The Benefits of Lean

[David Dodd]

The value of any management tool or system ultimately depends on whether it improves business performance. This is just as true for lean as for any other management methodology. Most of you reading this post will stay interested in our discussions here only if you believe that lean can improve the performance of your company.

So, just how beneficial can lean be? In their best-selling book, "Lean Thinking," James Womack and Daniel Jones argue that lean can produce profound business improvements. They write, "Based on years of benchmarking and observation in organizations around the world, we have developed the following simple rules of thumb: Converting a classic batch-and-queue production system to continuous flow with effective pull by the customer will double labor productivity all the way through the system (for direct, managerial, and technical workers, from raw materials to delivered product) while cutting production throughput times by 90 percent and reducing inventories in the system by 90 percent as well. Errors reaching the customer and scrap within the production process are typically cut in half, as are job-related injuries."

That's a powerful statement. But, you may ask, does lean produce these kind of benefits for printing companies. There are fewer case studies involving printing companies, but one described a printing and fulfillment company that had been involved in a lean transformation for about a year. During that year, the company was able to reduce makeready times by over 50 percent, prepress lead time from 5 to 2 days, and overall order-to-ship lead time from 7 to 3 days.

Sharing the benefits of lean in a public forum such as this can be a touchy subject. The successful use of lean can be a source of competitive advantage. Some lean experts have argued that Toyota did not document the details of its lean production system for a long time because they believed it provided them an advantage over their competitors.

Despite these issues, if you've been using lean for a while, please describe how it has benefited your company. I'm not asking that you disclose company secrets, but forum visitors and participants need to see that learning lean will be worthwhile.

[rich apollo]

But, you may ask, does lean produce these kind of benefits for printing companies. There are fewer case studies involving printing companies, but one described a printing and fulfillment company that had been involved in a lean transformation for about a year. During that year, the company was able to reduce makeready times by over 50 percent, prepress lead time from 5 to 2 days, and overall order-to-ship lead time from 7 to 3 days.

Who the hell gets those kinds of lead times?! I'm sorry, David, but those guys aren't living the same print experience that I've had. At several companies I've compressed the prepress lead time by 50% and more - because the client made us.

I'm not trying to poo-poo LEAN. I haven't personally been involved in it, but the company I work for has been into it for a while. I see some nice advances that have come out of it, like having a tool board at each press. But, I'm a little leery. Many of these benefits could have sprung from common sense.

Is this the latest management buzzword fad? Like "think outside the box"?

What I haven't heard from anyone are concrete steps to follow that will illustrate opportunities for improvement - in a print shop.

[David Dodd]

Who the hell gets those kinds of lead times?! I'm sorry, David, but those guys aren't living the same print experience that I've had. At several companies I've compressed the prepress lead time by 50% and more - because the client made us.

I'm not trying to poo-poo LEAN. I haven't personally been involved in it, but the company I work for has been into it for a while. I see some nice advances that have come out of it, like having a tool board at each press. But, I'm a little leery. Many of these benefits could have sprung from common sense.

Is this the latest management buzzword fad? Like "think outside the box"?

What I haven't heard from anyone are concrete steps to follow that will illustrate opportunities for improvement - in a print shop.

Rich,

Several points. First, the facts of the case study I described may not reflect your experiences, but that does not make the results obtained from using lean less valid or less impressive. Second, if lean is a buzzword, then it's a buzzword that has lasted for almost twenty years.

Third, if lean is a management fad, then it's a fad that has been successfully used for over thirty years, and that's if you don't include Toyota. If you include Toyota, then lean methods and practices have been improving operational performance since the early 1950s. I don't know for sure what it takes for an idea or a practice to graduate from being a fad, but I think lean qualifies.

Fourth, many lean practices may seem like common sense when we read about them today. And, in reality, many lean ideas and practices are "common sensical." One of lean's basic principles is to simplify activities and processes as much as possible, so that simple solutions can be used to solve problems. In retrospect, Henry Ford's moving assembly line seems like a common sense solution, but it was a pretty radical idea when first introduced.

