Room to Improve

To be successful, in-plants must recognize that processes are the central part of their operation, and they must continuously work on improving those processes. To do this, they need to shed the “this is the way we’ve always done things” mindset so they can quickly identify and resolve problems, eliminate waste and improve the culture.

A good place to start in a continuous-improvement strategy is to understand what customers value and to then invest in those things that will have a positive influence on clients, says John Compton, principal of ­Compton & Associates in Bonita Springs, Fla.

Compton, a former quality executive with printing firms Fort Dearborn and Vertis Communications, and a professor emeritus at the Rochester Institute of Technology, says it makes no sense to improve a process that has no direct bearing on a customer, either in terms of the quality of the product, the service or the cost.

Separate Waste From Value

John Compton

Compton also points out that it is important for print operations to understand their value stream. 

“That value stream becomes the target of our improvement initiative,” he says. “So a lot of times, I’ll work with a client in the early stages to help them understand how much waste is in that value stream.”

Compton says that when he visits a facility, he will often spend two or three days there. 

“I talk to the operators, then I take photographs and share them with the management team to show them where some of these wastes are in their value stream,” he explains. 

“Those wastes have often been there for so long, they’ve gotten used to them. They don’t even think of them as wastes, but more as ‘the way that we’ve always done things.’”

Team Building and 5S

Two of the primary building blocks in continuous improvement are team building and 5S — a method of workplace organization and visual controls developed by Hiroyuki Hirano. It stands for sort, straighten, shine, standardize and sustain.

“5S and many of the tools of Lean are intended to make non-standard conditions quickly visible to people who are working in the area so that actions can be taken almost immediately to correct the non-standard condition and put things back to a standard way that they should be. When a better way becomes known, it becomes the new standard,” Compton explains.

For printers looking to implement a continuous-improvement or Lean initiative, Compton advises them to begin by talking to senior management in a company inside or outside of the industry that is at least three years into continuous improvement implementation. 

“Start with the owner, president, CEO or the general manager, depending on how the organization is structured and find out the benefits that are accruing to their organization, the challenges encountered and what was required to overcome them,” he says.

If organizations want to accelerate their rate of improvement, he adds, they have to find a way to engage all of their employees in improving processes a little bit every day. 

“We like to see everybody involved in improvement, each and every day,” he says. “When you can begin to implement that in your organization, the potential for improvement is nearly unlimited.”  

Lean Implementation

Ken Macro, head of Cal Poly’s Graphic Communication Department.

Ken Macro Jr. also views the 5S methodology as a crucial step in a Lean initiative, along with a contracted Lean implementation plan where a Lean implementation team is formed. The professor and chair of the Graphic Communication Department at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, Calif., recounts a visit he made to a printer that had formed an implementation team. That team consisted of the company president, the management and the floor supervisor, along with accountants and sales reps, and anyone else who understood the concept of value added.

“On the first day of our visit, we had a breakfast for everyone in the plant to explain that we were there to help the company learn more about how they can identify ways in which to reduce waste in their production processes,” Macro notes. “We then introduced the 5S concept, and told the company to create their own 5S posters, which they hung up about a week or two before we visited their facility. We asked the company to secure an area in the back of the plant. A supervisor explained to everyone on the floor what was going to take place.”

A “red tag zone” was then created, and everyone had one hour to red tag items that did not add value to the process. A “yellow tag” system was also implemented, since management was concerned that the company was going to get rid of things that were expensive and were actually used. 

“We told them that if they have used those items at least once in the last couple of months, to put a yellow tag on it,” Macro says. “Then, we would evaluate over the course of the next six months to see if they’ll be used or not. At that point, it could be determined to go into the red tag.”

Within an hour, Macro says a lot was accomplished. 

“We had approximately three large garbage dumpsters filled with stuff that was just cluttering the area, including at least 10 pallets of old paper, old equipment and even coffee pots that hadn’t worked for 20 years,” he says. “Everyone was amazed.”

Like Compton, Macro adds that in his experience doing consulting work with printing companies, the C-level management must be integrated and fully vested into the idea of embracing Lean manufacturing. 

“The successful companies that have really made a lot of progress are those where the owners and senior managers roll their sleeves up and get engaged in it from day one,” he concludes.

‘They Don’t Always Work’

Howie Fenton

Howie Fenton, a printing consultant who has worked with PIA, GATF, NAPL and InfoTrends, warns that while quality initiatives can significantly improve efficiency and costs, they don’t always work. 

“We have seen great results with Lean, Six Sigma and ISO programs. Not only can they help reduce costs and turnaround time but some companies use [them] as a differentiator to increase their value,” says Fenton, who now runs his own Denver-based company, Howie Fenton Consulting. “In all fairness however, it’s important to recognize that they don’t always work, which may be linked to the size of the company. These initiatives work best with larger companies with dedicated staff.

“There is also research to support these conclusions,” he continues. “In a research project entitled Lean Manufacturing in Small and Medium Sized Printers, RIT professors Sandra Rothenberg and Frank Cost concluded that small and medium sized printers are less likely to have the knowledge and resources needed to launch and sustain lean efforts.

“However, that does not mean quality programs cannot work in smaller companies,” Fenton notes. “With smaller companies we have been able to achieve success by implementing limited tools in specific places. For example, this could be a paper waste program used in the large-format printing area or a 5S program in the finishing area. Limiting the tools and area does not require the dedicated staff of the larger implementations.”