National Clothesline

As we continue our three-part series on tagging and assembly of shirts, we will have a contest pitting one system against another, and then declaring a winner. If you didn’t read my column last month, you really should dig it up now. It will lay the foundation for what we will cover here this month.

When I was a teenager, my local radio station used to run a program from time to time called the Beatles-

Stones spin-off. One song from the Beatles would go head-to-head against a Rolling Stones’ tune. Listeners would call in and vote for their favorite among these two tunes. A new one always trying to dethrone the current leader. I’m going to try something like that.

Setting the order in which to offer them is a challenge, so I will simply offer them in the order that they appear in the chart, with one notable exception. When I made that chart, I was writing them down as they came to mind, so that is as close to random as we’re going to get. However I will deviate slightly from that rule at the beginning and then again at the end. I will put “writing names in the collars” as my first victim, (because I can hardly wait to beat up on that “system”) and then at the end I will pit the winner up against the object of our fantasies: automatic-robotic-electronic high-tech sorting.

Both of these systems will have an identifier of some type, usually in the collar of the shirt. One is permanent by design and the other is intended to be removed, but usually isn’t.

Ease of attaching the tags: Polymark is fast as far as tag attachment is concerned, but writing in collars is probably a little bit faster because it will often be unnecessary. If you are writing in collars, it is probably because you don’t consider it as obscene as I do. In the strictest sense, the nod here reluctantly goes to “writing names in the collar.”

Advantage: scribbling (reluctantly).

Advantage: Polymark.

Readability of the tags: The Polymark printed tags are often hard to read — faint printing is often evident. This may be rectified with maintenance, but in the real world situation, it isn’t. If you scribble on the collar, you are at the mercy of your marker’s ability to write legibly and his or her ability to spell. Also, writing on shirts (yuck) isn’t all that easy. The fabric needs to be pulled taunt, for one thing.

Advantage: Draw.

Speed of mark-in: Hmmm. Polymark can be reasonably fast, but scribbling can be faster because many shirts will not need a new mark at all. This is a close call, but in terms of speed only…

Advantage: scribbling (gulp).

Tags coming off: The marks in the collar are permanent, by design, much to the chagrin of someone like me. These “tags” aren’t coming off. With Polymark, theoretically, the tags will not come off, not in the traditional sense, but when you have something go wrong — something wrong with the glue or the Polymark machine — you won’t lose a tag or two, you’ll lose 100 tags or 200. Obviously, this doesn’t happen very often, but there are horror stories out there.

Advantage: scribbling.

Ease of removal: Polymark tags will be very easy to pull off, either by you or by the customer. The scribbles will not come off without scissors or hours at the spotting board.

Advantage: Polymark.

Lot Distinguishability-Manageability: Polymark makes an attempt at “lots,” but they aren’t very distinguishable, but with scribbling… what is a lot?

Advantage: Polymark.

Transposition of numbers: Polymark has a built-in feature to avoid transposition of numbers; a very nice touch. In the case of scribbling, there aren’t any numbers to transpose, but you are subject to misreading somebody else’s scribbling, hence, tags will be misread since “transposition of numbers” is misreading. Besides all that, you have more than one customer with the same last name. That ought to cause enough headaches on its own.

Advantage: Polymark.

Assembly speed: With scribbling, assembly with the scribbling will not only be slow, but certainly “hunt and peck” as well. With Polymark, you can avoid “hunt and peck” assembly by having the presser do the assembly, which they recommend, but that will slow down productivity at the press station. You tip-toe around slow assembly by “speeding” it up at the expense of pressing speed.

Advantage: Polymark (by a nose).

Cost of Use: Writing on the collars cost a couple of bucks for indelible ink pens every month or so. Add that to slow assembly and claims for missassemblies, which are intangible but clearly present, and we have a big question mark. Polymark’s cost to purchase and cost to maintain and supply makes it far and away more expensive.

Advantage: scribbling.

Other comments: Polymark requires central mark-in unless you want to make an even larger capital investment by installing a machine at each of your drop stores. This is out of the question for most operators. If you are currently writing in the collars, it is difficult to make a change for two reasons. First, now you need to buy tags and secondly, somebody now has to mark-in shirts when before that never needed to be done. Consider ceasing this practice anyway. Defacing your customer’s garments is far from professional.

Winner: Polymark

The Contest: Polymark vs. 7-ups and No-waste tags.

