Do You Measure Up? — Dickeson

“BUT, ROGER, you said nothing about the need for measuring to control when you said farewell to the database you’d kept for many years for web presses. (Riding Into the Sunset, November, 2005.) I want to protest this oversight! It was your steely-eyed declaration of many years that we had to measure, even when measuring the wrong things, to get control of the web press printing process that kept us going and helped bring us to where we are today.”

OK, Buck Crowley, dear friend and colleague of many years and inventor of the Autocount for web presses, I hear you loud and clear. (Forgive me if I have taken some liberties in paraphrasing your e-mail comments.) I did overlook my oft-repeated metaphor of many years that “Until you measure, you cannot control.” You’re quite right.

If you’re not measuring something there’s no way you can forecast a result of an action and, therefore, control the response. Measuring is the first step—the essential step. We must have that metric. Let’s say it another way: Until you measure something you can’t forecast a result of some action.

Miracle of the Internet! Buck cited me to a couple of URLs I can’t disclose. One was to a camera fixed on a live web press operation. I watched the single operator running a web press, smoothly, not fast, but without stoppages, referring to his control panel for signals.

The other URL was to a camera on the live operator of an envelope inserter. It was more often stopped than running. It was stopped while the operator rushed to fix jams, remove waste, solve problems and get the machine restarted.

Bucking the System

I got Buck’s point in a flash. There were no metrics—no opcodes (operation codes) for the inserter. It was without metrics of any sort—no measurement—no control! Shades of 1980—unbelievable today. The envelope inserter was without any operation codes and, therefore, totally without predictability. Yet there it was. I was seeing it live in February of 2006. Where’s my soapbox of 25 years ago? I’m ready to go again. We just don’t live that way any more. It was like seeing a Model T next to you at a stop light. You’re pleased that it’s still operating, but you certainly wouldn’t want to drive it any distance.

Operation Codes are a vital metric in establishing the efficiency of a production system within a commercial printing plant. That’s a given. Or at least I had thought that it was until Buck opened my eyes to the envelope inserter operation.

Technology has a way of shifting our operational focus. Thirty years ago we spent a lot of our effort on typesetting, composition, separations, stripping, layout, film preparation—the prepress or front end of the process. Today that has shrunk, and is shrinking still. Not too long ago I recall the debate was hot about the need for computer labeling on the bindery lines. Now that debate is over—the computer driven ink-jet is omnipresent in the bindery.

Now the question (if any) is about installation of special packaging machinery, cartoning equipment, envelope inserters, in the commercial printing plant. The focus has shifted from front end to finishing the product for delivery. And that’s as it should be, isn’t it? Don’t think so? Have you checked your mailbox today? Your UPS or FedEx package?

To the extent that we install automation to facilitate delivery of our commercial printed product (and we must) we need to have the metrics, the operation codes, to measure the efficiencies of these processes. This is what Buck was hitting me with. We can’t stop with small triumphs in the pressroom and bindery. Now we must develop metrics for these other finishing machines. Process efficiency doesn’t stop at one point!

What are the metrics? What stopped the machine? The machine itself? Why? The operator? Why? We need these numbers for any machine in the printing or finishing process, not just press or bindery.

Then we proceed to analyze those numbers—perhaps developing additional classifications as needed. We group ’em, do various statistical things or tricks with ’em, and all the while we’re trying to wring clues—inferences—from ’em that will help us learn their cause.

If we can learn the causes, then engineers, like Buck, or maybe our own clever people, can develop fixes that will stop the stops! These will result in system changes that improve efficiency.

Always hold in mind that our statistical techniques—our bag of tricks—have different rules that apply for their validity. For example, process performance charts (sometimes called XmR charts) work only with historic sequential data—data that hasn’t been sorted for any purpose. But with operation code analysis we don’t necessarily want historic sequential ordering.

Beware that you don’t apply wrong statistical rules to otherwise right data or vice versa. Different strokes for different folks. I think this is what I may not have made clear in last November’s article about the termination of a database.

Serving a Purpose

The original purpose of our database of web press operations was to provide comparative benchmarking of web press waste and speeds. True, we used certain parts of the operation code data recorded by the Autocounts from the contributing presses. But closing that database was simply giving up on the idea of providing comparative benchmarking between companies as a useful task. We did not, by any means, wish to negatively reflect on the usefulness of the collection of operation code data for machine operation.

To all our friends in the commercial printing business, if you’re not collecting operating code data on your machine processes, of whatever sort, start now. Today. Until you measure you cannot control. We must improve our production efficiency.

—ROGER V. DICKESON

About the Author
Roger Dickeson is a printing consultant located in Pasadena, CA. He can be reached at rogervd@sbcglobal.net. A PDF copy of his recent book, Monday Morning Manager, is available without charge by e-mail request.