e views - January 2009 - (Page 20)

These two factors illustrate that the project must be part of a wider strategic vision sponsored by key staff, with budget set aside, and a willingness to work with suppliers who can help to make the vision a reality. Lean and simple—five initiatives to consider Is your production process truly an end-to-end workflow, or has it grown organically with many different composition tools across different server installations, feeding different printer types (with different PDLs), and on to different insertion technologies? If we were starting from scratch, applying lean principles to the workflow would be simple, but we live in the real world and you probably need to look at phasing in improvements rather than taking a ‘big bang’ approach. Below are five initiatives which will help your customers become leaner (and greener): Improve output consistency—enhancing the look and feel of your documents. How much time is wasted changing stock? How much money is spent by not using both sides of the paper? What potential savings could be gained by ensuring bar codes and address blocks are in the same place? BT reduced the number of stationery lines from 50 down to just five, consolidated to only two envelope types, and was able to standardise all document types to walksort mailing discounts. Increase equipment utilisation—sweating your assets a little bit harder. We all know that down time costs money, so optimising your printer output and the throughput on your inserters can be enormously beneficial. Streamlining your production process so that decisions on load balancing can be made at point of print, rather than at the point of merging the data, is a simple, but effective way to improve the flexibility of your production and inserter platforms. RR Donnelley has saved an average of 10 hours per week in their re-webbing process—increasing their capacity by over 1,000,000 documents. As well as the hardware, review your software licenses. It is still common to find that customers only use 20 percent of their technological capabilities, due to unfulfilled plans, poor training, knowledge loss, and incompatibility. If a human touches it, throw it away. This concept may seem at odds with reducing wastage—however we have found time and time again that manual intervention not only dramatically increases the probability of error, but is costlier in the long-term. However, to enable the cost-effectiveness of such a procedure you will need to ensure that you have a lean reprint process that will quickly and economically correct such errors. Nationwide has far greater control over its error rates, which have fallen dramatically since moving from a manual system six years ago. Reduce the number of inserts. I can feel your finance managers flinch as they calculate the impact of this on your VAT exemption rates, but with the rate reduced (at least for now), the environmental impact of impersonal correspondence being questioned, and potential mailing cost savings, this option often makes financial sense. By transferring marketing messages onto personalised correspondence (e.g. TransPromo), not only do you reduce the marginal costs of producing, storing, and managing inserts, but you also reduce the risk of mechanical failure within the insertion process and offer your marketers a greater opportunity of increasing their response rates. DSTI, who are amongst the industry’s leaders in terms of lean production techniques, have encouraged and enabled their customers (including some of the most popular store-card brands and telecom companies) to use onserts very effectively. Extend the proofing process beyond the production line. How many times has a job been pulled after printing, because something basic such as the letterhead, branding, or regulatory messaging, are not correct? How much time is spent waiting for a signatory to sign off the final proof? And how much extra time do they spend travelling to your site? By enabling the business owner to view a print-ready file and allowing them to make changes to the content of their (pre-defined) portion of the document, Nationwide has improved the speed of its approval process and enhanced the value of the communication. While the complexities, challenges, and difficulties encountered in applying the above improvements differ greatly from one customer to another, ultimately the improvements have all been implemented successfully, are being actively managed, have delivered against business cases, and are reviewed on an ongoing basis. These projects, or other quick wins that you identify, should not be seen as a way of turning you lean overnight, it is important that you always look to improve—particularly in your area of greatest weakness. “It's only the last turn of a bolt that tightens it—the rest is just movement.” Shigeo Shingo Approaching lean improvements It is important that any lean project is sponsored by a senior member of your organisation and that the project is then pro-actively managed to ensure success. You should always follow tried and tested project management methodology, which should incorporate the following stages to optimise your chances of success: • Define the requirements of all stakeholders and understand their expectations. • Measure the current process in terms of what it costs, the time taken at each stage, the frequency of defects, and the number of resources required, etc. • Analyse the data that you have captured and identify the areas in most need of improvement and/or those easiest to fix and get a quick return from. Once completed, work with the sponsor and stakeholders to prioritise and plan the project in more detail. • Improve the process by executing and delivering the plan. • Control the delivery and ensure that the benefits are sustainable. Ensure training is effective and durable; agree and manage Key Performance Indicators; and review the effectiveness of (or that part of) the process continuously. Concluding—Lean is good Although the theories and ‘management speak’ of lean manufacturing can be some what confusing and academic in their reasoning, the fundamental rationale underlying lean production methodologies has not changed that much since Henry Ford established best practices in the automotive industry and FW Taylor, the father of time and motion studies, wrote about Scientific Management. Take away the unimportant things and you will be left with what you want and need. Focus on these, and your productivity will improve. You do not need textbooks or consultants to understand where you should improve, though you may need them to understand how to improve; and you will not need complex tools and methodologies to effect that improvement, though you will need subject matter expertise. You will, however, need a commitment to making that improvement, and a desire to ensure that the improvement will last. For more information on Sefas’ approach to lean production, view www.sefas.com Giles Hill Managing Director UK & Northern Europe Sefas Innovation Limited ghill@sefas.com “If your organisation has willingness and ambition, it will become leaner; if not, then no number of tools, concepts, or methodologies will allow you to deliver Lean improvements.” 20 e• views Journal, Xplor UK & Ireland Edition Issue 7 January 2009 http://www.sefas.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of e views - January 2009

e views - January 2009 Contents Technology Management Creating a Print Intelligent Enterprise The Future of Broadband Connectivity: @ 320 kph? TPE Master Class Cover Story TransPromo and the Credit Crunch Xplor Europe News Service Directory

e views - January 2009

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