this department is responsible for checking in each garment to verify receipt and checking out each garment to verify counts and correct decoration, recording any discrepancies and reporting them to sales should a customer contact be necessary. Any changes in execution like last- minute colour alterations or the use of different stabilisers or other embroidery materials must be recorded to ensure repeatability for future orders. Step 5: Fulfilment Incoming information for this department is simple, but crucial: Customer and contact information Desired shipping method or pick-up notice Special packaging requests Shipping address (when applicable) Billing status Fulfilment is responsible for the final counts on finished garments, last-chance quality control, speciality packaging, and verifying shipping information and billing status before shipping or releasing an order for pick-up. Their deliverable is a properly packaged order, clearly labelled and properly organised either for shipping or in staging for customer pick-up. [Above] Even your smallest jobs should be clearly packaged and arranged in a meaningful way in your staged customer pick-up area. Though they might look a bit messy, each one of these bagged orders is complete with printed information sheets and job-specific labelling for quick invoice recall and easy location when customers call. [Above] The fulfilment department is more than just shipping; its final packaging and labelling, likely done in concert with the finishing department, is the last part of ensuring proper flow of information, right to the customer delivery and distribution stage. [Above] Finishing is far more than trimming errant threads and folding freshly-steamed garments, it’s your last, best chance of catching a quality problem before packaging. Empower your finishing department to stop an order if counts don’t match up to order manifests or if they see a glaring error in execution. In conclusion As complicated as it might seem at first, the system is actually quite obvious: each department provides what the next department needs to work without seeking a previous department to fill in details. Likewise, each department records information generated during work, providing the same complete information as needed by the department following them in the chain. The trick isn’t understanding this so much as holding everyone to the standards; no job should progress until each information ‘product’ is complete. It can be scary to allow for any department to put the brakes on a job for a missing piece of information, but scarier by far is the cost of incorrect execution, missing pieces or customer dissatisfaction.