Finally, you say that what you haven't heard from anyone is concrete steps to follow that will illustrate opportunities for improvement in a print shop. Give us a little time, will ya? This forum has only been in existance for five days. I hope that we will get several concrete examples of how lean has been used to improve print operations. DGornick has already provided a couple. But, lean has never been, and will never be, an off-the-shelf, plug-and-play solution. It will always require that you understand lean principles and then decide which lean tools to use and how.

[craiglpress]

Basic lean principles date back to the famous printer, Benjamin Franklin when in 1737 he wrote of wasted time is wasted costs in his renowned Poor Richard's Almanack - "He that idly loses 5 shillings worth of time, loses 5 shillings” In Lean we call this “NON VALUE ADDED ACTIVITIES”

Lean is more or less a term for a set of tools or a system for identifying and eliminating waste or non-value-added activities through continuous improvement and improved process flows. (6S, Kaizen Events or Blitzes, Value Stream and Process Mapping, Continuous Improvement, Best Practices, Performance Metrics) The tools can be used in various ways to fit the needs of each company.

We helped one of our clients significantly improve their order entry process by implementing some Lean tools in the office areas. They are a web and sheetfed commercial printing company with about 175 employees.

First we conducted team forums to create process maps for every step of their current business processes (order entry, purchasing, invoicing, etc.) using Post-It Notes. Next we entered them in Microsoft Visio and print the process maps out on their HP wide-format inkjet proofer. Then the team analyzed the process map printouts and identified the number of steps involved in each process, the non-value-added activities and wastes, the redundant steps, and the bottlenecks. Next, the team re-engineered Lean business processes and the updated process maps in Microsoft Visio.

Here are some of the results after about 6 months of training and implementing the new Lean processes and best practices:

- Order entry process was reduced from 4 hours to 2 hours, from 5 handoffs to 3 handoffs, and from 92 steps to 45 steps.

- Prepress delays due to files problems and job ticket errors were reduced 90%

- Invoicing process was reduced from 5 days to 3 days, from 5 handoffs to 4 handoffs, and from 75 steps to 53 steps.

We’re still working on other areas office areas, so I’ll report back later.

[Erik Nikkanen]

The value of any management tool or system ultimately depends on whether it improves business performance. This is just as true for lean as for any other management methodology.

Of course Lean methods are effective but I do have some issues with how the printing industry looks at process improvement. This is very much related to my specific interest and knowledge related to the density control problem in the offset printing process.

When I started to look at this problem in 1984, at that time, I was looking at the problem with respect to Japanese manufacturing concepts and philosophy. I knew the critical problem with respect to printing as a manufacturing process, was the consistency and predictability of the density control problem. And in particular the goal of having a very short run of paper to get to colour. That was the primary issue at the press.

I am a mechanical engineer and I must say that Lean thinking is a good framework for looking at simple problems but complicated problems need a lot of deeper thinking, along with a science based education to be able to look at those complicated problems and reduce them to simple ones that can be dealt with in predictable ways.

Lean is very good. I don't want to suggest it isn't but one thing I tend to see missing is a strategic approach to improvement which is meant to obtain the most from limited resources. Using Lean is not necessarily a strategic approach. In some ways it is used in a shot gun approach where the "Method" is applied to anything that moves without consideration of any overall contribution to a strategic plan.

For over twenty years, my view has been and still is, that obtaining consistent and predictable control of printed density on press is THE strategic manufacturing goal of a printing company.

Having consistent and predictable density control on press means that when one starts the press, it goes directly to its target densities and runs consistently through the whole run, without the need for adjustments in ink settings. It prints a consistent density that is independent of changes in water, temperature and press speed. The fact is that this goal is not so difficult to obtain and is not very expensive but that is another issue.

