National Clothesline

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. This is what we are doing here.

The current leader is computer-printed tags and in the opening contest this month we pit them against roll lot tags

Ease of attaching the tags: Lot tags on a roll are generally attached using a dispenser that simplifies the attachment of button-hole tags. No perforations to tear, no paper to snake through buttonholes. No contest either.

Advantage: Lot tags.

Method of attachment: Both of these button-hole tags use staples that never touch the fabric and deface nothing.

Advantage: Draw.

Readability of the tags: Commercially printed tags easily beat the computer-printed tags. I envision every POS company sending me sample tags to show how their tags are more clearly printed than the next guy’s.

Save it. I see the tags in plants all over the world and, in the real world these tags are counter productive to efficiency in spite of their benefits.

They are dull, hard to read and generally of poor quality.

Advantage: Lot tags.

Speed of mark-in: Finally a departure from stringing those paper tags through a button-hole with your fingers. The tag dispenser for roll tags, when used properly, significantly speeds up the process of marking in shirts.

Advantage: Lot tags.

Tags coming off: Both systems use tags and staples which have an equal chance of lost tags

Advantage: Draw.

Ease of removal: Here again, the same method of attachment produces the same method and ease of removal for you or for the customer.

Advantage: Draw.

Lot distinguish ability-manageability: Lot tags are a bit of a misnomer in many cases. Believe it or not, in many cases the lots are not distinguishable at all. The lot tags are probably selected for other reasons other than their own “lot control” capabilities. Those capabilities are often left waiting in the wings and never put to good use. Assuming, however, that this is not the case, the clear winner is the system that is intended for this purpose in the first place.

Advantage: Lot tags.

Transposition of numbers: Notorious for transposition of numbers, computer printed tags don’t stand a chance. Lot-control tags, if used correctly can minimize the possibility of misreading tags.

Advantage: Lot tags.

Assembly speed: Computer tags are the poster child for hunt-and-peck assembly while the lot-control system pioneered fast assembly. By a landslide…

Advantage: Lot tags.

Cost of use: Considering tag cost, tagging speed and assembly speed, there is negligible difference among them. The tag stock costs money as do the printers and their related costs.

Tagging is faster with a tag dispenser, but the savings are generally non-existent because the marking is often done by the counter staff. Assembly is quicker with lot tags, but is it enough to reduce the staff? I know of no one that needed to increase their staff of assemblers when they went to computer printed tags from lot tags.

Similarly, I know of no one that decreased their staff with lot tags. This is a close call, but the addition of finicky tag printers tilts the scales.

Advantage: Lot tags.

Other comments: I see computer printed tags as fixing the malady that they themselves create or maybe even a solution in search of a problem.

Proponents love all the information on them. Anyone that goes to computer tags suddenly falls in love because no matter what happens, they know that this shirt here belongs to Mr. Jones. Good. I know that if you had a more accurate system the look-up advantages of the computer system would never surface because they would never be needed.

Interesting paradox. Most of the advantages of lot tags have long been lost and are almost never used, especially in shirts.

Winner: Lot tags.

Preface: Remember that I lamented about discussing assembly when I opened my column two months ago. The reason is obvious, but I really am being objective and I think that you will agree. I have spent my life developing Tailwind and there is a reason why I am so passionate about it.

Ease of attaching the tags: Both of the tags are similar. They are on a roll and use a dispenser.

Advantage: Draw.

Method of attachment: Both of these button-hole tags use staples that never touch the fabric and deface nothing.

Advantage: Draw.

Readability of the tags: Both of these commercially printed tags offer generally easy to read tags, but can they be improved? Lot control tags are somewhat difficult to read. This is especially evident when comparing them with genuine Tailwind tags. The tags combine the use of colors and symbols to replace the significance of lot numbers. This gives them incredible readability and is the core of Tailwind.

Tailwind tags have nuances that make them difficult and maybe even impossible, to read upside down. This is a tremendous feature. Their manufacture is controlled by the creator. The Tailwind system itself is firmly wrapped around the tags themselves. There is only one maker of genuine Tailwind tags.

Advantage: Tailwind.

Speed of mark-in: On the surface, this is a draw, but when considering the intricacies of Tailwind — the time saving goodies — faster ways to staple, for one thing, there is a clear winner. With no other system can you tag 200 to 300 shirts per hour. (I have movies.)

Advantage: Tailwind.

Tags coming off: Tailwind isn’t a system that you learn by simply buying a box of tags. There are at least three procedures that assure that lost tags are not an issue. No contest.

