Same Day Tees Shop Visit | Automation and The Future of Screen Printing

Same Day Tees in Frankfort, IL is one of the midwest's premiere high-volume, quick-turnaround screen printing shops.

Focused on lightning-fast turnaround times and exceptional prints for high-profile multinational corporate clients, Pete Bolsoni and his team have built an efficient and modern screen printing business. They've heavily invested in automation, digital printing, DTG printing, and massively improving their entire pre-and-post press process. Their screen rooms (processing hundreds of screens a day) will make any screen printer envious.

So how does Pete know what to focus on as he chases new technology and revises the processes in his business? “It’s mainly pain points. The things that are keeping you up at night. We were getting a lot of sim process, and people wanted DTG-style prints. But there wasn’t a better solution until M&R came out with this Digital Squeegee.”

Same Day Tees relies heavily on DTG printing to serve low-volume rush orders. They were an early adopter of M&R’s Digital Squeegee, a breakthrough hybrid printing technology. Ironically, when Pete started Same Day Tees he didn’t want to screen print at all – and tried to go all-in on DTG printing. Eventually it became clear that DTG couldn’t handle the high-volume runs that would really allow the business to scale and grow, and they jumped head-first into modern screen printing presses and high-tech automation. They didn't abandon DTG at all - they still do around 450 DTG printed t-shirts a day in their streamlined pod setup.

Focusing on rush orders – day in and day out – means that there’s a lot of stress involved with business at Same Day Tees. This means screens become the weakest link in the chain, because they're 100% necessary for every single job – and have to be perfect quality every time. Because of that, Same Day Tees automated screen reclaiming, screen coating, screen rinsing, and even removed films with a state-of-the-art computer-to-screen unit that doubles as an exposure unit. The screen room employees have been reduced from 5 to 2 – but the two screen employees that remain absolutely love their job. They manage every aspect of the screen department, taking on more responsibility and ultimately having a far more engaging and interesting job compared to standing in front of a washout booth for 8 hours a day.

Like many others, Pete started seriously screen printing thanks to Scott Fresener’s “Printing T-Shirts for Fun and Profit.” We were lucky enough to interview Scott earlier this year: https://www.printavo.com/blog/scott-f...

He learned the basics of screen printing in high school thanks to an enterprising teacher, but Pete wanted to take it a step further. At 17 years old, Pete traveled to Scott’s seminar at a community college in Arizona and learned about simulated process printing, CMYK screen printing, and the finer art of detailed and artistic screen printing. That totally opened up Pete’s mind to what could be possible and started a lifelong obsession with crafting beautiful prints.

Pete started Same Day Tees because he realized that the rush order business model was healthier than the traditional retail or contract screen printing business. In an industry where the race to the bottom for pricing crushes businesses and ruins profitability, "Charging a premium is just smarter," he says. Same Day Tees prefer rush orders – they can charge a reasonable premium and make their customers very happy because the value they've added is obvious. They even list their contract printing prices publicly – his customers really want the one, two, or three-day turnaround service – and they’re willing to pay for it.

By nailing his niche and investing heavily in cutting-edge technology, Same Day Tees has cornered a high-end rush-order market. Their Digital Squeegee lets them do “tense sim process prints that are hard to knock out in a day or two days [...] so if we take rush 5 color jobs, we would have a set amount of time in pre-press and setup. When we made a move, we thought, what’s our biggest pain point?”

If on-demand digital printing is the dream, then Same Day Tees is getting close. Their focus on refining their process and building a trustworthy reputation has enabled explosive growth. Thanks so much for opening your doors to us and letting us check out the shop!

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