Do Printers Believe in Continuous Improvement?

[tmason]

Erik,

You are right, I don't have any experience with your system. I was trying to calculate how may jobs I have run in my career and the best I came up with is well over 20,000.
I won't debate about the ITB system anymore and I promise to explore your technology.

However, it seems you are making assumptions that we all use the latest and greatest technology, or should be, and live in a perfect world and don't care to be the best we can. For example, not everyone has CIP capability to preset ink fountains. We do, but the profit margins with today's technology aren't as good as what we made twenty years ago. It costs so much money to purchase equipment and even though we have less people, competition dictates we lower our pricing because we can do it faster. It is not cheaper, it is a diminishing return on investment. I say this even though our company blows away the profit leaders according to the PIA ratios. By the way, we also lead every category.

I would love to drive the best car, live in the best house, marry the most beautiful woman in the world (which I did) but the reality is, we all make decisions based on our individual circumstances. We all try to do the best with what we have available to us. This is where Lean comes in, to define, standardize and control that which we can.

As for the original question that started this blog, we do care about quality and we try every day to get better.

I wish I could golf like Tiger Woods. even if I followed his process and spent as much time on the course as he does, I would not make the PGA but I can print and manage a shop and turn a profit even in a down economy.

Todd

[Erik Nikkanen]

Erik,

You are right, I don't have any experience with your system. I was trying to calculate how may jobs I have run in my career and the best I came up with is well over 20,000.
I won't debate about the ITB system anymore and I promise to explore your technology.

However, it seems you are making assumptions that we all use the latest and greatest technology, or should be, and live in a perfect world and don't care to be the best we can. For example, not everyone has CIP capability to preset ink fountains. We do, but the profit margins with today's technology aren't as good as what we made twenty years ago. It costs so much money to purchase equipment and even though we have less people, competition dictates we lower our pricing because we can do it faster. It is not cheaper, it is a diminishing return on investment. I say this even though our company blows away the profit leaders according to the PIA ratios. By the way, we also lead every category.

I would love to drive the best car, live in the best house, marry the most beautiful woman in the world (which I did) but the reality is, we all make decisions based on our individual circumstances. We all try to do the best with what we have available to us. This is where Lean comes in, to define, standardize and control that which we can.

As for the original question that started this blog, we do care about quality and we try every day to get better.

I wish I could golf like Tiger Woods. even if I followed his process and spent as much time on the course as he does, I would not make the PGA but I can print and manage a shop and turn a profit even in a down economy.

Todd

As long as you keep an open mind , that would be great.

By the way, the ITB technology is low tech. It is basically a roller and a special blade. It would be very suitable for older presses too.

[David Dodd]

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this discussion. My view is that, in general, printing company leaders and managers tend to equate process improvement with technology. Therefore, they tend to believe that significant improvements in efficiency or productivity will require the implementation of new or better technologies. Clearly, technological advances have driven important changes in the way printing companies operate. But, the reality is that most printing companies have significant improvement opportunities that don't require technology. Instead, they require a systematic and disciplined approach to analyzing business operations. That's what lean, six sigma, theory of constraints, TQM, and other business management methodologies provide.

If your company is reasonably up-to-date with technology and you'd like to get a general idea of now much more opportunity for improvement exists, I would challenge you to calculate a measure called Manufacturing Cycle Effectiveness, or MCE. MCE is calculated by dividing value-adding time by total throughput time. So, the MCE for an individual print job would be calculated by dividing the total amount of time spent performing value-adding work on the job by the job's total throughput time. The throughput time is the total chronological time that elapses from the moment you receive the order for the job until the job leaves your shop. Here's the challenge. For one month, track the value-adding time and the throughput time for a representative sample of your jobs and calculate the MCE for each job. When the month is over, average the individual job MCE's to get an overall MCE for the month. I think you'll be surprised by the results you get.

Two other thoughts. First, I disagree strongly with Erik's contention that lean is preventing progress in the printing industry. Lean, like six sigma, theory of constraints, TQM, or any other management methodology, can be misused and misapplied, either because of lack of understanding or even intentionally. When this happens, any management tool will become a barrier to progress. I do agree that lean alone is not sufficient to guarantee success.

Finally, it's important to understand that no company can achieve significant and sustained improvements in productivity and efficiency until its leaders and managers make time to work on the business as well as in the business. In my opening post, I said that many printers have shifted into "survival" mode to get through the current recession. But, even when the recession ends, printing will continue to be a tough business, and it will always be easy for managers to postpone business improvement activities. Other things will always feel more urgent. The old adage says that it's hard to think about draining the swamp when you're up to your ass in alligators. That's true. But it's equally true that unless you deal with the swamp, you'll always be fighting alligators.

[Erik Nikkanen]

First, I disagree strongly with Erik's contention that lean is preventing progress in the printing industry. Lean, like six sigma, theory of constraints, TQM, or any other management methodology, can be misused and misapplied, either because of lack of understanding or even intentionally. When this happens, any management tool will become a barrier to progress. I do agree that lean alone is not sufficient to guarantee success.

.

My view is that Lean does not want people to do development on untried approaches or technologies. It tends to want people to be innovative with existing methods and technologies. Expanding the knowledge of printing does not seem to be a Lean goal.

Also printing is a very interesting manufacturing field which I think does require the Toyota thinking. It has problems that are perfectly aligned to that total approach.

