How Kong Screenprinting & Design Improved Efficiency with a Custom Glide App in 30 Days
Recently, I had the unique opportunity to work with Kong Screenprinting & Design, a company specializing in custom-branded apparel and design. Their mission is to provide high-quality screenprinting and embroidery services to businesses, non-profits, schools, and merchandise brands, with a focus on efficiency and customer satisfaction.
As a professional app developer dedicated to creating innovative solutions, Kong Screenprinting & Design gave me a unique challenge—their primary issue was managing and tracking their workflow effectively. Not only do they experience a high volume of orders, they pride themselves on achieving a turnaround time of just 2-3 weeks per order. That’s fast!
This project was quite a challenge, but I was able to pull off a great solution for Kong. Let me walk you through how I was able to develop a solution for them using a Glide app.
What Kong Wanted Out of An Application
The primary challenge for Kong was the lack of an efficient system to track and monitor the work of their employees. This gap made it difficult for Bruce, the owner, to monitor the progress of each job, track overall performance, and identify trends in misprints or defects.
Simply put, it was anyone’s guess what work was being completed and at what stage of development the work was at any given time. Kong Screenprinting & Design ran on trust alone, which meant a logistics disaster was just around the corner. What if someone was out sick or unreachable due to a family emergency?
A solution to this impending issue was exactly what Kong was looking for in an application.
How I Used Glide to Build Kong a Custom App
To address this, I developed a custom app tailored to Kong’s needs using Glide. I wanted to make a solution that enabled employees to track their work, monitor progress, and input job information. With my new app, all employee work was easily accessible so that everyone was on the same page.
My approach began with a deep dive into Kong’s workflow. I met with Bruce to understand every aspect of the Kong workflow that he wanted to track from start to finish.
Learning about the two-phase nature of their jobs (setup and print) and the complexity introduced by the number of screens used was crucial. Bruce’s need to analyze team efficiency and defect rates was a key consideration in my design.
The app also featured a timer for each step, allowing Bruce to generate detailed reports on productivity and efficiency. I understood his need to create a better system for employee performance reviews and prioritized it when making the new application for Kong with Glide.
Implementing the New Kong Application
The implementation of the new app for Kong involved three critical steps:
Building the Order Framework: This section allowed for the creation and tracking of orders, including crucial details like the operator, number of screens, client information, and purchase order ID.
Time Tracking for Each Phase: Building timers that separately tracked the time for both phases of orders for the setup and printing phases.
Dashboard for Reporting: A section for post-completion statistics of orders. This dashboard was set up to run reports and filter key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics.
The Final Product
Since its implementation 8 months ago, the app I created for Kong has tracked over 1500 orders and 4000+ hours of work. Kong now leverages analytics for data-driven decisions on staffing, pricing, and estimating.
Testimonial from Bruce Braden: “I had the pleasure of working with Darren on a production tracking app for my screen printing business. The app was conceptualized, built, and implemented in a month and has significantly improved our team's efficiency. Darren's dedication to understanding our industry and suggesting relevant features was invaluable.”
What I Learned from Working with Kong Screenprinting & Design
While every project of mine teaches me something new, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I was able to learn about unique application setups. I’ve had experience with this before, but Kong’s needs were truly individual as they didn’t require the need for employee accounts, yet they had a substantial amount of individual orders.
Instead of individual logins, the app was installed on iPads at each printing station, logged in permanently for ease of use. This approach required a novel way of tracking and analyzing data and offered a valuable learning experience for future projects.
Reflecting on this project, I’m so thrilled to see Kong empowered with data-driven insights for making informed decisions moving forward. This transition from guesswork to informed strategy marks a significant milestone in their journey toward operational excellence.
I’m happy to have been able to be a part of making sure that Kong avoids disaster brought on by disorganization, and I look forward to seeing their growth in the future.
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