TL;DR
- Filming four setups revealed 44% of the time was external work done internally.
- Pre-registration and ink kitting delivered most of the gain.
- The recovered hours were sold, so the benefit was genuinely cash-effective.
The shop was quoting short runs at a loss without noticing, because setup was averaged across all jobs instead of charged to the job that caused it.
| Attribute | Value |
|---|---|
| Business type | Promotional and merch printing |
| Volume | 16,500 impressions / month, 74 jobs |
| Employees | 9 |
| Equipment | 1 automatic 8-colour press, 1 manual carousel |
| Investment | €0 (process work only) |
Before and after
| Metric | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Average setup | 28 min | 17 min |
| Registration share | 13 min | 5 min |
| Press hours in setup / month | 34.5 h | 21.0 h |
| Short-run (< 100) gross margin | 9% | 23% |
Result
Cash effect
- Press hours recovered
- 13.5 h / month
- Sold at contribution margin
- ≈ €1,850 / month
- Annualised
- ≈ €22,200 with no capital expenditure
Lessons learned
- Measure before you buy: the shop had been quoting a second press.
- Charge setup to the job that causes it, otherwise short runs subsidise nothing visible.
- Process gains stick only when the new time becomes the standard costing input.
Reducing setup time by 40% without investment
Eight weeks of process work, no purchase order, 13.5 press hours recovered per month and short-run margin from 9% to 23%.
- Business
- Promotional and merch printing
- Volume
- 16,500 impressions / month across 74 jobs
- Employees
- 9
- Equipment
- 1 automatic 8-colour press, 1 manual carousel
- Country
- Netherlands
Investment
none
Cash benefit / month
1.850 €
Payback
0.0 months
ROI (36 mo)
—
Before / after
| Metric | Before | After | Direction |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average setup | 28 min | 17 min | lower is better |
| Registration share | 13 min | 5 min | lower is better |
| Press hours in setup / month | 34.5 h | 21.0 h | lower is better |
| Short-run gross margin | 9% | 23% | higher is better |
| Test garments per setup | 6 | 2 | lower is better |
Lessons learned
- Measure before you buy: the shop had been quoting a second press.
- Charge setup to the job that causes it, otherwise short runs subsidise nothing visible.
- Process gains stick only when the new time becomes the standard costing input.
Pitfalls
- Recovered hours only count as cash because the shop actually sold them.
- Averaging setup across all jobs hid the loss on every run below 100 pieces.
Recreate this case with your own numbers
Prefills 74 jobs per month, the 28 → 17 minute setup change and the registration split of the recorded setups.
Interactive example
Registration time released per month
- Hours released
- 10.8 h
- Value if capacity-limited
- € 2.052
- Value if demand-limited
- € 0
Same calculation kernel as the full calculators. For a decision-grade result, open the matching calculator.
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