ImagesMagUK_March_2022

Hit it one more time! In the second and final part of his series on how to hit critical production dates, Marshall Atkinson examines how art challenges and shop inefficiencies could be holding you back O ne of the biggest problems in this industry has been the traditional ‘waiting on art approval’ issue. You can’t burn screens or digitise that embroidery file until the customer agrees that the art is perfect and ready to go. Getting them to the finish line on this can, on occasion, be a gigantic struggle. Sometimes the delay is caused by the client not responding quickly enough (or at all) to hit the critical production date. Other delays are caused by art that needs changes. Occasionally, the delays are due to simply how the work is scheduled. BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT 62 images MARCH 2022 www.images-magazine.com Let’s break down a few ideas that could improve this area for you if it is part of your critical production date problem. Start with great information Many art changes are due to either incomplete or missing information. Your art department goal should be to get approval the first time for at least 85% of the work going out. Track the reasons why changes are requested. Shore up what you need to do to build out better creative briefs from sales or customer service to ensure more change requests don’t happen. Get your creative team to pay attention Are the changes due to your art staff missing a key element, spelling something wrong, or any other lazy mistake? Again, tracking the reasons why changes happen helps shed light on this target. Get the art sent out earlier Sorry, but it is as simple as that sometimes. If your production team always seems to be waiting on the art to get approved, start that cycle earlier by moving up the art department’s due date for the approvals to go out. Outsource some of the work “We’re too busy” is an excuse. Solve that by removing a chunk of work and using a virtual team, whether that’s for separations or digitising