Business Management - Productivity/Process Improvement

PITTSBURGH—October 5, 2007—Printing managers from companies across the country recently traveled to the Pittsburgh, PA headquarters of PIA/GATF to attend the inaugural presentation of Lean Manufacturing for Print Managers. This three-day program, one of the industry’s first on the topic, showed printers how to apply the fundamental concepts of Lean for faster turnaround, fewer defects, and lower costs. Attendees learned the eight sources of waste, the use of various Lean tools, strategies for overcoming barriers, and what “living Lean” means for management. It also gave attendees the unique opportunity to participate in a simulated printing plant and measure productivity increases from Lean tools such as

EARLIER THIS year, The Industry Measure, an industry research firm, sent uncomfortable ripples throughout the printing industry when it released a report stating that adoption of Web-to-print had stalled among print providers. While clearly, Web-to-print has not stalled among corporate users—in fact, adoption in this marketplace is accelerating—the fact that the momentum has largely (if not entirely) switched sides has raised a lot of questions. According to “Web-to-Print: A Service Provider’s Perspective” (The Industry Measure, 2007), approximately one-quarter of print providers now offer some kind of Web-to-print solution, whether as a static online store, for creating customized/personalized documents, or for creation and dissemination

PITTSBURGH—September 19, 2007—The Board of Directors of the Printing Industries of America/Graphic Arts Technical Foundation (PIA/GATF) passed a major Key Initiative concerning sustainability during its last Board Meeting. As a result, PIA/GATF has joined with the Specialty Graphic Imaging Association (SGIA) and the Flexographic Technical Association (FTA) to form one central location for information on sustainable, “green” printing activities. Recently within the printing industry, the importance placed on the level of a company’s “environmental friendliness” has increased dramatically. Many printers are facing a growing number of inquires regarding sustainable printing practices, and according to a recent survey conducted by PIA/GATF, over 90 percent of

DAYTON, OH—August 28, 2007—WorkflowOne announced today that its Goshen, Ind. plant passed a milestone last month, marking one million man-hours - more than four years - without a lost-time accident. The Goshen facility joins over 20 other WorkflowOne plants and warehouses that have gone more than a year without a lost-time accident. WorkflowOne is a leading provider of print and promotional products and supply chain management services across the U.S. The Goshen plant manufactures labels, business forms and other printed items that help organizations operate more efficiently. “Employee safety is a major focus at WorkflowOne,” said Mark Harper, manager of environmental, health, safety and security

PITTSBURGH—June 13, 2007—Printing Industries of America/Graphic Arts Technical Foundation (PIA/GATF), the world’s largest graphic arts trade association, has announced the appointment of graphic arts industry veteran Eric Neumann as research manager in the organization’s research department. In his new role, Neumann will be responsible for managing the various research efforts and projects the organization performs for its customers, including product development and on-press testing, as well as marketing those services to others in the industry. “Eric’s addition to our team emphasizes the rigor with which we do our research and testing and highlights our department’s high level of professionalism and expertise,” says Dr. Mark Bohan, vice

PITTSBURGH—June 7, 2007—The Printing Industries of America/Graphic Arts Technical Foundation (PIA/GATF) announced the formation of a Center for Lean Practices to assist members with the implementation of Lean Manufacturing practices. The Center will provide consulting, training, publications, and a speaker’s bureau. The association reports that printers are increasingly recognizing the power of applying quality systems to their operations in an effort to reduce defects, expose wasted resources, and improve throughput. Lean Manufacturing is one way for members to meet client demands for faster turnaround, and stay cost competitive while protecting profit margins, according to PIA/GATF. Lean’s focus on driving out waste is also seen as

HEIDELBERG, GERMANY—04/23/2007—The Print Media Academy (PMA) of Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg) offers tips from professionals for professionals, providing all print shop staff with fast, straightforward support in overcoming problems when printing. The tips, in the form of a booklet, also help prevent potential printing problems before they occur. The latest issue, “Rollers in Inking and Dampening Systems” includes features on adjusting inking and dampening units, shore hardness, roller maintenance, and adjusting the ink sweep of the rollers. All technical terms are explained clearly so that even printers with limited experience can easily understand them. “Profi Tip” is a free guide by the Print Media Academy. Issues