Why is this a strategic advantage? Well there are many reasons and they are far reaching.
The obvious one is that it reduces waste but it also would demonstrate to customers a consistency that is not normally seen and this would be recognized as quality. One definition of quality is the lack of noticeable variation.
It increases capacity because there is less wasted time getting to colour, running waste and the press can run at higher speeds even for some tricky and short jobs.
Skill levels are less. Less training required and less difficulty finding suitable operators.
The higher capacity results in more jobs processed and therefore a lower unit cost.
The reduction in costs of press time, labour, waste means that the sales force can be more aggressive in getting new work. This adds more work in the plant and then reduces the burden cost even further.

Leverage of technology and knowledge.
In a printing company, just about all the production goes through a press. Each press can have several units. Some large companies can have hundreds of print units and all those units have the same problems. Fixing a very few problems that can be leveraged across a large number of units, maximizes improvement efforts. It also avoids buying expensive technologies that are not totally effective.

Knowing how to do these things first can give a competitive advantage to a printer or a press manufacture.

Sustainability is now the fashion and so are environmentally friendly processes. Not only does less waste from a consistent a predictable process have a positive environmental effect but now that the ink feed rate is independent of the water, different ways to apply the water into the press can be tried which can eliminate the recirculation of fount solution and therefore the avoidance of disposal.

All the Lean efforts that are normally used in the printing industry can not match the strategic impact of obtaining consistency and predictability of the density control problem but year after year, there is no interest in understanding this fundamental problem and looking into the practical solutions.

It is difficult to successfully have a war on waste when one is not interested in very powerful weapons.

[David Dodd]

[QUOTE=Erik Nikkanen;94643]Of course Lean methods are effective but I do have some issues with how the printing industry looks at process improvement. This is very much related to my specific interest and knowledge related to the density control problem in the offset printing process.

<SNIP>

I am a mechanical engineer and I must say that Lean thinking is a good framework for looking at simple problems but complicated problems need a lot of deeper thinking, along with a science based education to be able to look at those complicated problems and reduce them to simple ones that can be dealt with in predictable ways.

Lean is very good. I don't want to suggest it isn't but one thing I tend to see missing is a strategic approach to improvement which is meant to obtain the most from limited resources. Using Lean is not necessarily a strategic approach. In some ways it is used in a shot gun approach where the "Method" is applied to anything that moves without consideration of any overall contribution to a strategic plan.

<SNIP>

/QUOTE]

Erik,

Thanks for your post. I happened to see your comments relating to this topic at the Print CEO blog, and I was hoping that you would take an active role in this forum.

I disagree with your contention that lean is not effective for dealing with complex problems, but I can understand why this appears to be true. One of the bedrock principles of lean is that improving business performance is everybody's job. Lean enterprises strive to create and sustain a culture that encourages all employees to actively participate in improvement efforts. Now, obviously, not all employees in a company will have advanced degrees in mechanical engineering or financial management or statistical analysis. Therefore, lean has tended to design and describe its tools so that they can be understood and used by individuals that don't necessarily have a particular kind of formal, advanced academic training. But, this does not mean that lean that lean doesn't use scientific or engineering expertise when it's needed.

Let me illustrate this using your density control issue as an example. One technique that is used by virtually all lean enterprises is called "5 Whys." 5 Whys is a technique for identifying the root cause of a problem. The basic idea is that by repeatedly asking (and answering) the question "Why?" you can get past symptoms and find the root cause of a problem. Taiichi Ohno, the principal architect of Toyota's lean production system, described the 5 Whys method as "the basis of Toyota's scientific approach." The process for root cause analysis can be described in more formal ways, but I think 5 Whys captures the essense of the process pretty well.

If I understand you correctly, a lack of effective density control could manifest itself in several ways - long makeready times, uneven press operating speeds, high levels of makeready or running waste. If a lean improvement team was addressing these problems, the team would begin by asking the first Why: "Why do we need 300 press sheets to achieve acceptable color?" OR "Why can we run some jobs on our press at 12,000 IPH, but we have to run other jobs at only 8,000 IPH?" As the team moves through the 5 Whys process, it may well encounter a "Why?" that it cannot answer. If this happens, the team would recognize that it has not uncovered the root cause of the problem and would be likely to seek expert help. Or, the team might be able to identify the root cause, but not have the knowledge to solve the problem. In that case, they would also tap expert help. My point is that lean-based problem solving does not stop until the root cause of a problem is identified and then it tries to solve the problem, whatever level of expertise is required.

