Toyota Motor Corp. has given manufacturers in all fields—and all over the world—a model of efficient, value stream production. While producing automobiles is quite a different thing than producing printed materials, much can be learned from Toyota’s philosophy. The Toyota system originally identified seven sources of waste:
- Transport: Moving product between processes adds no value. Space should be carefully planned to avoid unnecessary transport, which adds cost, wastes time and risks product damage and personal injury.
- Inventory: All component materials, work in process and finished product that is not being processed. Excess inventory increases lead times, consumes floor space, and delays the identification of process problems.
- Motion: Similar to transport, motion examines whether people are moving more than is required to perform the processing, which wastes time and risks personal injury.
- Waiting: Any delay before the next production step. Typically, more than 95% of a product’s life in traditional batch-and-queue manufacturing will be spent waiting to be processed. Think “production bottlenecks.”
- Overproduction: Production ahead of demand. Overproduction creates excessive lead times, results in higher storage costs, and makes it difficult to detect defects.
- Over-Processing: Processing beyond the standards required by the customer. Over-processing wastes time and materials and is not compensated for in the product price.
- Defects: The product deviates from what the customer has specified. Quality defects result in waste from rework and scrap, quarantining inventory, re-inspecting, rescheduling, and capacity loss.
To apply this to the print production environment, non-value-added elements often include: washup; color matching; waiting for stock or ink; mounting plates; registration; press adjustments; machine downtime; waiting for customers; changeover; horizontal or vertical preparation; meetings; finding tools and other materials.
Many of these problems—though not all of them—are centered on the pressroom and press equipment. Pressroom staff can help identify exactly what part of the production cycle, or even which machine, is the source of the difficulties. In many cases, the technologies available today have automated the more time and labor-intensive printing processes and can significantly streamline production as well as improve the quality of the finished work. Investing in new equipment may, in the long run, dramatically improve your value stream and profitability.
However, not all of the waste takes place in the pressroom. Some challenges may be solved only by working with vendors, in the case of just-in-time delivery of materials, or with customers, by consulting with their creative staff while the job is still under development, and then agreeing on a production schedule that you both can live with.
Perfection is more of a journey than a destination. It’s important to stay well-informed about new technologies and also how they can be used optimally, if at all, in your company. For even more detailed and practical information about creating your company’s value stream, please download our Executive White Paper, “Driving Efficiencies in Your Print Business.”