What’s Lean Mean? …

Lean Manufacturing has been an important topic for the package-printing industry (and all U.S. manufacturing, for that matter) for many years now. Printers have most likely engaged in Lean Manufacturing processes without even knowing it. Why? Because Lean is all about reducing/eliminating waste and improving productivity. Any business that hasn’t been seriously engaged in these activities is probably having a difficult time in today’s competitive landscape. When talking specifically about Lean Manufacturing, however, you are talking about a more formalized system, one derived from Japanese manufacturing successes and more specifically, from the Toyota Production System. When a company is implementing Lean concepts, it is probably engaged in just-in-time, value stream mapping, Kaizen events, 5S, or other waste-elimination processes with distinct nomenclature. In the end, however, the formalized nature of Lean Manufacturing offers the potential to produce results that are greater than what would be achieved with a less structured approach to productivity improvement.

packagePRINTING recently talked to two suppliers in the package-printing industry that have implemented Lean Manufacturing processes, and that have incorporated Lean thinking into their business cultures. Color Resolutions International (CRI, www.colorresolutions.com) supplies inks for a variety of packaging applications, while InteliCoat Technologies (www.intelicoat.com) is a supplier of coated paper, film, and specialty substrates for imaging technologies.

Getting started

There is a variety of reasons why companies will begin a such an effort. For CRI, it was the opportunity to incorporate Lean Manufacturing into a new facility expansion about seven years ago, reports George Sickinger, president and CEO. “We were embarking on building a new facility and wanted to incorporate Lean Manufacturing into the new facility. We had an ideal opportunity to implement the process from building design through the manufacturing process; it was the right thing to invest in,” he says.

InteliCoat Technologies began its Lean Manufacturing journey in November 2007, says Meyer Weiss, vice president, digital imaging. “After the sale of our Electronic Film Business, we were recommitted to being a 100-percent digital media business. As such, we needed a platform to drive customer value and the elimination of waste. Lean is that platform, not only in manufacturing, but throughout every aspect of the enterprise,” he says. As a vote of confidence from the State of Massachusetts, InteliCoat was awarded a grant of nearly $400,000 in 2008 to help fund its enterprise-wide Lean Manufacturing efforts.

There are two key factors required for a successful Lean Manufacturing effort. The first, and probably the most important, is support and commitment at the top of the organization. “Our CEO has led this effort,” says Weiss. “Without leadership at the top, the benefits of Lean cannot be fully realized.”

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.

At CRI, once the company moved into the new plant, Sickinger retained the services of TechSolve (www.techsolve.org), a company that specializes in identifying and eliminating constraints and log jams in business processes. TechSolve guided CRI into the Lean process starting with Value Stream Mapping, a tool that helps a company understand the process flow from order entry to shipping its product. “We then moved into Kaizen events, which helped reduce any inefficiencies in our processes,” he says.

According to Sickinger, the foundation of Kaizen consists of teamwork, personal discipline, improved morale, quality circles, and suggestions for improvement. “Out of this foundation arises elimination of waste and inefficiencies and the 5S framework for good housekeeping and standardization. We took that information and its processes across the company,” he says.

Employee impact

Most companies in today’s business environment know that their employees play a critical role in their success. That is why, especially with an all-engrossing effort such as Lean Manufacturing, it is imperative to have employees committed to its success and who do not see it as a threat.

“From the onset of Lean, we made it very clear that this improvement process was not designed to reduce head count,” says Sickinger. “What it does is turn redundant jobs into more highly productive jobs. -[Employees] understand this is a long-term improvement process and not a quick-change approach.”

Involvement of all employees is an important factor in Lean Manufacturing and to get the ball rolling, CRI provided offsite simulation training that Sickinger felt was particularly enlightening. “From our operators who mix our inks, to our lab technicians, office personnel, and sales reps, they worked together in a classroom setting to understand how Lean is applied,” he says.

After the practice runs, CRI moved the implementation to the operation. “We then provided opportunities for our team members to join improvement teams,” continues Sickinger. “They became comfortable expressing ideas and understanding goals and became active in 5S. It has become very natural to look for opportunities for improvement and our people are at ease when communicating their ideas.”

At InteliCoat, all of the employees have been involved in the Lean effort in some capacity. “The program training started with the senior management team, then trickled down until every employee at every level of the company understood and participated in the Lean initiative,” says Weiss.

All of the company’s employees are participating in the 5S program, with internal competition set up with the different work areas for the best achievement of 5S. In addition, Weiss says Kaizen events are held periodically to identify ways to become more efficient in specific areas or functions within departments. “Ten week-long Kaizens have taken place during the past 15 months with the operators making up the bulk of the Kaizen teams. These teams have improved processes and eliminated millions of dollars of waste,” he reports.

Weiss credits the employees with making sure that Lean Manufacturing is more than a “program of the month” and incorporating it into the company culture. He especially recognizes the role the union has played. “For our union employees in particular, it is clear that the Lean culture is saving jobs and making us more competitive. The union leadership has welcomed Lean and has been fully engaged in promoting the benefits to the employees and the company,” he says.

Benefits all around

For companies such as CRI and InteliCoat Technologies that are well along the way to implementing Lean Manufacturing, the benefits have come none-too-soon. In today’s difficult recessionary environment, the essence of Lean Manufacturing can go a long way to help companies compete in the package-printing industry.

At InteliCoat, the benefits have been dramatic. “The Lean initiative has created a better ergonomic working situation for our operators,” reports Weiss. “We’ve seen inventory reduction of 40 percent, and at the same time, more than a 5 percent increase in on-time deliveries. We are shipping to our same-day customers with a later cut-off time. Change-over time is 75 percent lower than in November, which provides us higher gross margins (and the ability to hold less inventory). Our customers are seeing a benefit as well in terms of higher quality products at faster rates.”

CRI has also experienced the tangible benefits it expected from Lean Manufacturing. “Our cost to manufacture each pound of ink clearly was reduced,” says Sickinger. “Improving efficiencies and reducing waste go a long way in reducing your costs. The Lean principles we follow, combined with the built-in automation, has saved time and reduced raw material shrinkage, thus enabling us to better control costs during the recent inflation of material costs … Most importantly, we can address the short lead times and high quality standards required by packaging and label converters.”

Sickinger also notes an interesting application of Lean concepts in the company’s sales efforts. “Sales development is a high-cost area, so we have used Lean concepts to drill down early in the sales process to discover which prospects are a good fit for our company,” he says. “We call this, ‘Going for the No’, which means we work with prospects to ‘disqualify’ or ‘qualify’ each other to determine if a business relationship makes sense. It saves time and money for both parties.”

“Going for the No” sounds like a creative application of Lean Manufacturing, but in the end, saving time and money for your company and your customers is what it’s all about. pP