Advantage: Tailwind.

Ease of removal: The same method of attachment produces the same method and ease of removal for you or for the customer.

Advantage: Draw.

Lot Distinguishability-manageability: Lot control tags are a bit of a misnomer in many cases. Believe it or not, in many cases the lots are not distinguishable at all. The lot tags are probably selected for other reasons other than the “lot control” capabilities.

Even in the instances that this is not the case, lot distinguishability with Tailwind is one of its hallmarks. Tailwind uses visual clues that make the numbers on the tags almost meaningless. There is no system that is more visual. It is nearly impossible to confuse one lot with another. Tailwind has small manageable lots that are not defined by the number of orders or the number of garments, but rather they are self-defining lots that are defined by the number of tags used.

Advantage: Tailwind.

Transposition of numbers: The more numbers, characters, or digits on the tag the more likely it is that numbers will be transposed. There are four or five numbers on a lot tag, but only one or two relevant ones on a Tailwind tag.

If there could always be only 1 number, then obviously transposition of numbers would be impossible. (This has yet to be proved practical.) Nonetheless, transposition of numbers breeds errors and/or reduces speed and productivity and Tailwind visual clues reduce or eliminate the importance of numbers.

Advantage: Tailwind.

Assembly speed: As fast as assembly can be with either of these systems, the signature advantage of Tailwind is quick, efficient, stress-free assembly with no mistakes. All of the groundwork laid by the procedures that precede assembly set the stage for assembly that is two to six times faster than any other systems. No contest.

Advantage: Tailwind.

Cost of use: A quick evaluation would conclude that the cost of Tailwind is probably a bit higher. The tags cost a bit more than standard tags on a roll. This calculates to about 1.77 cents more per order of four shirts (the average order size).

The average cleaner will produce about 500 to 700 orders per week for a gross cost of between $8.85 and $12.39 more in tag costs per week. But because the systems mechanics usually yield a labor savings of 25 percent or more — at least $100 in the smallest plants — the cost of the tags is clearly insignificant.

The whole point of Tailwind is to reduce labor cost. Consulting fees have long been associated with Tailwind, but they are quickly and easily negated by labor savings. Hands down.

Advantage: Tailwind.

Other comments: When you buy a box of tags, whether it is to change your system or to re-stock your current one, you are buying not only your tagging system, but your work-flow system, your washing system, your logistics and your assembly system. This is wrong, but extraordinarily common.

Every system out there is designed from the beginning to the end. This is also very common and very wrong. The fact is you can do everything correctly, but if you give the “perfect” shirt to the wrong guy, you are nobody’s hero.

A tagging and assembly system must be designed backwards. Tailwind is the only one that is. You must first decide what you want to accomplish in assembly and then let that dictate what procedures will precede assembly.

So how do you want to assemble? Quickly, efficiently with low-stress and no mistakes. Period. Tailwind accomplishes this.

Winner: Tailwind (by a mile).

Preface: Although this machine has long been out of production, I had to include it because it still does exist (I suppose) and it is the first system that I used 25 years ago and I liked the flexibility that it afforded. I certainly want to think that I have improved on it many times over. Let’s see.

Ease of attaching the tags: The stapling machine is quite simple; drape the shirt over the anvil of the stapler on the handle and push it up. The tag is printed, advanced, cut and stapled in the collar on the shirt.

Button-hole tags require a bit more effort. Based solely of the ease of attachment…

Advantage: Tag-o-lectric.

Method of attachment: Stapling through any garment is gross. Button-hole tags do not affect the garment in any way, no staple holes, no needle holes, no glue.

Advantage: Tailwind.

Readability of the tags: Here, we are comparing apples and oranges. The most visual system, with clear commercially printed tags with colors, symbols and as few numbers are possible with the one that prints with very poor quality and is subject to the mechanical condition of a complicated machine.

Advantage: Tailwind.

Speed of mark-in: On the surface, this is a draw, but when considering the intricacies of Tailwind — the time saving goodies — faster ways to staple, for one thing, there is a clear winner. With no other system can you tag 200-300 shirts per hour. (This is for tagging, checking buttons and pockets, but does not include computer work because of the variables related to them.)

Advantage: Tailwind.

Tags coming off: Tailwind isn’t a system that you learn by simply buying a box of tags. There are at least 3 procedures that assure that lost tags are not an issue. Tagging with a staple through the shirt is quite secure, albeit obscene.

