Mailing Systems Technology - February 2008 - (Page 22)

Management More Improve your inserting throughput with zero capital investment By Mike Porter re you looking for a way to improve productivity in your inserting operation? Okay, that’s a dumb question — who wouldn’t want improved productivity? It allows you to meet SLAs better, gives you more time for quality control, frees up capacity for accepting more work and might even lower your labor costs. Mail center managers are always looking for ways to push more mail through the shop on every shift. There are many ways to accomplish this: better scheduling, more efﬁcient material movement, more operators, more equipment or faster machines, etc. An area that is frequently overlooked is the envelopes used in the shop. While the other measures can certainly make a difference and may be appropriate steps to take in some situations, improvements in envelopes are something that can make a big difference with little or no cost. How Envelopes Are Related to Productivity Fixing problems with materials often results in improvements that exceed the performance bumps that you can expect from the investments in new hardware — with little or productivity, less expense A no expense. The key to higher productivity is keeping the inserter running at the highest speed manageable. Anything that stops the machine on a repetitive basis is going to have a big impact on the throughput statistics. Poorly running envelopes have opportunities to cause problems in multiple places during the inserting operation: Envelope feeding, insertion of material, ﬂap opening, ﬂap closing, sealing, metering and stacking. Operations managers have a tendency to blame the equipment ﬁrst for the downtime that takes a big chunk out of the ﬁnishedpieces-per-hour statistics. But, in fact, there are many factors that can have an effect on those numbers. The machinery itself is one factor, but often the envelopes running on them could very well be the real problem. When you do decide to invest in higher speed inserting equipment, the demands put upon the envelopes are even greater. Not all envelopes are designed for the stresses of a highspeed environment. In fact, some managers have experienced initial disappointment in their new equipment because the output is actually LESS than their old machine — at least until they work out the material problems and their operators become more efﬁcient at setting up and running the machine. 22 FEBRUARY 2008 | WWW.MAILINGSYSTEMSTECHNOLOGY.COM http://www.MailingSystemsTechnology.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Mailing Systems Technology - February 2008

Mailing Systems Technology - February 2008 Contents Editor’s Note Peer to Peer How to Green Your Mail Center Adopting an Automated Document Factory Warning! Avoid Negative Financial Impact More Productivity, Less Expense BCC Software Formscan A Smooth Transition Kate’s Slate Products & Services Advertiser Index Sho Time

Mailing Systems Technology - February 2008

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