Business News
Survey Shows That Print Is Getting Lean
Thursday 22. May 2008 - More than three-fourths (77%) of North American printing company managers have heard or read about Lean manufacturing. About two-thirds of those managers are familiar with the concepts and techniques of Lean manufacturing, and about 40 percent of printing companies are using Lean manufacturing tools to improve business performance.
These are among the conclusions suggested by a recent survey conducted by Printing Industries of America/Graphic Arts Technical Foundation (PIA/GATF) and Point Balance, LLC.
Lean manufacturingoften simply called “Lean”is the term used to describe the management and production methodologies that were originally developed by the Toyota Motor Corporation. Lean focuses on avoiding and eliminating the seven wastesdefective products, overproduction, excessive work-in-process inventory, over-processing, unnecessary movement of people, unnecessary movement of products, and waiting. In the late 1980s, many U.S. companies, primarily in the automotive industry, began to implement Lean practices in order to narrow the productivity gap with their Japanese competitors.
Interest in Lean manufacturing among printing company managers has been growing for several years. Attendance at the PIA/GATF Continuous Improvement Conferencewhich offers a slate of Lean-related topicshas surged in recent years. In June 2007, PIA/GATF formed its Center for Lean Practices, and workshops conducted by the Center have been extremely well attended. The PIA/GATF/Point Balance survey represents the first major effort to describe the use of Lean manufacturing by graphic communications companies in a quantitative way.
In addition to measuring the overall familiarity with and use of Lean manufacturing, the survey identifies what specific Lean tools printing companies are using, which tools have been the most beneficial, and which tools have been difficult to implement and use. The introduction of Lean manufacturing practices often creates a need for new business performance measures, and therefore the survey also identifies what performance metrics Lean printing companies are using.
“Its not surprising that printing managers identified 5S as providing the greatest benefit of the 13 tools and techniques we asked them about,” said Jim Workman, PIA/GATFs vice president of training. “What is surprising is that roughly half of the Lean users said they have applied Lean tools and techniques to their non-manufacturing areas.”
The PIA/GATF/Point Balance survey clearly reveals that printing company managers view Lean manufacturing as important for the future. Sixty-two percent of survey respondents said that Lean manufacturing is “very important” or “critical” to the future success of their companies.
Commenting on the importance of Lean manufacturing, Point Balance principal G. David Dodd said, “The essence of Lean manufacturing is an all-out attack on waste and a relentless drive to improve productivity. Its no secret that printing companies must continuously improve productivity in order to survive and prosper, and therefore its not surprising that our survey revealed a high level of interest in Lean. The real challenge for printing company managers is to determine which of the traditional Lean tools will work well in a printing company setting and which ones will need to be modified or adapted in order to be effective.”