Ease of attaching the tags: The paper tag material is perforated and the tags need to be torn off individually and then snaked through a button-hole. No contest.

Advantage: Polymark.

Method of attachment: Polymark’s fused cloth labels vs. tags and staples. Not as clear as it may seem at first. Considering strictly the method of attachment, staples do not touch the garment in any way. The fused labels in the collar leave a residue on the fabric and therefore do not leave the garment untainted.

Advantage: Tags and staples.

Readability of the tags: The professionally printed tags are “clearly” easier to read than Polymark tags. No contest

Advantage: Tags & staples.

Speed of mark-in: I have seen fast taggers using perforated tags and I have seen fast taggers with Polymark, but the latter is usually in a central facility with central mark-in. There is a backlog of work. When I see a fast tagger with 7-up tags, it is within the same scenario; a lot of shirts and a lot of work. It really is what you get used to. I have seen painfully slow taggers on a Polymark machine, also.

Advantage: Draw

Tags coming off: There are certain things that you can do to practically eliminate lost button-hole tags. They are often not done.

One of those things is something as simple as the brand and model of the stapler that you use.

One model is perfect — you’ll never lose tags, while others should be against the law. Which do you have? I suppose that you can do certain things that will prevent lost Polymark labels. Frankly, I am not sure if the stories I have heard can be prevented. Perhaps they can.

Advantage: Draw.

Ease of removal: Polymark tags will be very easy to pull off as will any button hole tags.

Advantage: Draw.

Lot Distinguishability/Manageability: Polymark’s lots are simply not clear enough, but they are defined — 15 orders — and they exist by design. No-waste tags and 7-up tags are not lot systems, even though some people will force them to look like “lots” by calling the blue tags from the Main Street drop store one lot and the yellow tags from the Maple Street store another lot. Sorry, that doesn’t fly; these are not “lots.”

Advantage: Polymark.

Transposition of numbers: Polymark has that built-in feature to avoid transposition of numbers that I described earlier. These types of button-hole tags are notorious for being misread by transposing the numbers on the tags, in spite of their tremendous popularity. No contest.

Advantage: Polymark.

Assembly speed: Assembly with no waste tags or the 7-up tags will not only be slow, but certainly “hunt and peck” as well. With Polymark, you can avoid “hunt and peck” assembly by having the presser do the assembly, which they recommend, but that will slow down productivity at the press station. You tip-toe around slow assembly by “speeding” it up at the expense of pressing speed.

Advantage: Draw.

Cost of Use: Ribbons and fluid for Polymark will save you no money over tags and there is maintenance, as well. Even if assembly were faster and maybe more accurate with Polymark, the cost is reduced productivity from the shirt unit and the capital expenditure.

Advantage: Tags and staples

Other Comments: Switching to Polymark from either of these button-hole tags is a lateral move at best. At worst, it is a new lease payment plus a new employee to mark centrally. In spite of that, based solely on the merits of what it does for tagging and assembly, we have a winner:

Winner: Polymark

The contest: Computer-printed tags vs. Polymark

Ease of attaching the tags: The paper tag material is perforated and the tags need to be torn off individually and then snaked through a button-hole. No contest.

Advantage: Polymark.

Method of attachment: Polymark’s fused cloth labels vs. tags and staples. Not as clear as it may seem at first. Considering strictly the method of attachment, staples do not touch the garment in any way. The fused labels in the collar leave a residue on the fabric and therefore do not leave the garment untainted.

Advantage: Computer tags & staples.

Readability of the tags: These are the two poorest tags when it comes to readability.

They are both very poor. You can easily argue that the computer tag has more information on it, like the customer’s name or what have you, so that when you make a mistake (and you will), you’ll be able to fix it. However, we aren’t considering any more than the readability. Small fonts, dull ink, poor quality print. Which does this describe? Both.

Advantage: Draw.

Speed of mark-in: I have seen fast taggers using perforated tags and I have seen fast taggers with Polymark, but the latter is usually in a central facility with central mark-in. There is a backlog of work. Computer-printed tags get you to mark-in immediately. Polymark practically requires you to defer mark-in until later. Consider that you’ll accumulate garments in counter bags to be marked-in later with most systems, but are least likely to do that when the tags are printed at the point of sale. Tags can be attached immediately and not deferred. They can not be with Polymark. Can you imagine a call office with a giant Polymark machine on the front counter?

Advantage: Computer-printed tags (by a hair).

