By Tim Daisy and Chuck Gehman, Printcafe Software, Inc.
Originally appeared in High Volume Printing magazine
April 2003
Although Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) has been around for over thirty years, it is only within the past two years that CIM has been seriously considered as a method for improvement within the printing industry (although newspapers, as an example, have been employing some CIM technologies much longer). One important reason why it has taken so long to gain a foothold in the industry is that commercial print is a custom manufacturing process. We face unique challenges as we attempt to automate processes around products that are different every time. It’s only very recently that it is becoming economically and technically feasible to reap the benefits of CIM in printing.
The phrase “Computer Integrated Manufacturing” was first coined in 1973, in a book by the same name authored by Joseph Harrington. The success of CIM hinges in part on streamlined production and business processes. Automating inefficient processes simply solidifies them and makes them more difficult to improve and change. This is one reason why a business needs to undergo a program of process improvement before realizing the increased profitability associated with CIM.
The reason for the newfound popularity of CIM in print is the evolution of the printing industry from a craft process to a manufacturing process, driven by the downward pressure on prices and profitability. The industry is learning that profitability can only be maintained if the craft is kept upstream of the production process. In other words, let’s leave the art to the artists. This shift opens up the production and business processes to a host of tools, both process and software, for improving profitability.
Identify the Waste
Waste is so often thought of as material waste – paper, plates, and ink. However other industries as diverse as the furniture industry to the semiconductor industry have discovered that most waste can be identified and reduced by focusing on time. Identifying wasted time in a process also identifies wasted materials. The first step in any process improvement program is identifying and reducing wasted time in all business and production processes and a highly effective tool for doing this was developed by Digital Equipment Corporation in the 1980’s call AΔT (A-delta-T).
AΔT is the difference (Δ) between actual cycle time and the theoretical best cycle time. The delta represents the opportunity for improvement and is the basis for all process improvements moving forward. The tool is simple to use and is employed by those who perform the process being analyzed. AΔT can be used for all processes both business (invoicing, estimating, end-of-month close) and production (prepress, fulfillment, production.)
The first step is to map the process, roughly estimate the time necessary for each step in the process and identify to customer-centric deliverable for the process. The customer may be the end customer or an internal customer.
The total time of the process is the actual.
Next, identify the tasks that do not directly contribute to providing the deliverable and mark these tasks as deltas.
The actual time less the deltas represents the theoretical best for the process and is the goal for future process improvement methods.
All of the deltas represent opportunity for improvement and should be eliminated, or at least be reduced to the minimum cycle time that the current process will support, before further automation can be put in place.
You can find out more about A-delta-T by visiting the Center for Quality of Management in Cambridge, MA, at their web site: http://cqmextra.cqm.org/cqmjournal.nsf/reprints/rp10500.
Attack the Waste
Much of the waste in any process involves waiting. Waiting time is an indicator of deficiencies in a process – information not being where it needs to be when it needs to be, inflexible staffing, an unsynchronized production process, running large batches for functional efficiency, etc. Additional waste can be found in re-running portions of a job, re-entry of data, and overrunning a production run. Let’s look at some basic examples.
We all know that often a press can output finished product faster than the bindery can accept the work. That’s a good example of “waste” in our own internal manufacturing process. Other examples can be found outside our manufacturing facilities. Simple, traditional industry business practices, like having salespeople deliver proofs to customers, and then waiting to have them approved, are ripe for process improvement. While it may seem like this is a good way to stay in front of the customer, it is actually a huge time waster for both the salesperson and the customer.
If you have 100 important accounts and 3 salespeople, it’s easy to see that they won’t be able to visit each of them even once a month; let alone often enough to make sure you don’t miss any jobs. So, in this example, the salesperson needs to leverage IT for process improvement by using tools like email, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and databases, and we need to use CIM and the Internet to automate the proofing and approval cycle.