I believe it was in the book, "The machine that changed the world" SMED was stated as the concept that made all the other concepts in the Toyota system possible. SMED was the idea that you have a setup so well understood that when the previous job stopped, the next job started up very quickly and was in production quickly without producing waste and without adjustments required. To do this the set up process had to be totally rethought. This was not based on continuous improvement but on breakthrough thinking.

In the printing industry, the set up is critical. The aim is to have a set up that once the press starts, there are NO adjustments needed.

This is the part that the industry does not get and the Lean consultants do not get. It is ignored.

I have studied and worked at this specific problem since 1984 with a SMED view. I understand the problems that need to be corrected and I understand what has to be done. The Lean consultants have no interest to correct this problem and therefore will have limited success with all the other related problems that require SMED.

Lean is great at getting the easier waste problems out of the system but has problems with the critical core problems.

[eastppress]

As for printers implementing Lean, my experience has been that many 'traditional' printers (the commercial printer who grew from the press operator or are operator-centric) have difficulty truly embracing and championing Lean. They will not apply the cultural changes (as clearly defined in Jim Collins' "Good to Great: Why some companies make the leap... and others don't") to their people and support the changes necessary in process. I have seen a full fledged application where personnel changes were made with all the aspects of Lean were trained and applied (5-S, cell, automomation, visual management, SMED, problem solving, etc.) When the programs initiated, there were increased waste and lower productivity. However, after 2 years there was an increase in productivity with very slightly higher sales with 1/3 fewer people, including eliminating 80% of salaried supervisors. At another company I have also experienced a good attempt to train and implement training (supported by a state grant) that reduced setups by 60+% for the press lines along with 7% scrap reductions in 6 months. Unfortunately the personnel assessments and changes were not part of the owner's commitment. Nor would the company face the facts of opportunities to reduce waste by $1 million annually due to overruns that were waste--not sure why they wouldn't look at the data. In this later case the Lean program and advances (setup crews for one) were substantially shelved due to sales declines and perceived cost savings.

I conducted a research study and thesis on Lean implementations on a number of printing and packaging companies. Although my data did not have a large enough population to statistically validate the results, what I observed was that those companies that fully committed to implementing Lean with top management commitment and follow-through to the lowest levels including training and sustained implementions were substantially improved in financial results than those that didn't. As a matter of fact, some of the poor implementation companies are no longer in existance or have been taken over by others.

Much of the earlier discussion focused on ink/water mix while that is one area of Lean's problem solving. What I have seen is that greater savings can be obtained through many other opportunities to reduce waste (setup reduction, OEE, eliminating over-runs, visual management systems, scrap reduction programs). Next, apply Lean to the sales and office environments.

One of the earlier writers mentioned a vision and business plan. This is very true. Then comes the leadership (level 5 and at all levels per Collins), and relentless pursuit through execution.

[mattf]

@eastppress

That was me with the whole idea of vision and business plan. And yes, leadership must ensure these goals are followed through to completion. Execution and understanding of the end goal is the key to getting there. That is where it starts. Management has to understand and be on board with the whole concept.

In my own situation, management doesn't want to deal with it and just wishes to bury itself in the day to day stuff. This of course, doesn't help the implementation at all. Creation of a long-term plan to be used and followed by all levels is a sure way to get people aware, but teaching and learning these concepts needs total dedication from all levels of a company.

[pcmodem]

I have a question about eliminating over-runs. What happens if you run short on a job. there was scumming on part of the run, setup of the folder/stitcher took longer, etc. If you eliminated over-runs, you would have to put the job back on press to make count. This has the possibility to cost more than what the over-run would have cost, making this process not lean.

Since we know if the job is asking for 1,000 finished pieces. We can't print exactly 1,000 and make count because each process down the line requires a percentage of waste.

What is the percentage of waste at each step to stay lean?

[Ritter]

pcmodern,
The idea is the perfect each step to produce the minimal waste as well as minimize setup time and complexity. Where I realize that you will never be able to produce absolute quantities if you now require say 200 extra press sheets of a 8 page 8.5" x 11" booklet to be right angle folded then stitched on a single pocket of a saddle-stitcher with 3 knife trim the goal is to reduce that 200 through improvements in the folding and stitching area. If you figure out how get it down to 100 you have cut waste in half. Once you reach 100 you re-evaluate how to get it down to 50 or until you get to the point where these opportunities are truly at their maximum potential (minimal waste, least amount of time). This where the situation changes and only advances in technology be made utilized to increase effficiency. Institute the multiplier effect and and if you run 500 jobs like this you have effecitvely made them 50% less wasteful and more efficient which means more profit in your pocket or passing the savings on to the customer theoretically increasing business and profit in your pocket.

[Al Ferrari]

"booklet to be right angle folded then stitched on a single pocket of a saddle-stitcher..."

There's part of your problem right there! Stitch them in the saddle instead. :-)

On a more serious note, I find interesting that no thought enters your mind of passing some the savings to the workers that make the whole thing happen.

Al

[David Dodd]

pcmodem,

I agree with Ritter's description of the lean approach. The objective is to continually reduce the amount of waste. There is no magic percentage that means you are now lean. I do believe that the first step is to accurately measure the amount of waste that your current processes are creating. As Deming said, you need to understand a process before you try to improve it. I've seen many companies set waste allowances in their estimating softare based on guestimates or on some supposed industry standard. Then, they increase the allowance "just in case." It's no wonder there are overruns.