Tags coming off: There are certain things that you can do to practically eliminate lost button-hole tags. They are often not done. One of those things is something as simple as the brand and model of the stapler that you use. One model is perfect – you’ll never lose tags, while others should be against the law. Which do you have? I suppose that you can do certain things that will prevent lost Polymark labels. Frankly, I am not sure if the stories I have heard can be prevented. Perhaps they can.

Advantage: Draw.

Ease of removal: Polymark tags will be very easy to pull off as will any button hole tags.

Advantage: Draw.

Lot Distinguishability/Manageability: Polymark’s lots are simply not clear enough, but they are defined – 15 orders – and they exist by design. Computer-printed button-hole tags are not lot systems, even though some people will force them to look like “lots” by calling the blue tags from the Main Street drop store one lots and the yellow tags from the Maple Street store another lot.

When it comes to inventing ways to force the appearance of lots for the purpose of simpler manageability, computer printed tags are the loser. You can do color-per-day or color-per-store, but that is so with other types of button-hole tags as well.

Sorry, these are not “lots” because they aren’t limited by anything. These lots are dictated by how much volume you have. If you feel like you do have “lots” because you are numbering your tags with a different “lot” number at certain interval, surely you will agree that these lots are very distinguishable.

Advantage: Draw.

Transposition of numbers: Polymark has that built-in feature to minimize transposition of numbers that I described earlier.

Computer-printed tags are the easiest to make mistakes with partly because of how much information there is on the tags. Transposition of numbers is directly proportional to the number of digits on the tags. That puts any tag that uses the invoice number as the tag number at very high risk for errors. (Tag forms fall into this category as well.)

Proponents will surely argue that the mistakes can be fixed most easily when computer-printed tags are used and they are quite likely correct. I’d rather have a system that doesn’t make errors by design, don’t you agree?

However, the criteria here is merely the likelihood of transposing characters on a tag. It is far higher with computer-printed tags than Polymark

Advantage: Polymark.

Assembly speed: Assembly with computer-printed tags will not only be slow, but certainly “hunt and peck” as well.

With Polymark, you can avoid “hunt and peck” assembly by having the presser do the assembly, which they recommend, but that will slow down productivity at the press station. You tip-toe around slow assembly by “speeding” it up at the expense of pressing speed.

Advantage: Draw.

Cost of Use: Ribbons and fluid for Polymark will be a cost that you will need to deal with. I think that one of the attractions to computer-printed tags is the savings that one imagines over the cost of commercially printed tags. These savings do not exist. The paper, the scoring and the drilling still take place in manufacturing. The printing is minor and it is delegated to you. You handle it with a fragile device that you have to pay for, maintain and deal with when it breaks.

A Polymark machine costs less than a POS system for most of you, but it isn’t fair to say that computer-printed tags have a higher cost of use because of all of the associated computer equipment.

There are so many benefits to a POS computer system that I sincerely doubt anyone has ever bought one for the sole purpose of printing their own shirt tags. Assembly is probably faster and may be more accurate with Polymark, but the cost is reduced productivity from the shirt unit and the capital expenditure

Advantage: Draw.

Other Comments: Polymark and a POS with tag-printing capabilities are great leaps for many drycleaners. They are catapults into the world of high-tech, but perhaps they fail at such. Computer systems that print tags have their fans, to be sure, and when someone jingles up thousands of dollars for a Polymark machine, you are surely wed to it for at least the amount of time that it takes to pay for it.

Perhaps both of these systems are a bit like commercial software: the demo is better than the real program. As I type this, I am not sure which is the winner, Polymark or POS printed tags. One thing that I do know is that it is much easier to curtail the use of the tag printing module of your POS than it is to chuck the Polymark machine through the window.

Because I have elected to include “cost of use” in the criteria, the deciding factor in this very close contest is, indeed, cost. I have seen both tag printers and Polymark machine discarded in lieu of another system; clearly the former is less of a cost.

Winner: Computer-printed tags

We will stop here for now and continue next month. Surprisingly, we close with an unlikely champ. Computer-printed tags remain the leader, something that I would never have predicted as I am hardly a fan. Hmmm… Let’s see how they stand up against next month’s competition.

Still to consider are roll lot tags, the Tailwind Shirt System, my old friend the Tag-o-Lectric machine, Heat-seal labels in the tail and electronic-mechanical-robotic sorting. Should be fun. I think that the outcome will stun you.