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The recent furore over Wikileaks and its disclosure of sensitive information is the latest in a long line of news stories regarding the release or withholding of information from within the corridors of power and the outraged reactions to that.

And you might think that, on a basic, real-life, print company level, this has no relevance. But it does.

You see, in order to have a truly effective business you have to have everyone involved in that business singing from the same hymn sheet. For that to happen, they need to be able to see that sheet in all its melodic intricacy. This means opening those corridors of power and letting the workforce have a good look around. But rather than something to fear, as the various world authorities seem to view it, for print this is a beneficial process – after all, no-one knows how the print business works better than those integral to its continued operation.

This ‘open house’, free flow of information is the thinking behind ‘lean transformation’, the process of ironing out inefficiencies in all areas of a business to boost productivity and working practice. It’s something Eclipse Colour Print fully embraced eventually, but it took a few attempts to get to grips with the right way of going about it.

Managing director Simon Moore explains that the first attempt came around eight years ago when they tried it out with a single department.

"We probably didn’t give it the dedicated management time it needed," explains Moore. "However, the people that went through the process found it useful at the time and still use some of the things they learned, but we didn’t transfer those skills to the rest of the department as we should have done."

A second attempt was made four years later, this time the stimulus being a new web press and, again, rather than the whole business being involved, they kept it to the relevant department. The thinking this time was that the staff should be able to drive the changes, free from management intervention. Although there was some success, without a key management figure directing operations, momentum was lost and the process gradually dropped off.  

Moving forward
It was not until 2009, spurred on by a VIP Lean Snapshot, that everything came together. The snapshot revealed that the two previous attempts had left an impressive mark, but that there was a lot more that could be achieved. The snapshot assessed Eclipse in the 14 key areas of lean practice, from asset management to something called dynamic communication.

"After going through the snapshot, we realised we were in a very good position in comparison to other printers in the UK," explains Moore. "We got some extremely high scores compared to our peers, achieving two ‘world class’ scores, which meant a lot, because out of around 520 snapshots they have conducted, they have only given around 15 world class scores. However, in a few other areas we were on the cusp of world class so we decided to work with VIP to improve these areas."

And taking this process further meant a culture change. This time around Moore was insistent that everyone in the company, not just one department, was involved and that every person knew they had a role to play in the common goals of the business. This meant sharing information from his side of the fence, but also tapping into the wealth of knowledge on the other side.

"We wanted people to understand what the common goal was for the business and for them to understand what impact they could have on performance figures," reveals Moore. "These guys work with the kit and the processes every day and we want to tap into that knowledge. That’s what VIP facilitates, it unlocks the knowledge and gives them the platform to take it forward."

First steps
VIP came in and took selected employees through a number of fact-finding tests and processes culminating in some classroom sessions. Out of this, they formulated a presentation for the Eclipse management team detailing their findings of where the company was and where they would like to go and what the cost of those improvements was.

"We took people from every department in the business for this, which was quite a big financial commitment," reveals Moore. "It’s not only the cost of the VIP process, paying for the engineers and the like, but it’s also the cost internally of having to release people from day-to-day jobs or bring them in out of hours to take part."

But he adds that the costs were more than worth it. The presentation confirmed the areas of improvement, while the staff responded well to the process, many being surprised at the impact they could have on the overall productivity of the business. Moore says many believed they were working at maximum but they learned that rather than harder, it was a question more of working smarter.

"I would say the costs are definitely justified," he explains. "The workforce is happier, as they are involved in the whole process on a much more integrated level. Our productivity has increased significantly in 2010 off the back of it. And, finally, we have been able to move ahead with a new investment in kit and a new factory knowing that we were properly fulfilling the capacity of our existing resources."

Moving forward, each head of department has KPIs that filter down to their staff and filter up to the overarching KPI for the company, with transparency at all times through a newly installed MIS. Moore has achieved the culture change he wanted and the investment has paid dividends not only in this but also in productivity gains. He says that you could avoid costs and do the work in-house, but that it would take a lot longer. VIP, he explains, has the industry specific experience of lean transformations so they have seen most of the obstacles companies encounter before. Solutions are tired and tested therefore and quick to implement. Bumbling around on your own costs both time and money for potentially no end result.

"VIP has given us the comfort of knowing where we were so we can properly work out where we are going in the future" concludes Moore. "We are working on factual information; it gives you the tools to get actual facts about what you are achieving and what you can achieve going forward."

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TOP TIPS: THE KEY TO SUSTAINING LEAN BENEFITS
Eclipse Colour Print is starting to see the full benefits of lean, from less waste on administration processes, to big increases on the bottom line and staff productivity.

Companies will enjoy improvements and short-term benefits from one-off programmes. However, this fails to tackle one of the hardest aspects of lean and that is to sustain the best practice created from a Lean Improvement Programme or lean project.

Lean programmes and projects are integral to the business objectives and strategy. To make the most out of the time needed, it is recommended these projects are conducted in an order that will deliver the greatest amount of benefit for the least amount of effort and cost (the quick wins). These benefits should also be supported and tracked by local and business KPIs.

As with any successful project, different skills are needed within a lean business or improvement team. The team should consist of a balance between process owners, senior member/sponsors and a ‘lean champion’ to provide lean know-how, drive and determination. Remember that motivating staff is imperative to driving and sustaining any progress made. KPIs must be used to demonstrate clear measureable benefits and celebrate successes with the team. 

Well implemented lean projects will enable accurate ROI calculations to be generated. There is investment required and more than just financial resource provision must be made to support lean improvement activity.

Projects will draw up actions and implementation plans. These must contain dates and team actions with deadlines. They can then be policed by the lean champion and the actions used as the basis of regular progress meetings.

Following the above guidelines will generate sustainable change and provide a stable platform to not only provide benefits in the short term, but more importantly give long-term progression.

VIP engineers can train your staff, sharing knowledge and tools to enable them to identify waste and inefficiencies. It will also give them the skills and confidence to challenge and improve their own working environment.

The most important resource in a business will always be its staff. If you are able to get them trained and motivated the end results will be substantial and sustainable.

Richard Danby is a senior engineer at Vision In Print

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COMMENT
What does lean mean to you? To many, it is a collection of tools and techniques, each of which can be applied to reduce costs and improve performance in some aspects of operations, particularly production. Fair enough, substantial cost savings and productivity gains with this limited understanding can be made. But the benefits of an integrated and determined approach to lean can be so much more than the sum of the parts. The end-result of a lean transformation is that every part of the organisation seeks to continuously improve customer service, reduce waste and increase productivity and so ultimately increase profit. 

Lean’s starting point is understanding what adds value for the customer. Sometimes this is not obvious, but when defined, it naturally drives continuous improvement in customer service. Understanding what adds value then enables any activity or resource consumed that does not add value to be identified as wasteful. Waste, in lean terms, includes over-production, inventory, over-processing, transportation, defective work, time and unnecessary activity. Lean can be seen as a set of tools to minimise all these forms of waste.

But the biggest potential waste is not fully using the skills, experience, knowledge and enthusiasm of employees. The great secret to lean techniques is that they make waste and inefficiency visible and so enable every employee to contribute to continuous improvement. Ultimately, lean transformation is about developing a culture in which every employee has two jobs: their routine role and their other responsibility to continuously improve business processes.
 
Matthew Peacock is managing engineer at Vision in Print