The event, titled 'Winning the War on Waste', was chaired by Mike Hancock, former managing director of industry research body Pira International and featured a keynote speech by Lord Heseltine, chairman of PrintWeek publisher Haymarket Media Group.
A raft of subjects were covered at the event last Monday (22 November) including getting the most from your workflow, ensuring maximum benefit from ISO 12647/2 colour management, effective waste management and making paper supply work for you. However, the overriding theme of the day was the critical importance of engaging with staff to implement change.
One of the highlights was Label Apeel managing director Stuart Kellock's frank presentation on the company's lean journey, supported by ViP, which began seven years ago when customer complaints and rework at the firm were "endemic".
According to Kellock: "Back then waste was just accepted, in fact it was more than that, it was celebrated. We had little control on anything."
In his engaging presentation, delivered jointly with operations director Joe Bennaton, he admitted that the business was in "a tailspin" in 2003 with turnover per employee around £48,000, compared to £100,000 plus today.
He revealed that communication across the business had improved dramatically, thanks to ViP, structured training for the workforce with a local college and a wholesale cultural shift at the firm. He highlighted that without the structural change and a refocus on monitoring metrics that he and the Label Apeel team implemented it was unlikely that the firm would have survived a 40% drop in sales in November 2008 that "nearly sank the business".
"Lean is a journey with no end… my advice to anyone embarking on any form of improvement is really think about what you want to achieve, what you need to measure and make sure you measure the outcomes of any actions you take," said Kellock.
Other speakers at the event included Howitt managing director Vincent Gidley, ESP Colour managing director Anthony Thirlby, Mike Owens, general manager of Benson Box, GI Solutions chief executive Robin Welch and Steve Whitehead, operations director of Newsprinters Broxbourne.
ViP event extols the virtues of lean
More than 130 delegates heard valuable insights into how effective waste control and lean manufacturing techniques can mean the difference between a business failing or flourishing at last week's Vision in Print (ViP) annual conference.
