Whose fault is it anyway…
In the wonderful world of embroidery the oldest argument there is when a job goes wrong is, “Whose fault was it, embroidery or digitizing?” The truth of the matter is it is almost always a combination of both but there are times when blame can be assigned. While this can be a delicate conversation (no one likes to admit when they are wrong) a true professional will keep their ego in check and learn from a mistake. Assuming you enjoy a long and prosperous embroidery career there will come a time when an order gets destroyed for reasons that could have been prevented.
So how do you know who is to blame? What is most important is to understand why you want to know. The answer is, so you can prevent it from happening again. To that end there are things you can do to prevent embroidery jobs from going south.
- Never use a design programmed for a specific application on something it was not designed for. You should never use a design specifically programmed for application on a polo shirt on a hat, period. Yes, you might get lucky and it might work but sooner or later this will bite. Designs embroidered on hats should be programmed for hats. Similarly, if you are going to embroider a nylon windbreaker and the logo was originally designed for a knit sweater you will almost certainly have damaged product. There are a host of other examples. The most important thing to understand is embroidery designs are not “one size fits all.”
In the past embroidery digitizing was far more expensive than it is today and understandably operators would try and make a design work on as many different products as they could. In the current world you can get a brand new design (from Qdigitizing) for as little as $25 and edits for $10. It does not make sense to risk damaging hundreds of dollars’ worth of product to avoid a $10 edit fee. QDigitizing understand designs often need to be adjusted for specific fabrics so we will always do our best to program your designs to your requirements. However, it is up to you to understand this might be necessary and to inform us what a design will be embroidered on.
- Your embroiderer should be willing to run a preproduction sample on a product before committing to a full production run. Let’s say you take 144 hats to get embroidered and there IS a problem with the digitizing. If your embroiderer runs and ruins all 144 hats it is the fault of embroidery, not digitizing. Yes, there was a flaw in the digitizing but it is the responsibility of production to catch a problem before completing an order. If you are using an embroiderer who does not agree with this, find another.
There is no excuse a professional can provide for doing more than two runs with a flawed program. Anything beyond that shows they are not paying attention or do not care about their quality. It is reasonable should production need to be halted while a new design is produced the embroiderer be compensated for down time to stop one job, start another and then return to yours. However, that is a conversation you should have with your decorator as you start your relationship. You should learn what their policies are on these kinds of issues.
The most important thing to remember is quality embroidery is always a marriage between digitizing and production. The best thing you can do is have open and frank conversations with your decorator. You should understand what their policies are for damaged product and you should be fully aware of how they prep an order for full production. It is reasonable for an embroiderer to charge a “set up fee” to run a pre-production sample. You should understand this is an expensive process and it is reasonable for them to request a nominal fee. If you area a high volume customer I would suggest negotiating this.
I hope to hear from any or all of you soon. If you have any questions or topics you would like me to address in this blog please send me a message here or an email to steve.freeman@qdigitzing.com
Steve Freeman
Managing Partner
Qdigitizing.com
877-733-4390