“When you consider that overall equipment efficiency estimates for other UK-based manufacturing industries are between 60-70%, and that worldwide best practice can touch 85%, it’s clear that we’re under-performing. The tools may be in place, but their usage is below par. While investing in new systems can boost productivity, there’s also a ready-made solution on the shop floor, where attention to existing process and materials flow can lead to a significant improvement at very little cost.”

Many printers are victims of their own success. As the business grows, so does the operating plant. But site buildings are finite; equipment tends to be sited where there’s space rather where it makes best sense. It’s growth by default rather than by design, with the net result of manpower coping within prevailing constraints rather than adding value to the product.

The option of developing a purpose-built site with contingency for future expansion is open only to the fortunate few: most printers will have coveted Prinovis’s £115m gravure site in Liverpool. But it doesn’t follow that there aren’t other ways open for any firm to improve efficiency by addressing the layout of its factory.

Material gains
“Our goal is to process material as seldom as possible,” says Prinovis managing director Bob Robinson. “You don’t make any money handling waste or shifting things around. It’s just a cost to the business.”
Prinovis takes delivery of 160,000 tonnes of paper each year by trucks under an “almost” just-in-time principle with only four or five days’ storage. Once the paper hits the presses there are only three places it can go: finished product; semi-finished product; or waste.

“We’re subject to the same price pressures, transportation and material costs that all printers are, so we’re being squeezed at both ends,” Robinson says. “A streamlined workflow can give us some flexibility on pricing.”

Most printers tend to group processes together because it seems logical. However, that doesn’t take into account the detrimental impact of moving material around, and the ensuing difficulty in maintaining control. As volumes increase then it’s important to line up processes to be product- and customer-orientated, says ViP process improvement team leader Matthew Peacock. “This grouping of processes has enormous benefits across the whole operation,” he says.

Apart from the obvious logistical benefits – not least a reduced reliance on forklift trucks – grouping processes opens the door to multi-skilling (a press minder who can also set up a binder, for instance)
and encourages a sense of collective responsibility.

What makes an integrated workflow really count, however, is that it directly addresses bottlenecks that are disruptive to production and diminish the bottom line. And it cuts the unproductive time that staff spend simply walking between their centres of operation.

Most printers, says Peacock, are aghast to discover that in the course of an ordinary shift, a press minder on a six-colour press can walk as much as three or four miles – just taking in the ordinary stops of control desk, feed end, delivery and each unit. ViP runs a programme called Desktop Factory, in which printers draw up a scale plan of their factory floor and plot the routes of their staff between machines and equipment desks. “It ends up looking like a mess of spaghetti, and it astonishes them just how much time is wasted by placing kit where there’s space, rather than where it’s needed,” Peacock says.

Peacock also cites the importance of engaging employees in the redesign process. “The staff are at the sharp end of working processes, and they’ll know exactly where the glitches are – whenever they need a densitometer it’s always on the other side of the press, for instance, or the fact that the warehouse doesn’t have a manned phone.” And even just asking them how they want to redesign their working space, he says, can lead to significant improvements in workforce morale.

Bottlenecks are not just a matter of sensibly siting those machines that follow each other in the production chain. It’s also a matter of gearing. “If your press can run at a rate of, say, 10,000 sheets an hour, but is then feeding into another production area where the rate is 8,000 an hour, the obvious consequence is that you’ll end up with a build-up of material between the two processes,” explains Peacock. “It might be contrary to what we’re taught, but gearing the overall process to the slower rate gets the most efficient throughput.”

Identifying bottlenecks
Around one-third of workflow issues are in the office. Coleraine-based large-format print and marketing collateral specialist Zing Design invested in a ViP Snapshot and five-day Kickstart programme, only to discover that the real bottlenecks were not in the studio as had been supposed, but actually at the very front end where enquiries and jobs were being routed haphazardly through the overall process.

“Jobs tended to become invisible,” says Zing owner Russell Yates. “If someone was sick, we could lose sight of a job altogether. When we analysed it, we found that job cards could be in any of 34 different places. There’s now a strict routine. We know at any time where everything is. No extra employment was necessary, and very little cost was incurred.”

“Productivity is up by 45%, plus we’re about 8% ahead on sales. Not only do we have the confidence to look for more work, but we’re also clearer on the type of orders we want to fit our business model.”
Relocating to new premises can present a golden opportunity to streamline the workflow – one that Nottingham-based Sherwood Press seized three years ago when it extended into an adjacent building, doubling its production space to 2,6002 sqm.

“Whereas we’d effectively had two L-shaped plants facing each other, we were able to create a more efficient U-configuration,” says Sherwood managing director Jeremy Bacon. “Paper now comes in within 24 hours of a job going on press, and once printed moves straight to our ‘kanban squares’ for onward transit to finishing, and then warehouse and despatch.

“The actual movement of goods in our factory is quite minimal, because the work is being pushed through logically. It can appear as though there’s not a lot happening because you don’t see people rushing around moving pallets and things like that – none of which adds any value to your customer.”

There has been a 10% improvement through implementing ViP’s ‘5C’ exercise (clear out, clean and check, configure, conformity, and custom and practice), plus a further 10% thanks to its U-shaped workflow. But these haven’t come cheaply.

“We re-organised over a four-month period. We spent £330,000 on moving machines, installing new flooring and lighting throughout, and refurbishing the office and pre-press department. We’re looking at a two-year payback period, but compared with spend on capital equipment it still looks very good,” says Bacon.

Capacity where it’s needed
Oxford-based academic publishing printer the Alden Group relocated to a new site at nearby Witney in August 2006. Having adopted of a hotchpotch of technology since its original hot metal days, the move was the impetus for operations director Brian Jelf to streamline his sheetfed, folding and bindery processes within a 4,500 sqm space without pillars.

“Simply put, what we had were two rectangles – one on the left for the presses, and one on the right for bindery,” Jelf says. “To travel through folding, material had to come back before going forward. Now it’s a more natural flow. Paper comes in at the same end at which the final product goes out, having been pushed round in a ‘U’. The traffic flow of staff has reduced by 50%, and we’re less reliant on forklift trucks.”

He adds: “Work is going through the overall process faster, and we’re probably taking a day off a typical seven- to eight-day schedule. Above all, we’ve got greater visibility of the product as work in progress.”
Averaging around 90 jobs a week with many of them on a three- to five-day turnaround, Alden has also absorbed overtime back into the working week by replacing a Monday to Friday treble shift system with a Sunday afternoon to Saturday afternoon pattern.

“We’ve become more focused on how to minimise any possibility of creating a bottleneck,” says Jelf. “We now tend to do less splitting of jobs across machines and instead we’re using our capacity where it’s most needed, regardless of its capability. There is a danger in creating your own constraints about what’s the most efficient use of resource.”

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THE MAIN STEPS: A WELL-DESIGNED WORKFLOW
Industry best practice body Vision in Print reckons that almost every single printer in the country could benefit from a re-organised and streamlined shop floor. The key benefits are:
• Reduced lead times
• Minimised materials handling
• Simplified production planning and control
• Reduced inventory
• Optimised use of space
• Promotion of teamwork
• A workforce focused on product, not process

Within a structured process improvement programme, the first step is invariably a team simulation exercise, with each team member tasked to focus on specific aspects of how the overall workflow impacts on meeting a customer requirement.

Other key steps include grouping product families into ‘runners’ (regular work), ‘repeaters’ (regular but less predictable) and ‘strangers’ (infrequent or one-off jobs); developing a streamlined process for runners; and creating a facsimile factory layout that best suits the working practices of the individual firm by cutting down on staff and materials traffic.