Business negotiations can also be time wasters. The RFQ/Quote process should not involve paper forms today. If you are using paper forms, they will have to be keyed into a computer system at one point or another (whether into a print management system, or into a simple spreadsheet): this is time better spent on higher value activities. While it can be difficult to get customers to use a system to enter specifications, and in fact, they may not actually possess enough knowledge of print to generate a usable job spec, we can use new technologies to “collaborate” with the customer on specification entry, for example, using a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant, or handheld computer like a Palm Pilot.)
Fulfillment applications and re-ordering are also great examples of inefficient internal/external processes that can be streamlined. Processing these orders by hand using forms, or even by phone, is costly and wastes time. Having Internet systems integrated into your production management environment allows print-on-demand applications, variable print, inventory picks, and traditional offset re-orders to be merged into a streamlined process.
Mistake-Proof the Process
Re-runs and over runs drive wasted time as well as material waste. The root of this waste is generally in product quality procedures. A root cause analysis of re-runs and overruns can identify process inadequacies that many times can be solved with simple mistake-proofing procedures and quality software.
Software is available that enables you to quality check customer files coming in, and your own manufacturing input (i.e., imposed digital signatures ready for plating) so that no problem will ever make it onto the plate, let alone onto the press. However, in order to be effective, prepress manufacturing processes must be designed and implemented before the software and automation are even considered. We often refer to these manufacturing processes as “workflow” in our industry. So in many ways, the pre-press part of CIM involves implementing a strong, standardized production workflow that works “by the numbers”, rather than by “look and feel.” This is what takes us from Craft to Manufacturing.
Reduce Make-Ready Time
The auto industry was turned on its head in the early 1970’s when Japanese manufacturing techniques reduced the overall cost and time of auto manufacturing causing a recession in the US auto industry. The root of these improvements involved a reduction in make-readies across all aspects of the manufacturing process using a process called Single Minute Exchange of Die (SMED) developed by Shigeo Shingo. The key tenet of SMED is to move the majority of make-ready tasks from between runs to during runs. The remaining tasks then need to be vigorously attacked to reduce or eliminate them. This idea has been embraced by many press manufacturers and can be seen on many presses as far back as 1992.
Today, press automation and communication between business systems, prepress and press consoles are taking make-ready and job switchover to new heights of efficiency. The information flow, back and forth, is “closing the loop” between manufacturing and job costing data, enhancing the ability to profit from jobs with real information.
Tactical Implementation of CIM
Overall process improvement is strategic. Implementation of CIM is tactical. If process waste includes waiting for information, invest in the systems that put the information where it is needed. If process waste includes the re-entry of data into multiple systems, invest in integrated systems which share data so it is only entered once. If process waste includes waiting, invest in software which helps manage throughput and synchronization.
It’s becoming clear to many in the industry that information technology (IT) is a core competency for competitive advantage. It isn’t enough anymore to have the best press, the most expensive workstations and the most experienced people. Incremental competitive gains by virtue of quality are only taken away by price competition. You have to have an overall view of your business, and control over it, so jobs are produced with maximum efficiency, with the expected excellent quality, while still delivering profitability to the printer. That’s the advantage that IT and CIM deliver.
Is JDF CIM?
Frankly, the answer is no. However, many CIM solutions are enabled by the CIP4’s JDF, Job Definition Format. It is JDF that allows equipment and software to share information for a more streamlined production process. JDF is important today, and will certainly be more important tomorrow—but without taking a hard look at your current process and taking advantage of process improvements going into a CIM implementation, you won’t be able to take advantage of the interoperability and automation that JDF will provide.
Summary
The discussion of the replacement of legacy equipment, and whether older equipment can support Computer Integrated Manufacturing has become a hot button in the industry. But this may be the wrong place to look for improvement. While it’s easy to look at the big capital expenditures first, we may be missing opportunities by not adequately analyzing other ways to improve efficiency, profitability and differentiation in our product mix.
All printing plants have legacy equipment, but more importantly, legacy processes that may well need to be replaced, or perhaps, “re-thought” to enable Computer Integrated Manufacturing. Once you start looking at the business and manufacturing problems from the point of view of streamlining both your own, and your customers activities, the solutions become apparent.