Advantage: Draw.

Ease of removal: The button-hole tags are very easy to remove for you or for the customer. Very few cleaners de-tag shirts, but you really must remove a stapled-in tag in the neck if you want to stay in business. There is a trick to removing them, but still they are the most difficult to remove and they must be removed. By a landslide…

Advantage: Tailwind.

Lot distinguishability-manageability: Here, we pit the queen mother of lot distinguish ability and manageability against the system that has no concept of such. Easily…

Advantage: Tailwind.

Transposition of numbers: With Tag-o-lectric, you have the ability to minimize the number of digits. If the system is used this way, which is something that is done voluntarily, not by design as it is with Tailwind, you can minimize transposition of numbers, but because you have the feature by force with Tailwind, the nod must go to the latter.

Advantage: Tailwind.

Assembly speed: The signature advantage of Tailwind is quick, efficient, stress-free assembly with no mistakes. All of the groundwork laid by the procedures that precede assembly set the stage for assembly that is two to six times faster than any other systems. Tag-o-lectric is hunt and peck assembly from conception as it is with many other systems. No contest…

Advantage: Tailwind.

Cost of use: A quick evaluation would conclude that the cost of Tailwind is probably a bit higher. The tags cost a more than simple tag paper.

Tag-o-lectric tag paper was manufactured on a roll and looked rather familiar. But unlike tag paper that is sold today that often has perforations and is die cut, this is simply a spool of wet-strength paper.

It was probably quite inexpensive. Still the total cost of use must include all of the cost associated with that system’s use. Tailwind saves labor, tag-o-lectric breeds slow, methodical, hunt-and-peck assembly. The cost of tags and staples is irrelevant. The whole point of Tailwind is to reduce labor cost. Hands down…

Advantage: Tailwind.

Other comments: Although it is true that the Tag-o-lectric machine is probably the great-grandfather of Tailwind, it would not have been able to win against any of the systems available, even writing names in the collar.

If you use Tag-o-lectric, I urge you to step into the 21st century and consider any of the other options.

Winner: Tailwind.

Ease of attaching the tags: Remembering that we speak solely of the ease of attaching, not the time it takes or the number of times that you need to do it. A Tailwind tag is simply attached with a table mounted device and then stapled. A heat-seal label needs to be printed by a computer program.

The perforations are torn off and the shirt is placed on a special heat machine that fuses the label to the shirt in about a minute. Admittedly, it isn’t something that needs to be done again and again, but that isn’t what we are evaluating.

Advantage: Tailwind.

Method of attachment: If you were a customer — and it is that perspective that is relevant here — which method of attachment are you more likely to accept?

The method that, in no way, shape or form alters the garment or the method that imposes a stiff bar code label that is permanently glued to the tail making your brand new $100 shirt look like a pair of work-clothes-rental Dickies? Your garment has been permanently altered by someone else for their exclusive benefit.

Advantage: Tailwind.

Readability of the tags: Heat-seal tags are printed with much more precision than other types of “home-printed” tags. The quality is similar to commercial printing.

However, since the purpose of reading a tag is to determine what it says and heat-seal labels are always associated with misassemblies something is lost in usage, for sure. It may be that you have more than one customer with the same name or that the tags are so similar in appearance that the simple arrangement of the letters on the labels is just not obvious enough. Heat seal labels are the furthest thing from “visual.”

Advantage: Tailwind.

Speed of mark-in: The best reason for going to heat-seal labels is so that you don’t need to mark-in every shirt. Hands down…

Advantage: Heat-seal labels.

Tags coming off: In spite of the safeguards built into the Tailwind Shirt System, there is surely a possibility that the tagscan come off, and this isn’t so with the heat-seal labels. Hope your customers don’t mind, those labels aren’t coming off. No contest…

Advantage: Heat-seal labels.

Ease of removal: A simple tug of the button-hole tag and the paper is gone, having affected nothing. It ain’t happening with heat-seal labels. Once again, let’s hope your customers are OK with it.

Advantage: Tailwind.

Lot distinguishability-manageability: Tailwind is all about forcing lots that are so simple and easy to recognize that sub-sorting and preliminary sorting are not accidents or special chores, they are an automatic, routine part of the system.

This is lot management made simple, lot management by design, lot management from conception. With heat-seal, all the wishing in the world will not create even the most primitive “lot.” Heat-seals never stood a chance in this category.

Advantage: Tailwind.

