hour from their shirt unit is lower than it could (should) be, because “we do a very good shirt.”  This is called a “safe house”.  A “safe house” is where a manager goes to avoid dealing with an issue.  You may want to want to disagree, but let me draw you a picture first.  It is certainly possible that improving production at the shirt unit has not made it to the top of your to-do list.  Fair enough.  You can easily have lots of things on your agenda that defers this task, but do not suggest that you are getting something better by allowing poor production.  You are leaving money on the table.  Don’t forget that.

Still, I try to justify the argument that many cleaners make – slower production for better quality – rather than dismissing it all together and guess what?  I have been able to support their point of view!  However, there are a couple of reasons for it that, while supporting their point.  The couple of experiences that I want to tell you about does not make the “slower production for better quality” argument philosophically correct, but it makes me understand why certain people have drawn that conclusion.

Let me be clear on this point:  (You must take this at face value) Of all the drycleaning plants that I have visited all over the country - all over the world – nothing has ever supported the notion that you need to work slowly in order to produce a good shirt.  Nothing.  Furthermore, the best pressers I have ever seen are always the ones that are producing maximum productivity.  Always.  No exceptions.  It is true, however, that many pressers who do slower production do a fine job and there are certainly some who press a “bang and hang” shirt quickly with inferior, even abysmal quality.  Too often, drycleaners correlate good production with inferior quality, x causes y.  There is nowhere near enough information to rush to this judgment.  If it were true, how could anyone explain my statement (which, as I said, you have to take at face value) about the best pressers also being the fastest ones?  Frankly, this fact summarily disproves it.  Case closed.  Allow me to quote myself from January 2007:

“…the result will be poor quality.  You will blame faster production.  This is called a correlation between x and y.  x = fast production and y = poor quality.  The problem with a correlation is that you don’t have all of the facts.  Does x cause y?  Or does y cause x?  Or is it another factor, z, that is the culprit? 

The conventional wisdom is that good production breeds poor quality – because it is “simple, convenient, comfortable and comforting – though not necessarily true.”  We correlate good production with poor quality, x causes y, but this is wrong.  Z is the cause.  Z = improper training.”

Ok, let’s say that since you’ve read that, you eliminated the possibility that improper training is the cause.  In fact, let’s say that got your training straight from the manufacturer and there is no doubt that the machine is working properly and no doubt that the employee knows how to operate the machine.  Let’s say that you have a Unipress NT2 (their rotary double buck) and are good and peeved that you are not getting the quality that you want coupled with the productivity that you need.  Unipress’s factory rep visits your plant and does a perfect shirt.  He teaches your pressers.  They do a perfect shirt.  But when there is anything that resembles productivity, the shirts are awful.  Is that possible?

Yep!  I’ve seen it.  But don’t think for a minute that I am endorsing the correlation that “good production breeds poor quality”.  I am not at all.  But I am just trying to explain why anyone believes it.  And I have found evidence that strongly supports it. 

I have, for a long time in fact, known that the number one cause of this problem is something that can be called “employee revolt”.  Let’s say that Eddie presses shirts for you at the rate of 50 per hour but you want 55 so that he doesn’t get any overtime. (See my column about overtime February 2008).  Eddie maintains that if he goes any faster, the shirts will have a bad press job.  Eddie is wrong, but too often, managers buy into this.  They may even think that Eddie is smarter than they are and think, “That Eddie guy, he’s alright!  He really sees the big picture.  He is looking out for the company.  He knows that I don’t want poor quality going out to the customers.  I think that Eddie deserves a raise!”  Eddie, my friends, is either improperly trained and really does not know how to press 55 shirts per hour or is running the company.  Running you!  He wants the extra hours, doesn’t want to work any harder, needs the overtime and has no intention of working any faster –ever.  And he is going to make his point stick by doing lousy shirts when he is asked to or forced to, press faster. 

The manager concludes that fast production breeds poor quality.  I conclude that we have a weak manager that is unable or unwilling to train the subordinates that have him under their thumb.  Sad story.

