“Lean” may be a buzzword today, but look at the majority of successful manufacturing companies and you will find they have embraced “lean” concepts.

Today’s market demands projects be done right, be done on time and be price competitive. To meet these criteria consistently and without cutting corners, we know running a lean operation is key. Below are some of our underlying principals for operational decision making that allow us to run “ lean ”.

• Hold the minimum inventory needed to run operations without interruption. We have developed relationships with our suppliers (mostly paper vendors) to allow us to order any available items and have delivered by 8:00 the next morning. We take this very seriously; as our supply line is our life line.
• Standardize equipment and processes. Our estimating process, prepress workflow and proofing processes have been standardized so we can achieve the same results over and over again. We have standard plate sizes for all of our presses, standard blade sizes for our cutters and so on; you get the idea. The more standardized we are, the more predictable the results with less time and energy invested; that means one more opportunity to be competitive.
• Buy the best equipment for the job and don’t keep unproductive or in-efficient equipment around. We make optimum use of every piece of equipment as well as every square inch of our facility; nobody wants to pay for under utilized resources or equipment that do not produce as promised.
• Stay financially stable. We pay our vendors on time and take discounts when ever offered. Our vendors will go the extra mile for us and the money we save in discounts adds up. We have a strong receivables and payables system and constantly monitor our financial position. A financially stable company can concentrate on their core competency.
• Meet regularly and always look for waste in the system. By meeting on a scheduled basis, we all stay on the same page and everybody has the chance to bring up an area where they see waste or inefficiency happening. Its amazing what happens when you communicate.

This is a great subject to write about, and in my mind one of the reasons we continue to be successful. I will write more about it in the future, the more I write about it, the more we come up with new ideas on being lean.

It seems like when the economy gets tough, all the  “how to sell” talk turns to relationship building. But hasn’t that always been one of, if not the most important part of any business…that link between the client and the vendor. I guess to start with, if you’re going to be in customer service or dealing with vendors on an everyday basis, it really helps to like people. Even after that, it takes a lot of work to develop strong relationships, and these days, everybody has a stake in it. I guess we are lucky, because all of us here generally like dealing with people and trying to please them.

I’m pretty tickled when I see a relationship reach the point of collaboration, where both of you are working as a team to accomplish the task at hand , and you forget who each other works for because you both are after the same goal. When you get to that point, I believe you have reached a new level of Client-vendor relationship. That does not just happen right away, there has to be a lot of trust and respect. The Client has to trust that the vendor won’t overcharge them when they let their guard down. And the vendor has to trust that the client won’t take advantage of his resources when his guard is down. So once you get past that, and you both understand where you need to be in the end, you can make a lot of great things happen.

Well, that still sounds easier than it is a lot of times (but if you practice, it gets easier). I’ve found that prior to starting a project, its good to have some open, honest conversation and lay down some expectations on both of your behaves. What happens if the job does not get done by a certain date, or if approval is late and throws off the schedule. I’ve also found that if there is part of a project that I found a little scary, its better to voice those concerns up front than dig your self a hole and start thinking about the issues when you are past the point of no return.

There’s a lot of responsibility involved with the client-vendor relationship, but it can also be very rewarding. I love what I do and believe it or not look forward to tough projects in part because of the collaboration. In a lot of cases it has led to great friendships and it’s always fun to look back and say “What was I thinking when I thought that was going to be easy”

We are having great results  on our Heidelberg PM 5-52 (simple for extremely automated 5/Color printing press), with different varnishes, coatings and spot colors.  Printing varnishes inline will add gloss to photos, or a header you want to pop.  Flooding a sheet will add rub resistance and help with bleeds in the cutting stage.  Another cool application is our “Kentucky Shine”,  It appears like a thick varnish but dries faster and harder.   Coated cover is best, because on a lighter sheet it wants to curl the sheet too much.  Both processes are run inline.

Speaking of cool applications, we have a die cutting system that attaches to the fifth unit.  This enables us to perforate, score, and die cut inline, still utilizing the 1st four units for printing. You can talk to Mike or Judd to see if this application works for your project.

With the 5-color we can run a spot color with 4-color process which makes matching a PMS color easy while keeping cost close to a process run.

The specs are 14.5″ x 20.47″ sheet size and image area is 14 x 20.375.  We use 8 mil polyester plates from our Mitsubishi DPX 2 computer-to-plate system, great plate!

The automation helps us in many ways as well, the auto wash makes going to spot colors a quick change.  We will run 1, 2 & 3 color jobs on her, especially if it’s a long run.  She will do 13,000 impressions per hour all day long.

We are very proud of our 5/C Heidelberg PM 52, and love to show it off.  We welcome visitors, and Judd is a great tour guide.