Where to start with lean?

[mattf]

Hey all, my name is Matt and I work within a medium sized print company in Massachusetts as the "Workflow Administrator". I was hired for the basic idea of updating the company and bringing in lean concepts.

The status of the company is very complex. To make it a bit simpler to understand, the company is basically a "mom and pop" print shop outgrown into a 5 million dollar a year print company. Old habits die hard, and it seems old habits are everywhere. Most of the company is run via paper forms, not a lot is computerized, and many basic concepts of a workflow is not even remotely followed.

My concern with this company is where to begin. One of the first things I did immediately when coming on board, which was about a month ago, was to implement some tasks that are done into an electronic form. One of which is a electronic job ticket, and that will soon be in place. Yes, they were and still are using a paper job ticket.

The next deal in my mind is to keep trying to implement more computerized tasks, we are using the EFI Logic system, in order to potentially save time and money on all fronts of the business.

The next big step, which is where I'm stuck, is of course to make the shop as lean as possible. It seems when I walk around the cubicles and the plant itself there seems to be problems arise everywhere, and its a bit of a daunting task to think about where I can start. I am reading up on the concepts of lean and I feel that I am learning a lot, but I seem to be faced with the problem of where to begin. Any advice on how to start to figure out where to begin would be dynamite!

[David Dodd]

Matt,

First of all, welcome to the forum! My greatest hope for this forum is that it will become a valuable resource for people in your position - those who are on the front lines of implementing and using lean.

The question you asked - Where do I begin? - is an extremely important one. Although every company is different in some ways, there is a general approach that I've found works pretty well in most companies. This approach includes six steps.

Step 1 - Learn About Lean - From your post, it appears that you've already begun working on this step. If you're going to be the "lean champion" at your company, then it's imperative that you have a solid understanding about what lean is and how it works. You don't need to have a "PhD-level" understanding of every lean tool and technique, but you will need to have a solid command of how the basic tools work and how to use them.

Step 2 - Get Management Support - As with any change effort, you need the support of your company's owners and/or senior managers to get the changes implemented. So, you may need to spend some time and effort educating your company's senior leaders about lean and its benefits. Without management support, you will almost certainly run into problems that can derail your effort. If your company is underperforming in some ways (if the senior leaders are feeling "pain"), then your leadership team may be very open to lean.

Step 3 - Introduce the Workforce to Lean - A successful lean implementation requires the active participation of people from all across the organization. So, you need to introduce lean to your workforce early in the process. I'm not talking about in-depth training on every aspect of lean at this point - what is needed here is a good foundation about what lean is designed to accomplish and WHY IT'S IMPORTANT TO THE COMPANY. In a good lean implementation, in-depth training is done on a just-in-time basis.

Step 4 - Begin a 5S Program - 5S is a methodology for cleaning and organizing the workplace. I won't attempt to describe the 5S process here in detail - entire books have been written about 5S. 5S is a good place to start because, in most printing companies, it will make a dramatic visual impact on the appearance of the plant. 5S is often viewed as a "housekeeping" process, but it's much more. Yes, 5S is about "having a place for everything, and everything in its place." But more importantly, 5S is about having everything in the RIGHT place. 5S is also a good place to start because it get a significant number of people involved in the lean effort

Step 5 - Begin a Total Productive Maintenance Program - Having reliable equipment is important for any printing company, but as a printing company becomes leaner, equipment reliability becomes even more critical. Again, this is a good tool to begin using early in the implementation process, because it gets a number of people involved and it usually produces immediate results.

Step 6 - Begin an SMED/Quick Changeover Program - Fast makereadies or changeovers will obviously benefit any printing company, regardless of whether they do anything else with lean. From a lean perspective, makereadies are "non-value-adding" activities. If you reduce makeready times, you create new additional production capacity, and that new additional capacity is essentially free.