But there are other ways to get poor quality by pressing quickly.  Picture a 2-person double buck shirt unit.  Betty runs the body press.  Anna presses sleeves and collars and cuffs.  Anna is faster than Betty so she piles a bunch of shirts on the hook on the side of the body press so that her boss knows that she is a “rock star.”  The shirts dry out, of course, but Betty wants to do well too, so she doesn’t have time to spray any of the shirts.  They are pressed dry or partially dry and look awful.  But they are going fast!

Management concludes that fast production breeds poor quality.  I conclude that the manager is just about through using his last remaining brain cell.  All Anna has to do here is stop being a show-off and keep pace with her co-worker who obviously can do the job.  Now the shirts won’t be dried out and the shirts-per-hour pace will be the same.

And this last way to conclude that fast production breeds poor quality is my favorite and is what prompted me to write this column.  It just may be more common than any of us think.  I think that it is more common than I think.  The problem is in the installation of the equipment.  I have seen some recent installations that are simply flawed to the point that quality will be affected for the life of the machine unless the installation is rectified.  Praying, pleading, training, firing, complaining.  Don’t waste your time.  None of these will fix the problem.  This problem is rather tough for me because there are times when I am called upon to train a shirt presser and it sounds too much like a cop out to blame the installation.  Most often the problem is in the air supply to the press.  If the engineers say that you need, say, a 1 ¼” header to feed the press, don’t you think that they know what they are talking about?  It’s not like they make money on the pipe or own the pipe foundries.  The volume of air that ½” copper pipe holds is substantially less than the volume of air that ½” pipe holds (for example) and the longer the distance from your holding tank, the larger the header pipe needs to be.  So how do installations go bad?  That is a complex question with a great number of possible answers, but let us assume that your installer is completely qualified.  Often, the dealer is beat down on the price of installation and is forced to cut corners.  Sure, he may understand the consequences of improper installation, but he is not interested in aggravating you.  Many of the new shirt units require more air supply than the units that they are replacing.  That ¾” header pipe and the 100 feet of run from the compressor room may have to be replaced with a 1” header and add hundreds of dollars in installation cost.  Some may argue that ¼” difference in pipe size cannot possibly amount to much of anything.  It makes a huge difference!  For instance, a Unipress NT or NT 1 uses 3.5 cubic feet of air per minute, just to give you an idea of what typical consumption is.  The loss of pressure, expressed in water column inches per 100’ of pipe is 3 times greater with ¾” pipe versus 1” pipe. That is 5.0 as compared to 1.7. (it is 19.0 for ½” pipe!!) That is some difference!  I am going to avoid getting any more technical than that for now, but suffice to say that without adequate air supply, you are doomed. 

Picture this: the equipment is set up at the factory with 80 pounds of air pressure.  Every adjustment.  Every needle valve.  Every flow control. Everything works fine.  But what about what is called “recovery?”  It is all about recovery, and don’t think that the air pressure gauges will tell an accurate story.  The first shirt is sent into the press position and then the next shirt is immediately prepared for pressing.  The problem is that the air pressure is now slightly lower than 80#.  And this problem is magnified, in many cases, because that header pipe is also feeding 2 collar machines, a folding machine and another NT2 perhaps.  The fact is, the air pressure is all over the place and it is impossible to accurately adjust pressure sensitive pneumatic equipment when the incoming air pressure is unstable.  So during training, the trainer is working more slowly as steps are being explained and the air pressure has time to build and stabilize.  The shirts are pressed perfectly. If a presser presses quickly, there isn’t enough time for the air pressure to recover and therefore squeeze the steam chests properly with full pressure.  The result is poor quality.  In some cases, very poor.  It’s not the machine.  It’s not the training or the employee.  It is the installation.

Oh!  Good news!  There is an easy fix.  Get a large air compressor tank (just the tank) and set it up right next to the press.  Instead of the air supply going directly into the machine, direct it into the tank first, and then from the tank to the shirt press.  Now there is plenty of head pressure.  You won’t believe what a difference that makes! 

"If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you always got."