Sorting your "Drops"?

[Warmoth]

I'm not sure if It's disorganization on my shops part, or if it's a common issue for everyone. Keeping track of various substrate drops.

When we cut a 4'x8' down for a smaller sign, we can be left with a random size that gets filed into our growing mass of "small pieces". We've got 3 people who engage with the "mass" at different times. They'll search for something they could use before ordering additional blanks.

The problem is, there's so much that has accumulated over the years - we're afraid to throw anything out - and that makes it difficult to really know what we have. That sought after elusive piece could be easily overlooked, so more material ends up getting ordered, or cut from a perfectly good 4'x8'!!

Does anyone have a good way of cataloging this kind of stuff? Or perhaps a logical/visual way to store or sort all these drops? Should we place a stricter criteria on what we decide to keep?

Thanks.

 

[TXFB.INS]

we have separate vertical storage racks that we use for this sort of drops regarding substrates.
within these racks, the material is sorted smallest to largest so you can easy see if there is a piece that will work. without fail there will be some odd job that needs a random size and we can fill it from the drop rack instead of burning a full 48x96. there is a strict policy to always look in the racks first

whenever we are slow we will go ahead and cut down some of these drops to common sizes 18x24 is the most common

 

[rjssigns]

I "sorted" all my drops to the dump. Rarely had the right size drop for a client. What do you do with a 11" X 96" strip of ACM? Next guy needs a 12" x 96" and so forth.

 

[Brink]

I find that marking the pieces with a grease pencil (China Marker) helps to quickly determine the size of the drop later. The grease pencil mark cleans right off when the pieces get used.

 

[TXFB.INS]

I "sorted" all my drops to the dump. Rarely had the right size drop for a client. What do you do with a 11" X 96" strip of ACM? Next guy needs a 12" x 96" and so forth.

this is a prime example of cutting down to more common sizes. in this case, we would take the 11 x 96 and cut it down to a QTY of 4 pieces sized 6x24 then scrap the rest of the material

 

[T_K]

Sort as you go. Smallest pieces go up front, biggest pieces in the back.

I like the grease pencil idea. That way, you can grab a blank and know what size it is.

Both of these slow you down during individual production jobs, but will speed up your process overall. Taking 30 seconds to mark and categorize your drops should save you perhaps hours in the long run.