Management experience: Eight of the most costly printing problems

When you mention waste, what do you think of? Most printers may think of paper, job preparation, drum damage, and loss of operation. But from a macro perspective, waste also includes time, materials, and everything that consumes resources but cannot create value for you. Therefore, in order to minimize waste, you must start with process optimization.

Table 1: Value-added services for a printing factory

Average production speed

Average cycle/item

Prepress proofing/printing plate

Four at a time

2400 seconds

Sheetfed printing

12,000 impressions/hour

0.30 seconds

Cutting

13,000 impressions/hour

0.28 seconds

folding

9000 print/hour

0.40 seconds

Collation/Binding/Cutting

8000 print/hour

0.45 seconds

package

Job Package

600 seconds (10 minutes)

Total added time

30014 seconds

If you do not create value, it is wasting. When printers change the form and function of materials (printing, cutting, folding, collating and binding, etc.) or convert materials into printed products, they are providing value-added services to customers. As we saw in Table 1, the so-called “value added” is the behavior and activities that customers are willing to pay for you.

Understand non-value-added operations

Non-value-added (NVA) waste refers to equipment downtime, which consumes resources and adds no value to materials and processed products. Consumers don’t care or pay for these operations. Under normal circumstances, we can divide non-value-added waste into the following categories:

Defective products - they consume the company's time and raw materials, but they can not meet the customer's requirements. The waste generated from defective products includes employee time, materials, and equipment used to detect, classify, process, and rework defective products.

Overproduction - The manufacturing speed of the product is faster than the processing speed of the next program or exceeds the actual demand of the customer. The waste it produces includes a lot of raw materials, time, and inventory costs for the finished product.

Excess production will lead to a large number of semi-finished products and finished products in the factory, they will not only occupy the space and production time of other jobs, but also will become a bottleneck hindering the development of enterprises. In other words, they consume the space, capital, and human resources of the company, but they cannot bring any return to the company.

Waiting - Waste can also occur while waiting for other unfinished processes, including downtime, equipment failures, excessive job preparation and startup setup times, and detection of defective products. Other waiting periods that may cause waste include waiting for the transportation of raw materials and confirmation of information.

Talent waste - When employees' knowledge, skills, experience, and teamwork are not fully utilized, it is also a waste for the company. This kind of waste is usually caused by people's old ideas, indulging in office politics, boycotting reforms or resisting new ideas.

Waste of transportation - losses incurred when items, work in progress, and raw materials move inside the factory. People's time, equipment and material costs are all non-value added wastes, so everyone must remember that distance is your biggest enemy!

Lean production helps reduce print shop downtime

Inventory: The printing plant's inventory may include tens of thousands of dollars worth of materials and additional raw materials and space needed for work in process. If the printed product needs to be stored for a period of time before it is handed to the customer, the process of waiting for the customer to pay is also a waste for the printer. Let's say you originally spent a lot of money on buying discounted paper, but a lot of inventory may make you have no money to buy these low-priced products. In addition, inventory-related waste also includes debts borrowed to pay for the company's weekly and monthly expenses (employee salaries, health insurance, utilities, etc.).

Sports: Excessive and unnecessary sports and activities are also a waste. These include the time spent searching for tools and materials, the poor layout of the process, and the waste caused by outdated technology and harsh conditions.

Mechanical failures in equipment, errors in work components (production plans, work orders, proofs, etc.), and unqualified materials (paper, ink, paint, plates, etc.) may all cause people to put in more work. In addition, The lack of missing/unusable tools and equipment and the lack of team spirit among employees may also cause losses to the company.

Additional processing: refers to all acts that do not add value to the company. It may include additional time spent on processing jobs (excessive job preparation time), solving print quality problems and typographical issues; and additional labor caused by planning errors, material shortages and mechanical failures.

What is the real product delivery cycle?

What differs from everyone's traditional concept is that the actual product delivery cycle does not begin when the job appears on the production schedule. The scope of the delivery cycle is wider than it is and it covers the time required for all production and transportation activities (value added and non-value added). These processes and activities are called "value streams" or "factories" of printing plants.

Table 2 Print Shop Based on Value Stream Delivery Cycle

process

Average non-value added costs and time in inventory

Raw materials, paper, inks and coatings

6 days

print

1.5 days

Cutting

1.5 days

folding

2.5 days

Collation/Binding/Cutting

2 days

Packaging and Transportation

1 day

Total days

14.5 days=1252800 seconds

The ratio of value-added and non-value-added time = 1:417

The delivery cycle based on the value stream starts from the payment of the printer and the receipt of raw materials, and continues until the customer pays for the product received. From Table 2 we can see that the time cost of this production cycle is very high.

So, what are the factors that affect the printing plant's non-value-added waste? The first is the support of corporate leaders and employees who are responsible for ensuring the accuracy and functioning of all information, materials, tools, instruments and equipment (presses, cutters, folders, collating machines, etc.).

Pre-conversion should be a process of excellence. The goal of the operators is to make the equipment run efficiently, produce high-quality products, and meet customer requirements for printing quality, quantity, and delivery time. Effective procurement and pre-conversion can minimize non-value added waste in production.

The printing production process can only be effective if the product can meet the requirements of the customer; Lean production can help the user identify and reduce waste.

Lean production has three basic elements:

1, determine the customer's expectations.

2. Assess the capabilities of the printing plant - Can this printer meet or exceed the customer's expectations?

3. Determine what is needed in the job production process. We can divide the production process into X inputs and Y outputs. X investment creates value through a series of actions (printing, cutting, folding, collating, binding, packaging, etc.).

The X investment covers everything needed for production output, including people (knowledge, skills and attitudes), equipment, materials, information, supplies, methods, tasks, actions, measures, measurements (process control, quality and performance) and environment ( Temperature, humidity, brightness, production layout, and cleaning).

The Y output is the value stream that internal and external customers want. If the X investment is not controlled well, then the Y output will not meet the customer's expectations and requirements.

The basic Y output includes competitive prices, acceptable quality, reasonable number of jobs, and timely and accurate delivery services.

Effective support actions can help people find the problem. If the same problem is often mentioned, it means that there are errors in the production process. We must take immediate corrective and preventive measures to optimize the production process.

Find the weakest link

Identifying "weak links" in the operational value stream can help printers increase production and reduce non-value added waste. We should pay attention to starting from the shipment and tracking the upstream links such as post-press processing, printing, prepress, evaluation and planning. Remember that the process is always more important than the result.

Finding WIP inventory or bottlenecks

Conduct a technical and production evaluation to determine if the plant's equipment and processes meet the manufacturer's requirements and industry regulations. In addition, this assessment also helps us to identify the constraints in actual production.

Develop and analyze a value flow diagram. This lean production tool mainly relies on process and inventory data to determine the actual weaknesses.

Optimization - Use lean tools to optimize production, reduce wait and downtime, compress turnarounds and setup processes, speed up production cycles and reduce errors and equipment damage.

Take all measures to optimize weak links and operations. But these measures must be based on data and information, not personal preferences.

Deploy personnel and increase the emphasis on weak links.

Do not create new weaknesses from the beginning of the search.

Lean management is the use of systematic methods to eliminate various forms of waste and non-value-added behavior. All acts that cannot add value to print or print services are a waste. The goal of lean production can only be achieved through continuous value-added.

Everyone must be aware of the dangers of non-value added waste and production bottlenecks, and create the necessary sense of urgency to overcome these difficulties and optimize the production process. In short, reducing non-value added behavior can bring a very substantial return to the printer.