Transposition of numbers: The more numbers, characters, or digits on the tag the more likely it is that characters will be transposed. There are numerous characters on a heat-seal label, but only one or two relevant ones on a Tailwind tag.

The salvation for heat-seal here is that if you transpose letters on a heat-seal label and misread “JONES” in the shirt as “OJNES”, you probably don’t make a sorting error because, try as you might, your search for the invoice for the customer named “OJNES” isn’t too likely to end successfully. Therefore, we can conclude that with heat-seal labels with names on them, transposition of characters is self-correcting, sort of.

But heat-seals don’t always have names on them and sometimes there are going to be a couple of Joneses. Hate to tell you this, but with Tailwind, the transposition of numbers is always self-correcting and Tailwind does care if every one of your customers are named Jones.

Advantage: Tailwind.

Assembly speed: Heat-seals are just about the slowest way to assemble. They are the poster child for hunt-and-peck assembly; you don’t even have the advantage of having the garment mark visible when you look at the front of the shirt. As far as assembly speed, no system would lose against heat-seals. Here, it is pummeled by the fastest assembly system. No contest…

Advantage: Tailwind.

Cost of use: Completely ignoring the aforementioned low cost of use for Tailwind, when we compare heat-seals with Tailwind, we will consider what heat-seals bring to the bargaining table as far as reducing your costs.

Let’s see. Labor cost is far higher due to slow assembly. Ah-hah! Surely tag cost is far less with heat-seal as they are applied just once.

The last time I heard, heat-seal labels ran about 10 cents each. A Tailwind tag cost 7/10ths of a cent. After you have processed the shirt 12 times, you’ll be save a cool 7/10ths of a cent each and every time it comes in. Don’t spend it all at one place. This assumes, of course, that the heat machine and the tag printer were given to you for Christmas.

Surely you will argue that the labor savings in tagging is where you’ll really rake it in. Not likely. The CSR at the store is getting paid for the same number of hours no matter what type of tagging system you’re using. Theoretical savings are possible on paper, but in real life, I don’t see it happening.

All of this assumes that you aren’t paying for lost shirts while using heat-seals. If you aren’t, it’s probably because you’ve addressed the problem by adding more labor than necessary to double-check for errors. Hands down…

Advantage: Tailwind.

Other comments: Heat seals are the foundation for high-tech electronic sorting. They sometimes have a bar-code on them. I suppose that a customer may think that you’re pretty cool to have such high-level technology at your store. You must learn to impress them in other ways.

I have many clients who abort this method for the Tailwind Shirt System and at least one of them continues to add the label. It is most important to understand that this is not done for sorting or assembling. He really likes that there is a date on his label. This is the date that the shirt was first processed. He told me that he loves referring to that label when a customer claims that a damaged shirt is “brand new”, only to prove that the shirt is actually six years old by use of the label in the tail.

Nice feature I suppose, but I doubt it makes financial sense to acquire all kinds of apparatus to use heat-seal labels for that sole purpose. Tagging shirts can be frustrating, especially when they are viewed as the loser item in the plant.

We accept marking in drycleaning because we feel profitable there. Shirts, on the other hand, are that necessary evil that we need to contend with. Eliminating the mark-in sounds like a god-send. It isn’t, and it will save you not a single dime.

Winner: Tailwind.

If you think that I’m being biased, I urge you to think about it a bit harder and to analyze the facts. Tailwind was developed for the very purpose of curing the maladies of the other systems. It was entirely the point to make sure that it is better than any other system in every regard.

Many, perhaps all, of the advantages that Tailwind demonstrates here are actually the words of drycleaners all over the country that have switched from one system to Tailwind. It is no accident that virtually every system out there has been jettisoned for Tailwind.

There are a few individual categories at which it does not excel. But they are minor and the trade off is reasonable. For instance, heat-seals are more permanent and so is writing the names in the collars. Tags can come off, heat seals or ink can’t. To make Tailwind as secure and permanent as, well, permanent tags, it would have to be at the expense of the customer.

If the choice then becomes should we deface the customer’s shirt or should we risk losing tags, the choice should be clear since the actual risk of losing tags is very small. It’s not like we take a chance that all the tags in all the shirts will get lost.

Since there are things that Tailwind does that further reduce the chance of lost tags — in fact, dramatically — it is a fair trade off to settle for second best in this category. The Tailwind Shirt System, in fact, wins in all of the deal-breaker categories: lot manageability, assembly speed, transposition of numbers and cost of use.