Doing more with Less

They say life is a journey and so it is with Ben Isdale, former Managing Director of Super Special, now part of the Unified Music Group. We catch up with Ben, who shares his journey to date, thoughts on the impact of COVID 19 and the future of the industry moving forward.

Ben started in the industry by doing a one-year pre-apprenticeship course at the National School of Printing at Auckland Institute of Technology, after which he then progressed to begin his apprenticeship. Over time as the 5 am starts and a pay rate of $5 hour seemed less attractive, he then moved on to work in the hospitality industry. Like many young Kiwis, he thought he’d try his luck “across the ditch” and having moved to Melbourne was introduced to fellow kiwis, Jochen and Rebecca Orr, founders of Machine Screen Printing where he started washing screens and worked his way up.

Super Special was founded in Melbourne in 2004. “It was just me in a tiny warehouse in Collingwood, planning to print t-shirts for myself and take over the world with my own t-shirt brand,” says Ben. “With a loan to buy the equipment, where interest rates were 8-10% (down from 18% in the early ‘90s) it became pretty apparent I was going to have to print for other people so began taking on contracts. We quickly took over the factory next store, and by 2009 we had moved to Spotswood with 3 Tas semiautomatic machines and a staff of ten people. Having experienced years of growth, the market then started to move offshore, and as a result, the business plateaued from 2011 – 2014. We were heavily leveraged and working really hard just to make the loan repayments, so we took the difficult decision to go into voluntary administration and restructure the business” says Ben.

With an 18 month Deed of Company Arrangement behind him, Ben started to look at opportunities to exit the business. Following consultation and brainstorming with wife Shelly and industry associates, they came up with profiles for potential buyers. These included companies that were in the market already using contract printers, but had the scale to
vertically integrate and decorate in house; or a Chinese company looking for a local footprint.

In 2018 Super Special became part of the Unified Music Group. Unified Music Group offers a variety of services including, artist representation, a recording label, and merchandising. They have a strong online retail presence, managing the stores of a variety of artists and the white label management of some large online merchandise sites.

Staying on as a vital member of the management team, Ben continues to focus on operational improvements and “doing more with less” by improving systems and the level of automation across all aspects of the business. “Labour is one of the highest costs in this industry, and finding skilled labour in key areas such as pre-press and stencil makers is a continual struggle. We went to the US to visit trade shows and other large decorating businesses to investigate opportunities for automation. As a result, we invested in the M&R automatic screen making process which enables one operator to coat, image, expose and rinse each screen at a rate of approximately one minute per screen. This resulted in a more uniform result, requiring less skilled labour and fewer errors, which in turn can impact the charge out rate. It also moved the bottleneck further down the production line” says Ben.

“We also won a grant from the federal government “Manufacturing Modernisation Fund”. This enabled us to install a computer to screen machine, the latest generation of direct to screen imaging where the image is printed directly onto the screen using inkjet, combined with high output led exposure, so the screen is cured in the same pass. It eliminates the need to move screens from one place to another and means no more printing, cutting and taping films to the screen, resulting in reduced errors and quicker
setup time.”

“In addition to investing in the latest manufacturing technology, we also invested in an ERP system to manage the overall workflow and reduce double handling. Selected clients have their own online ordering portal which enables web-based orders to move seamlessly into production. SKU’s are linked to detailed work instructions allowing us to accurately reproduce jobs each time. We can do accurate job costing and can forecast how many production staff we need two weeks in advance, using information from work in progress and our accounting software. We now have established budgets for labour that we need to manage to every month. We can’t just say “we need an extra hand tomorrow” we have to make do with what we’ve got we can’t just throw labour at it anymore. Everyone in the business knows exactly where each job is at any given point in time. "Chasing paper around a factory is as outdated as using a fax machine,“ explains Ben.

The most recent project has been to build a new in-house fulfilment centre. “We have set up long span racking, in addition to picking and shipping stations. High volume artists can presell stock, and we can set up individual pick faces for individual products being sold online. It gives us more control over our service levels and lead times in a business environment where 3PL suppliers can’t keep up due to the explosion in online shopping during COVID. When you take into consideration the cost of shipping, receiving, counting, putting stock on shelves, picking and dispatching, when you bring it inhouse it needs to be set up as a profit centre not treated as a cost.”

“When COVID - 19 hit and live events were cancelled, we lost 30% of our trading volume overnight. We lost the next two weeks of production with three major events cancelled in one day. We were forced to let staff go, then within four weeks online ordering went crazy, we had to go from zero to 200% in the space of a month, and supply became an issue.” 

“Before COVID we had seen increased enquiry from customers who had moved their volume production to Bangladesh and India, lured by generous trading agreements, but were now having issues with lead times, service levels and fluctuations in the Australian dollar. When the virus hit, they reengaged with us fully, adding to the pressure to ramp up quickly. Having the business so thoroughly tested shows that the systems and processes that we had put in place were robust enough to cope with the overnight increase in demand.

 “What we are experiencing now is what looks to be a sustained period of onshoring of production. Anyone who is dealing with retail in any form is even more risk-averse, ordering smaller quantities more frequently they don’t want to hold inventory but want immediate supply. Whilst COVID was a shock when it first hit we are now busier than ever. Our biggest concern is around the ability of our supply chains to supply consistently.

“Looking forward, we will continue to embrace new technology but only when the business case supports it. We currently outsource embroidery and DTG, but with the increase in online ordering, and a team of salespeople selling online retail merchandising solutions to independent artists and events, DTG is one of several projects we have on the horizon as the business evolves and the journey continues," Ben concludes.

This article first appeared in the October issue of Textile Image Magazine read more here...