Your other concern about lean is that it does not provide a strategic approach to improvement - that it is often used in a "shotgun" fashion without consideration of any overall contribution to a strategic plan. On this point, I agree with your contention, at least in part. This situation exists for two main reasons. First, when a company begins a lean transformation, it typically discovers many opportunities for improvement. While some of these improvements may require substantial financial investments, most do not. They are, in essence, "no-brainers" that should be made regardless of what the company's strategy is. And second, the primary mindset of lean is to make continuous, incremental improvements. Because each individual improvement is relatively small (and usually not that costly to implement), lean practitioners don't see a big need to perform an in-depth strategic analysis for each improvement effort.

By the way, lean does have a strategy development/implementation tool. It's called "Hoshin Kanri." Conceptually, Hoshin Kanri is fairly similar to the Balanced Scorecard and other strategy implementation methodologies, so lean doesn't differ significantly from other "best practices" on this particular issue.

[Erik Nikkanen]

/QUOTE]

I disagree with your contention that lean is not effective for dealing with complex problems, but I can understand why this appears to be true.
snip
5 Whys is a technique for identifying the root cause of a problem. The basic idea is that by repeatedly asking (and answering) the question "Why?" you can get past symptoms and find the root cause of a problem. [/QUOTE]

David,

The 5 Whys technique is very good and engineers tend to do it naturally due to their training and education even if it is not done in the formal Lean way. But there are also many different kinds of problems and some problems do not work well with the linear Why method. This tends to be true when the problem has many root causes that are not obvious and they are interrelated. You could argue that Lean methods would even help in these cases but some of these kinds of problems have taken years to be even aware of the parameters and to understand the interrelationships. Also I think that the Why method, which is very good, also takes some skill in being able to know what questions to ask. Examples always look logical after the problem is identified and the root cause is found but it is not always so easy at the start.

Another issue is related to experts and generally accepted knowledge. In the printing industry there is a big problem here in some areas. There are a lot of myths in the industry that are reported as facts and people tend to be brainwashed into thinking some things are true. This becomes a great barrier to getting to the right questions to ask. I would definitely agree, that using the 5 Why method can break through the mythology and help get to the specific facts that are needed to solve problems but one has to set aside ones previous beliefs. Emotionally, that is not easy to do.

Problems are like trying to open a combination lock. If you don't know the combination, then it is hard but if you do, then it is easy. Process knowledge that is specific and predictable is very important. Why reinvent the wheel. Look to see if the problem is explained properly somewhere already.

Some problems are truly difficult and some are surprisingly easy. You won't know until you have solved the problem. Don't assume it is difficult at the start. Even with the help of Lean techniques, many people will give up way too easily.

[Mike Bishop]

As a pre press manager with exposure to Lean methods and training on a company wide level, I would like to make a few points about the applicability of Lean to the print industry. Firstly, the overall concept of Lean, when all of the jargon is swept away, is solid - the reduction of waste in; materials, time, labor, etc., to create a more efficient production of final product. I do not think that anyone would argue that they want their company or department to be less efficient, on this point Lean seems an obvious solution. Lean has worked very well for a long time for Toyota, why would it not work for other companies?