There are lots of resources available about 5S, Total Productive Maintenance, and SMED/Quick Changeover, and I would encourage you to begin learning about those tools soon. Once these programs are in place and functioning, there will be plenty left to do. Even with good 5S, TPM, and SMED/Quick Changeover programs in place, you will not be a truly lean organization, but you will have made a good beginning.

Good luck, and please let me know if you have more questions.

[jbeniston]

Find out as much as you can about 5S, and start with this. Instigate a "clean and check" program for all your equipment at each shift start, closely followed by a new PM system.
Keep it simple, keep it documented.

[mattf]

Thank you both for your input. I am glad there is this resource out there that is able to help out people like me get started. I have created a comprehensive plan in order to clean up our entire operation. Still, there a number of chores needed to be done beforehand to make this all work. One of which is to create a better communication process between management and the plant. I bet I can start off with the first two steps until this issue gets settled, but I feel I have a way to go forward with my ideas.

Thanks again, this was a big help. And don't worry, I will have plenty of questions once I get myself neck deep in this process!

[rich apollo]

David,
You talk about a "Quick Changeover Program". Something that I've observed about makereadies is that direct approaches to faster makereadies often fail. Faster makereadies are generally the indirect result of other steps taken.

For example, online plate punching might save a few minutes of registration time. Color management can dramatically reduce makereadies because the proofs are more readily matched. Zeroing out all registration adjustments at the completion of jobs can save time. Having a completed and relevant AND readable job ticket can save folks running around looking for stuff.

Focusing on makereadies seems like it just results in people running around faster - faster than they're actually gonna' work. Hurried work always seems like it results in mistakes.

I guess it's a matter of truly understanding where the delays come from. But I find the makeready situation to be like night vision - you can see things better by not looking directly at them.

[David Dodd]

David,
You talk about a "Quick Changeover Program". Something that I've observed about makereadies is that direct approaches to faster makereadies often fail. Faster makereadies are generally the indirect result of other steps taken.

For example, online plate punching might save a few minutes of registration time. Color management can dramatically reduce makereadies because the proofs are more readily matched. Zeroing out all registration adjustments at the completion of jobs can save time. Having a completed and relevant AND readable job ticket can save folks running around looking for stuff.

Focusing on makereadies seems like it just results in people running around faster - faster than they're actually gonna' work. Hurried work always seems like it results in mistakes.

I guess it's a matter of truly understanding where the delays come from. But I find the makeready situation to be like night vision - you can see things better by not looking directly at them.

Hi Rich,

I would certainly agree with you that makeready times can be affected (either positively or negatively) by factors that are outside the actual makeready process. But I would argue that the place to start is with the process itself. The objective of an SMED/Quick Changeover effort is not to have people "running around faster" but to reduce or eliminate the need for people to run around. For example, if the tools or supplies needed for a makeready are not well-located and where they should be, makeready times will be longer. That's why I suggested doing a 5S program before starting an SMED program. Another technique that is used in an SMED analysis is to separate "external" makeready tasks from "internal" makeready tasks. External tasks are those that can be performed while the machine (press, folder, etc.) is working on another job. Internal tasks are those that can only be performed if the machine is stopped or if the machine is running as part of the makeready process. One objective of an SMED effort is to change as many internal tasks to external tasks as possible.

It is also important to remember that the "SMED team" would not be limited to looking at the makeready process alone. After the process has been streamlined, the team would continue to ask, "What would enable us to reduce our makeready times further?" And the answer might well be, "Implement a color management program."

