A well established printing company, supplying services to designers, agencies, print buyers and publishers for over 50 years.

The brief

The company recognized that it was losing margin, market share and opportunities by continuing with established production and marketing activities. New ideas were needed.

As the business has grown, the presses, finishing equipment and factory floor storage areas have been added ad-hoc, which means the business was not as efficient as it could have been. Always looking for ways to improve their performance, the company looked for help to improve efficiency, offer customers a better service and win new business.

The main business need identified was to improve margins through reducing the cost of manufacturing. A detailed report on the ‘current state’ was provided along with a number improvement activities, which would help the company reach their ‘ideal state’. These included:

• Improving work flow to increase productivity
• Reducing lead times, scrap and work in progress (WIP)
• Ensuring workplace organisation activities are maintained
• Introducing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and improving communication across the business to ensure everyone was focused on the priorities
• Using visual management tools so standards and performance levels are more obvious Next, the team worked on redesigning the factory to improve the flow and make the whole operation more productive. Freeing up capacity in this enabled the company to bring subcontracted work back into the operation and reduce costs. 5S Workplace Organisation has been rolled out across the business, with further improvements in flow leading to significant reductions in work in progress (WIP) and lead time.

The company could now go forward with the agreed plan secure in the knowledge that the efficiency gains would improve its competitiveness and that the whole company was now working towards a common goal, with common values and delivering a much improved customer experience.

Copernicus – Guiding your business to operational success