I feel that there are significant differences between Manufacturing (which is Lean's home turf) and Printing, which make Lean's tools, as they are currently constituted and implemented, less effective in Printing. For instance, Toyota gets it's materials, such as aluminum, from Quality controlled sources. An aluminum supplier for Toyota is not making aluminum for the first time, and if the product is faulty they will lose Toyota as a customer. Printing, and specifically Pre Press receive materials, in the form of files, from a wide range of suppliers with a wide range of quality. Some people may actually be making files for Printing for the first time in their lives, some customers think a 13 page book is OK, or that RGB photos are acceptable, and the list of issues goes on and on. We in printing receive materials from the customer and we are expected to fix any problems with these materials in order to make them acceptable for production. I doubt Toyota receives aluminum with glaringly out of spec problems and is then expected to fix the aluminum before they can make body panels. In short, the material that Pre Press operators receive is an unknown quantity of unknown quality. This is not the case in high end manufacturing.

Printing is also largely a Customer Service business, not a manufacturing one. While it is true that presses, folders and cutters are quantifiable production machines that give you "x" amount of finished product by running at "y" speed for "z" hours, at least half of a modern print shop runs entirely differently. Our sales, customer service and Pre Press departments run at the whim of the customer with the customers desired piece as the finished product. Revisiting the auto manufacturing analogy, I have a Honda Accord that I bought from a dealer with only a dozen or so models available. I was not part of the production of the car, I could not request a hatchback Accord, and I could certainly not give Honda a steering wheel from my old Boston Whaler and have them incorporate it into the hood of the car. Honda offers what they offer and you pick the one you like best, which is the case with almost all auto manufacturers save the very high end custom manufacturers. In addition, if I did order a car with custom items and it reached the assembly line I could not call up later and say I want to change my order, so they should scrap all of the previous work and start again with my new choices. This sort of order changing occurs regularly in Printing on an job per job basis and we must obey the customer's wishes or risk losing their business.

The above points are not meant to discredit or belittle the Lean philosophy of business, it has many excellent tools and ideas for improving the efficiency of an organization. In fact, I use quite a few of the Lean principles in my own department, including treating the next worker or process in production as an internal customer, so that the materials I give to them are as streamlined and ready for production as they can be. I keep my computer clean, up to date and well organized, I keep myself up to date on software and hardware advances and I keep the machines I am responsible for in top shape. As Rich said this does seem like "common sense", but we all know how common "common sense" is, so having a plan to stick by it is OK too.

In summation, Lean has some very good points, but it is not a cookie cutter solution to all industries and processes. Lean itself is a process, and it is a process that should learn from those it is trying to help. Someone who wants to promote Lean in a Print environment should learn about the Print industry and it's specific challenges before falling back on the well worn and ready made "solutions". Lean has been around a long time, and it is true it does not seem to be a fad; but Printing has been around a lot longer and those who work in Printing now are the most productive and efficient Print workers ever. It would serve the process better if both sides listened and adapted to the other.

[Erik Nikkanen]

I feel that there are significant differences between Manufacturing (which is Lean's home turf) and Printing, which make Lean's tools, as they are currently constituted and implemented, less effective in Printing. .

Mike,

Printing is certainly much more complicated than assembly production but I would have to defend Lean a bit in this area. My opinion is that the printing industry has caused a lot of the problems themselves. They have incorrectly described the process and have developed methods which are more based on historical practices that have now been automated than scientific methods that have a clear chain of logical actions from start to the end. My belief is that if the images to be printed were specified properly, there would be no confusion. This would have to be something that is design into the structure of the method. Presently the industry is using methods, which they Standardize, that do not have a chain of logical and predictable actions.

All I can say is that the industry is in transition and has not yet understood how to use the potential of relatively new technology to provide unambiguous and innovative methods. Yes, it is in a mess and Lean can not correct problems that are systemic in the available technology in the printing plant. But Lean can help the industry in general in rethinking what they are doing and maybe change the direction.

Maybe not much help to you in the plant but potentially helpful for the whole industry in looking at the overall picture of how things should be done.

[nemo]

My view is that lean manufacturinq is a stupidity. It inherently leads to a loss of quality. It is a concept generally used to increase temporarily the profitability at the cost of employee and customer frustration and finally market share loss. Thinking that Toyota success is based on this is a joke.
In the technical world, success is mainly based on ingenuity which is augmented by the creative employee enthusiasm. Cut his wings and start managing a dying business.