[RaymondJPrince]

Where to start as David indicated is reading up on Lean and getting the "buy in" of the owner. The next step is a 5S program -- this is not easy at all. changing the way we do things is not easy to do. It is far easier to buy a machine than train people. If you cannot complete a 5S program do not go any further. This is a must stepp

Raymond J. Prince
Vice President
NAPL
raymondjprince@aol.com

[mattf]

Where to start as David indicated is reading up on Lean and getting the "buy in" of the owner. The next step is a 5S program -- this is not easy at all. changing the way we do things is not easy to do. It is far easier to buy a machine than train people. If you cannot complete a 5S program do not go any further. This is a must stepp

Raymond J. Prince
Vice President
NAPL
raymondjprince@aol.com

O how right you are sir. I'll just push this through to show you what I have to deal with:

WhatTheyThink - Printing Industry News - Smith Print, Inc. Installs New Komori Lithrone SX29

We bought a press before fixing the workflow. Granted, I didn't make the decision so I do not know all the factors. At this moment, I have support from the owners and administrative team, the next step is to actually plan this all out in order to make it work. We'll see how it goes!

[Erik Nikkanen]

Hi Rich,

The objective of an SMED/Quick Changeover effort is not to have people "running around faster" but to reduce or eliminate the need for people to run around.
snip
One objective of an SMED effort is to change as many internal tasks to external tasks as possible.

It is also important to remember that the "SMED team" would not be limited to looking at the makeready process alone. After the process has been streamlined, the team would continue to ask, "What would enable us to reduce our makeready times further?" And the answer might well be, "Implement a color management program."

In my opinion, SMED is THE most important concept developed by Toyota. Without SMED, most of the other techniques used, such as JIT, Pull production, low inventories, etc. would not have been possible.

SMED stands for Single Minute Exchange of Die. In the automotive industry they have dies or other tooling to cut and form metals, etc. Some of these dies are huge. In the past, some of these dies took many hours or even days to get running. This resulted in the concept of the Economical Order Quantity. This was a run length that was long enough to absorb the cost of set up. Long runs caused a lot of inventory of work in process with its hidden faulty manufactured material.

The idea was that if one could have a very quick set up, then there was no EOQ and therefore products produced with short runs would have the same cost as a long run. Some of the unforeseen benefits were that problems with quality showed up quickly when the production went to the next process step and also inventories could be greatly reduced.

SMED is NOT a continuous improvement process. The aim of SMED is to develop drastically new ways of doing things. The extremely difficult goal of SMED, which is to stop good production of one product or part and start up producing good product within one minute, is a goal that can not be reached with continuous improvement. This very difficult goal, forces the team to look at the problem in totally new ways. This is the spirit of SMED.

SMED is not just about a fast makeready. Remember that the goal requires good product to be running after one minute. For this to happen, in depth knowledge of how the process works is required. The extra benefit of SMED is that the rest of the production will also be in control.

I started looking at the density control problem in the offset press with the SMED philosophy as a goal since 1984. It has lead to a very different view of how the process works but one that can lead to practical solutions because the obtained knowledge is specific and predictable.

The printing industry has a tendency to only be interested in methods and technologies that others use. This goes against the aim of SMED which requires a total rethinking effort.

It is good if printers are trying to reduce makeready but to think that doing a few tasks that work is SMED is not true. If you are not aiming at the one minute goal, then you are not doing SMED but just getting some benefits from SMED techniques in the context of continuous improvement.

The beauty of SMED is that it forces people to rethink the process in order to try to meet a virtually impossible goal.

[gordo]

Elaborating on Erik's post, it is not just that "The printing industry has a tendency to only be interested in methods and technologies that others use." it's also that, unlike most manufacturing, the print manufacturing process is very often determined by the print buyer/specifier (in the request for quote) rather than the print supplier/manufacturer.
This typically leads to an unnecessarily inefficient print manufacturing process. For example, there are solutions, like Kodak Spotless printing, that virtually eliminate all the washups, ink inventorying, drawdowns, extended make-ready times, print-ability issues etc. associated with spot color ink usage, Implementing such a solution requires that the printer turn their thinking 180 degrees. Rather than simply manufacturing the job as per the print buyer's instructions in the RFQ, the printer using this solution delivers the spot color value - which is really what the buyer wants - without using spot color inks. The printers who have adopted this strategy effectively eliminate make-ready wastage associated with spot color usage and can provide exceptional flexibility in their printed products. Bottom line, better margins and happier customers.

gordo