THE PRESENT selling conditions represent the most unusual opportunity in the history of the printing industry—the realistic possibility to acquire, lock down and sustain new market share at unprecedented rates. Today’s printing services companies have the potential to transform from a commoditized print selling environment to one in which they are truly perceived as trusted advisors to clients and prospects—so much so that their competition is somewhat or completely removed from any discussion of the client’s future production requirements. Many service providers have already begun the required makeover, although all indications seem to point to a sales skills maturation level of well under 15
I’M ONLY gonna say this once! Listen carefully! I deny all of the rumors! I know it seemed possible, even likely. I know you will be disappointed. You’ve come to expect so much of me. The whole thing had such a romantic cachet. Here goes. Grab your armrests and hold on tight.
New legislation introduced in Congress would strip away workers’ rights to a federally supervised secret ballot election when deciding whether or not to join a union, leaving workers far more vulnerable to coercion and intimidation during union organizing drives. The “Employee Free Choice Act,” introduced by Rep. George Miller (D-CA), would replace secret ballot elections with a process called “card check” where a union is recognized in a workplace if a majority of workers sign a card in the presence of union organizers. Under the card check process, the identity of workers who signed (or refused to sign) organizing cards would be made public to
Chet Pribonic Will Bring History of Customer Satisfaction, Management Excellence and Product Leadership to Growing Superwide Format Market FOSTER CITY, CA—Feb. 28, 2007—EFI (Nasdaq: EFII), the world leader in color digital print servers, superwide format printers and inks, and print management solutions, today announced the appointment of industry veteran Chet Pribonic to the post of senior vice president and general manager for the company’s VUTEk® superwide format product line. EFI’s VUTEk operations in Meredith, New Hampshire deliver the industry’s leading digital printers and inks for the fast growing superwide segment of the professional print market. “We are pleased to have an executive of Chet Pribonic’s caliber
The Printer’s Hidden Factory of Waste
Ken Rizzo, PIA/GATF Director, Consulting Resource Group
Typically waste is thought of in the context of paper waste, such as makeready waste, roll slab waste, print waste, etc. However, according to Lean Practices, Waste is the $$$ cost of time and materials that consume resources, but don’t add any actual value to the product, or result in product that is unacceptable to the customer. These waste activities are also known as non-value-added activities. There are Eight Issues of Waste in what is known as the Hidden Factory.
Waste from Overproduction: Overproduction is when the amount produced by one process is more than the next process needs or can handle. The result is large amounts of product spending long periods of time in WIP. Typical symptoms of overproduction include pulling jobs off a machine in the middle of a production run to make room for another job, production overtime that customers don’t pay for, large amounts of floor space clogged with skids of WIP, process bottlenecks, and warehouses filled with finished goods inventory.
Waste from Waiting: Processes and people waiting for other processes to complete activities, the curse of downtime, machine breakdowns, and failures are all non-value-added waste.
Waste from Unnecessary Transporting: The time spent and extra equipment utilized to frequently valet tooling, materials, and WIP loads around the plant is non-value-added waste.
Over-Processing Waste: The extra time spent on processing jobs due to long equipment changeover (makeready), continually quick-fixing quality-related print problems, redundant actions and activities required due to poor job planning, inadequate materials, and sudden mechanical problems from substandard press and equipment conditions.
WIP and Inventory Waste: The cost of floor space, associate time and materials waiting in queues for further processing, and warehousing finished goods prior to delivery to customers then waiting for payment is waste.
Waste of Motion: Includes time spent searching for and retrieving tooling and materials, process layout poor, waste from component installation and settings due to outdated technology and poor component conditions; waste from increased adjustments due to poor operation of equipment mechanisms, quick-fix quality activities due to unacceptable materials (paper, ink, coating, plates, etc.) and job components (production schedule, job tickets, and proofs, etc.), lack of poorly functioning tools and equipment, lack of teamwork and process organization.
Waste from Product Defects: Time and materials wasted producing defective product. Waste from product defects includes employee time spent, materials, and equipment utilized inspecting and sorting defective product, and in identifying and handling non-conforming product.
Waste of People: Includes not utilizing people’s mental, creative, and teamwork abilities. Waste through the existence of antiquated thinking, department politics, resistance to change (not invented here), fear of repercussions to new ideas from a not-invented-here culture, lack of timely feedback, poor hiring practices poor, and little or no investment in effective training.
Non-value-added activities are where we must target our process improvement initiatives to reduce costs, eliminate waste, and increase capacity. Once non-value-added activities are identified and defined, we can really begin our quest in the elimination of true waste and spoilage. Remember, waste and spoilage are like Hidden Inventories; they are costs that we will never be reimbursed by our customers.
“With market pressures to reduce prices, printers today have no choice but to reduce and control all their costs”
Ken Rizzo, PIA/GATF Director of Consulting.
PIA/GATF Consulting Resource Group
RESTON, VA—02/15/07—A new Print Industries Market Information and Research Organization (PRIMIR) study, Benchmarking Non-Print Revenues of Printing Companies provides an overview of the non-print ancillary services that printers currently offer, their implementation successes and failures as well as the growth opportunities. In addition, the study identifies the revenue volume, types of non-print related services offered and growth trends through 2010. According to Richards Research and Goldberg Associates, who conducted the research for PRIMIR, “specific services in various industry segments, both today and in the future, will demonstrate that non-print services are not only already very real elements of the printing industry, but that they
ROLLING HILLS ESTATES, CA—Feb 14, 2007—A new report reveals that both print providers and indsutry suppliers are optimistic about print provider revenue moving forward, with the strongest growth over the next two years expected to come from digital full color printing and variable data printing. Titled “Supplier and Service Provider Priorities: 2006 Survey Results,” the report results from an EDSF research grant and mentor program. A grant was awarded to the Graphic Communications Program at Clemson University, where faculty and students collaborated with InfoTrends to conduct the research. The survey provides insight on the priorities, future plans and perceptions of those in the print-for-pay
CAMBRIDGE , UK—Feb 14, 2007—Nowadays, the term printed electronics is taken to include thin film electronics that will become printable. Most of the potential for printed electronics lies in what Toppan Forms calls Smart Media Products (SMP) which will be intelligent and mass producible yet often customisable as well. They will usually be used at the human interface or connected to networks and embedded ubiquitously into the environment. All this means that printed electronics will largely create new markets, such as tape around pipelines to detect leaks and impending leaks and signal that there is a problem. After all, leaks still occur in the
PALO ALTO, CA—February 14, 2007—In response to Domtar’s research with its designer customer base, the company has launched a dedicated website which aims to meet designer’s needs for an inspirational and informative online resource. The Domtar Designer Corner (www.domtardesignercorner.com) has been created by designers for designers, and offers industry news and events, designer profiles, eco-smart design options, and tips for selecting the best paper to bring designs to life. PaperSpecs, an on-line provider of paper knowledge to the design and print industries, and providers of a database that features more than 4,200 papers from over 65 mills and manufacturers, will support the site with
RESTON,VA—02/13/07—A new Print Industries Market Information and Research Organization (PRIMIR) study, Small Commercial and Quick Printer: 2006-2011 investigates the nature of quick printers (franchise and independent) and small commercial printers (less than 20 employees) in today’s marketplace. In addition to understanding the market dynamics and future trends, this study provides insight into the competitive landscape of this market and identifies selling opportunities and strategies for serving this unique industry segment. According to J Zarwan Partners and Sherburne & Associates, who conducted the research for PRIMIR, “the average small commercial or quick printer has 5.5 employees and does $583,000 in annual sales. With
