Business Management - Productivity/Process Improvement

During the 46th Annual PIA Web Offset Conference in Toronto, William L. Davis, chairman and CEO of R.R. Donnelley & Sons, gave a speech titled "Ground Truths." But I prefer to call the speech the "Davis Manifesto." I term the speech a manifesto because within it Davis speaks plain truths about our industry and describes intentions for his company. I've reread it several times. Each time, I find it as refreshing as a cool glass of lemonade on a hot Texas afternoon. I do hope it will be reprinted in full somewhere for all to read—including the United States Department of Commerce. Davis came to

Is it important to listen to customers? I have yet to meet the sales and marketing executive who does not think so. Why, then, do so few printing companies create effective venues for learning about their customers' concerns and expectations? Discussions that take place during the routine conduct of business provide essential information. But these exchanges are not what I have in mind. The often painful sessions that take place when a printing company has made a grievous mistake can be instructive, to say the least, but seldom offer much insight about a customer's organization. Sales managers intermittently accompany sales reps on visits to their

Diapers and beer sell best after 6 p.m. After six, husbands are sent out to get diapers, and often grab a six pack for themselves. So the rack with diapers should be located next to the beer storage to increase impulse buying by men. Web breaks increase on a web press as relative humidity in the pressroom decreases. People on the third shift decrease the density of cyan ink on a running press form because of a loss of natural light perception incurred while they sleep in the daytime. Are these statements true? Perhaps. Perhaps not. To find the answer, do some "mining" on your "data warehouse."

"Where's the payback?" I asked myself at the Sunbelt Computer and Graphics trade show in Atlanta in early March. Here was a new product introduction called CSR V.1, being offered by QIP Inc., that baffled me. I watched as one of the representatives fanned out the color bars of a dozen or so printed press sigs on a flatbed scanner. He lowered the cover and clicked a button in the software. All of the bars appeared on a computer screen exactly as he had spread them. After about a minute or so, a window opened on the screen with the sample set data for density,

Editor's Note: This is the last installment in the monthly series on The F.P. Horak Co. and its quest for ISO 9002 registration. The opening meeting began as most meetings do—with introductions, handshakes and polite (albeit brief) conversation. However, the friendly atmosphere belied the underlying tension. It was Tuesday, Feb. 24, 8 a.m. Two men—two auditors—had come to The F.P. Horak Co. in Bay City, MI, to measure its quality system. As the auditors spoke during the opening meeting, the Horak executives in attendance listened with rapt attention. Their quest for ISO 9002 culminated in this moment. Months of preparation were about to pay

"Print Communications and the Electronic Media Challenge" by Alan Kotok and Ralph Lyman should be required reading for everyone involved in printing management, ownership, and marketing and sales. I don't know about you, but I get baffled by all of the new methods, devices, jargon and techniques that are now a part of daily experience in the printing business. I just can't keep up with all the RIPs, TIFFs, PROSE and SNAPs. It is such a relief for me to read through this book and be able to refer to it each time one of these concepts comes up. That's why I want to

Editor's Note: This is the 14th installment in the monthly series on The F.P. Horak Co., a Bay City, MI-based printing firm pursuing ISO 9002 registration. During an ISO audit, one major non-compliance can mean the difference between success and failure. That doesn't leave much room for mistakes. Fortunately, The F.P. Horak has remained largely within compliance (knock wood) so far. A recent pre-assessment failed to uncover any serious errors in Horak's quality system. The company finds comfort in the fact that the registrar representative walked away from the pre-assessment without any worries. Still, Horak remains vigilant against major non-compliances. After all, the pre-assessment was only

Recall Dr. Quincy, the television series pathologist? He conducted postmortem examinations of bodies of crime victims. I caught a rerun the other day of that old Jack Klugman series, and it triggered some thoughts about costing and printing—if you can imagine that! When I talk about "job costing" with a printer, the usual response is, "Yeah, we've got a terrific estimating system." We have a tendency to equate job costs with cost estimating and often overlook perhaps the major value of a job costing system. We should play Quincy with our cost accounting system. Dr. Quincy didn't try to predict when a given person would die

Editor's Note: This is the 13th installment in the monthly series on The F.P. Horak Co., a Bay City, MI-based printing firm pursuing ISO 9002 registration. ISO expects certain things from compliant companies. One hundred and thirty certain things, to be exact. That's the number you get when you add up all of the elements and subclauses that an ISO-registered organization must follow. Some people refer to the 138 things as directives. Kevin Krzyminski, quality assurance manager at The F.P. Horak Co., prefers to call them "shalls"—as in "You shall do this" and "You shall do that." Auditors make sure that companies questing for ISO certification

You're bowling. You heave the ball. It's halfway down the lane when the lights go out. You hear the pins rattling, but how many went down? Similarly, many printing companies are working in the dark. The folks see and hear the work going on everyday. They roll the balls down the alley, but then the lights go out. They never get to see the results. Why? Data paranoia. How long would you continue to bowl if you never saw pins fall? Never knew your score? You just wouldn't have the incentive. So how do we expect people to have incentive for the work they do? Unreasonable