Lean Manufacturing in Package Printing Operations

By Tom Polischuk

A second key requirement—since Lean is a structured approach—is to get expertise from the outside to guide the process. InteliCoat brought in a number of consultants to help develop the implementation steps and to train all the employees.

Weiss reports that a key culture-change practice that resulted from the outside support revolved around the 5S philosophy—Simplify, Straighten, Scrub, Stabilize, Self Discipline. It involves everyone in the waste-elimination process on a day-to-day basis. “Our process involves, ‘train-do, train-do’, and each month, more employees have hands-on training and achieve improvements in productivity and elimination of waste in their areas of work using Lean tools and practices,” he says.