AS GRAPHIC communications professionals, we must work within a global supply chain. In today’s industry, is that a problem? Not all the time. But, even under the best conditions, there can be slight alterations in the chain, particularly with regard to material composition, that will create minor glitches or delays that affect the quality of the projects that come off-press—or, at least, the costs and the timing involved in moving those projects through the printing process. It’s the graphic communications version of the Butterfly Effect, also known as the Chaos Theory, which holds that a small change in the manufacture of one component in, say, China,

The Printer’s Hidden Factory of Waste
Ken Rizzo, PIA/GATF Director, Consulting Resource Group



Typically waste is thought of in the context of paper waste, such as makeready waste, roll slab waste, print waste, etc. However, according to Lean Practices, Waste is the $$$ cost of time and materials that consume resources, but don’t add any actual value to the product, or result in product that is unacceptable to the customer. These waste activities are also known as non-value-added activities. There are Eight Issues of Waste in what is known as the Hidden Factory.



Waste from Overproduction: Overproduction is when the amount produced by one process is more than the next process needs or can handle. The result is large amounts of product spending long periods of time in WIP. Typical symptoms of overproduction include pulling jobs off a machine in the middle of a production run to make room for another job, production overtime that customers don’t pay for, large amounts of floor space clogged with skids of WIP, process bottlenecks, and warehouses filled with finished goods inventory.



Waste from Waiting: Processes and people waiting for other processes to complete activities, the curse of downtime, machine breakdowns, and failures are all non-value-added waste.



Waste from Unnecessary Transporting: The time spent and extra equipment utilized to frequently valet tooling, materials, and WIP loads around the plant is non-value-added waste.



Over-Processing Waste: The extra time spent on processing jobs due to long equipment changeover (makeready), continually quick-fixing quality-related print problems, redundant actions and activities required due to poor job planning, inadequate materials, and sudden mechanical problems from substandard press and equipment conditions.



WIP and Inventory Waste: The cost of floor space, associate time and materials waiting in queues for further processing, and warehousing finished goods prior to delivery to customers then waiting for payment is waste.



Waste of Motion: Includes time spent searching for and retrieving tooling and materials, process layout poor, waste from component installation and settings due to outdated technology and poor component conditions; waste from increased adjustments due to poor operation of equipment mechanisms, quick-fix quality activities due to unacceptable materials (paper, ink, coating, plates, etc.) and job components (production schedule, job tickets, and proofs, etc.), lack of poorly functioning tools and equipment, lack of teamwork and process organization.



Waste from Product Defects: Time and materials wasted producing defective product. Waste from product defects includes employee time spent, materials, and equipment utilized inspecting and sorting defective product, and in identifying and handling non-conforming product.



Waste of People: Includes not utilizing people’s mental, creative, and teamwork abilities. Waste through the existence of antiquated thinking, department politics, resistance to change (not invented here), fear of repercussions to new ideas from a not-invented-here culture, lack of timely feedback, poor hiring practices poor, and little or no investment in effective training.



Non-value-added activities are where we must target our process improvement initiatives to reduce costs, eliminate waste, and increase capacity. Once non-value-added activities are identified and defined, we can really begin our quest in the elimination of true waste and spoilage. Remember, waste and spoilage are like Hidden Inventories; they are costs that we will never be reimbursed by our customers.



“With market pressures to reduce prices, printers today have no choice but to reduce and control all their costs”



Ken Rizzo, PIA/GATF Director of Consulting.
PIA/GATF Consulting Resource Group

Are you overlooking a strategic business issue? You may be, if you are not involved in the development of standards that may impact your business. Because technical participation in standards development generally yields direct and measurable progress that can be tied to a company’s “bottom line” financials, such participation is easily justified. A study conducted in Europe in 1997- 2000 showed that industrywide standards not only have a positive effect on the economy as a whole, but also provide benefits for individual businesses that use them as strategic market instruments. In today’s market, a company cannot wait until a standard has been published to begin to