Valentine’s Day is close, and it is well known for bringing chaos to laser engravers and customization shops every year. About 45% of the research is done in late January but most don’t order until February – you’re essentially cramming a month of personalization requests into the first few weeks of the month (less than 10 production days!).
For a lot of shops, this leads to chaos, inconsistent order processing, and errors along the way. Even experienced shops find themselves breaking their own rules for Valentine’s Day rushes. How do we combat the unpredictable? Through pattern recognition, organization, and job evaluation.
Not all orders are unique like fingerprints. A large majority of Valentine’s orders fit into 3-5 template categories—it’s imperative you create a standard workflow for each and identify which template applies to incoming orders. For example, CO2 laser settings for wood and leather follow consistent baselines within each substrate. Similarly, dog tag orders on your fiber system use the same recorded parameters job after job. Stop reinventing settings every time.
Sort out batches by material and not timeline. This might be the one most people overlook. Moving between substrates in your engraving process requires a constant tweaking of parameters and settings. Handling them on a first-in, first-out basis will lead to a lot of time wasted between jobs.
Be a little selective about what jobs you take on. Sometimes, some orders are just too complicated to execute swiftly, and that can completely bog down your established workflow. Every hour is valuable, and you’ll have to assess whether the complicated jobs are worth the extra time needed to execute. A $500 custom order could be a bigger headache than 20 standard orders at $30 each. Your production capacity & time is finite and you’ll have to budget accordingly.
You probably already know these fundamentals – the real challenge is sticking with them when the pressure hits. Mother’s Day is a little over two months away – if you aren’t incorporating these practices now, try it out in 10 weeks.
