Business Management - Productivity/Process Improvement

Budgeting. Scheduling. Loading. Financial reporting. Estimating. Production standards. Capacity utilization. We're talking about the heart and soul of printing administration. They all rely on a common function: forecasting. We spend gobs of valuable time and energy predicting the future for those systems. Then we try to operate the business using assumptions we develop from those forecasts. Want to know a sickening truth? As prognosticators, we're lousy. We're all plain stupid when it comes to making good guesses about what's going to happen. So why do we waste so much time with crystal balls? You tell me. Am I saying we're all a bunch of crummy

"I don't know your company. I don't know your product. I don't know you. Now what was it you wanted to see me about?" That's my best recollection of the caption on a cartoon published by McGraw-Hill many years ago showing a crusty purchasing agent addressing a perspiring young salesman. I've never forgotten it. I can't think of a better illustration of the value of a brand. These days we hear a lot about "branding," the value of a "brand." In the world of sports, for example, we recognize personalities such as Michael Jordan or John Madden as "brands." I glanced at the title of a

Lotta talk these days about the business "model." Entire industries and individual enterprises are being driven to reconsider their operations and to make major changes in their functions and methods. Nowhere is this more prevalent than with those businesses directly confronting the Internet phenomenon, such as booksellers, travel agencies, auto dealers, stock brokerages and so on. And now printing companies, also, should review their long-standing business model. Already, supply-chain linkage—where demands of the publisher pass to paper and ink suppliers, to printer, to color separation and to distribution list maintainers—is now under study by a few printers. Demand/supply shortening via the Internet will alter the

We're shaking our heads. We just cannot believe that the U.S. economy continues to flourish month after month, year after year. Low unemployment rates, negligible inflation, low interest costs, soaring productivity, a surplus in place of a deficit, all of this and more, while Russia, Japan, Southeast Asia, Brazil and other countries are sinking in recession. There are as many explanations for this economic phenomenon as there are economists! There are a number of factors operating and interacting. But I'm most impressed with this suggested reason: the impact that IT—Information Technology—is now having on the economy; IT has replaced manufacturing as the driving force

Are you, or is any printer you know, using activity-based costing (called ABC)? Please let me know. I've been making a few inquiries and have drawn blanks thus far. The reason for my interest stems from the number of reports I've reviewed from companies in other industries currently utilizing ABC. Many get good results with the cost techniques of this system. Why hasn't the method been used in printing? Or has it? Or is it? I don't know. Each business has its own resources to use—capital, plant, equipment, inventories, raw materials, skilled people. These resources are consumed and recognized as costs, according to ABC theories. The

Does your company have a clearly defined pricing policy? Is it written down? If it is written, how do you monitor whether or not, and how well, it's being executed? Even if your policy isn't in writing, how do you control and measure it in operation? Experience indicates that 90 percent or more of printing companies don't have written policies for setting prices. Pricing at most printers is like the common law system of jurisprudence: We make it up as we go along, on a job-by-job basis. Then we try, as best we can, to make a decision based on precedent modified by circumstances. But we

"Productivity is simply the ratio of chargeable hours to available man hours." Thus spoke NAPL consultant Bill Herrott at the 1997 Web Offset Conference. So, when the national economists report that "productivity" of the United States is up or down for a recent quarter, are they saying that the national ratio of chargeable hours to available hours rose or fell? In a word: No. When economists say productivity is up, they mean that the value of the gross national product, factored by the resources applied, has risen. Nobody mentions "chargeability." So if Herrott didn't mean the same thing that national economists mean, what did he mean?

Judging by the e-mail response to the article I wrote about job costs as a "virtual" reality in the September issue of Printing Impressions, the relationship of cost and price is more confusing to printers than is technology! Trouble is, the bean counters, the high priests of accounting, who should know better, don't seem to have a clue. (Now watch my e-mail box fill up.) The double-entry system started in northern Italy about 700 years ago had limitations. It was "custodial" tracking of cargo contents and share ownership for sailing ships trading with the Indies. Cargoes were debits and owner ships were credits and they

The New York/New Jersey market is a territory where even the top companies must constantly battle to stay alive. In this area, printing is an industry where the competition is especially fierce. Plagued by small margins and countless competitors, printing companies have found it essential to have effective and reliable management systems. Carlstadt, NJ-based Pictorial Offset Corp. is a printer that epitomizes the gold standard for a customer-oriented approach to business. As one of the top 200 printers in the United States, Pictorial serves the metropolitan area by being the closest full-service web and sheetfed printer to Manhattan. How has Pictorial set itself apart in

"Lift" and "pull" are dirty words in the world of commercial printing. When you "lift" a form or job, you "pull" it off the press, binder or other process before it's completed. You do this because you must put some other job or form in its place, in order to meet a promised delivery time. The practice impairs productivity, compromises quality and zaps profits. "Well, if it's that bad," you say, "then why would anyone do it?" We do it because we've promised a delivery date we can't keep unless we interrupt the completion of forms or jobs already in process. Next question: "Why do we