Erik Nikkanen is correct: The War on Waste was coined in the printing Industry by the late Roger Dickerson. Roger Dickeson wrote “War on Waste” (“WoW”) in 1974 for the PIA. the book became a bestseller.
It was founded around the system called AutoCount (sold by EFI now) which weighs the waste at press side in real time. The theory was as David Dodd said, monitor-the-waste.
Hopefully there is less of it and it contains a concentrated view of all your production problems.
I started with "Lean Six Sigma Demystified", McGraw-Hill "Six Sigma 36-Hour Course", PIA-GATF's "Lean Printing, Pathway to Success" and "Total Productive Maintenance", "Statistical Analysis for Process Engineering", and then the LEI books - "Learning to See", "Making Materials Flow", "Creating Continuous Flow", "Creating Level Pull", and "Seeing the Whole" (I re-read sections of these regularly!). The Continuous Improvement Conference in San Antonio was helpful. Lean and Green Seminar helped our Plant Manager considerably. Then I built training seminars - "Intro to Lean Thinking", "Lean Manufacturing 101 and 201", "The Lean Six Sigma Approach to Kaizen Events", to disperse the new knowledge/information. The training is going pretty well - a very good environment to measure current buy-in. Thinking about a consultant/sensei after we pick some of the 'low-hanging fruit' and move closer to level pull and continuous flow production concepts.
I would think that workflow automation could go a long way to reducing waste, since it would lower the possibility of human error. I know there are a few products out there that claim to automate workflow, but I've heard that some don't live up to their claims. What experience has anyone had with automation software?
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Jerry,
Thanks for your contribution to the forum. Technology can play a significant role in supporting lean efforts, and I hope that technology providers will take an active role in this forum.
One of the better "recipes" for using automation technologies to support lean is represented by the acronym "USA."
U = understand the process. First, be sure that you understand the process that you will automate. Use process mapping and other tools to create a solid description of the target process.
S = simplify the process. Take a close look at which steps in the process add value and which ones don't. Ask which steps are essential and which ones aren't. Strip out as many of the non-value-adding, non-essential steps as possible.
A = automate, but only after you've simplified the process as much as possible. Automation prior to simplification only automates waste.
__________________
G. David Dodd
Point Balance, LLC
I have a friend (freaky, huh?) who attended a FranklinCovey course on time management. He told me that if he followed their protocol he'd spend all of his time managing his time.
I'm hearing something like that here.
I don't want to "concatenate" any departments with prepress, cause that means more people who don't understand what I do. And they're gonna' want to talk. Give me my information - in writing - and then get out of my department so I can work.
Kaizens, and Poka Yokes, and concatenations, and Spaghetti Maps. That's a lot of catch-phrases. You explained Poka Yoke. So, what're the rest of these?
I have a friend (freaky, huh?) who attended a FranklinCovey course on time management. He told me that if he followed their protocol he'd spend all of his time managing his time.
I'm hearing something like that here.
I don't want to "concatenate" any departments with prepress, cause that means more people who don't understand what I do. And they're gonna' want to talk. Give me my information - in writing - and then get out of my department so I can work.
Kaizens, and Poka Yokes, and concatenations, and Spaghetti Maps. That's a lot of catch-phrases. You explained Poka Yoke. So, what're the rest of these?
By Kaizen I mean simply "Continuous Improvement". "Concatenation" means to combine a series of related things into one (at least in this case - used mostly in programming circles). The idea is that preflight does not need to complete its entire process prior to passing job information to planning, planning does not need to completely plan, order paper, work with outside vendors, etc. to create an imposition template, which is all prepress really needs to begin creating a proof (in many cases). We will concievably turn proofs in a much shorter period of time and conclude the project preproduction steps concurrently. A spaghetti mapping exercise involves us video taping multiple makereadies then bringing the press crews in to analyze their movements and tasks in order to create a standard improved MR time. Another part of the process is to ensure that all steps that can be done without stopping the press are performed prior to the makeready and only those that actually require stoppage are actually performed while stopped. The 'catchphrases' without the lengthy explaination would be: "Convert internal to external operations". Sorry if I over-employed the lexicon - it's just quicker - at least when everyone is speaking a common launguage...
Trivia question
Who coined WAR ON WASTE
and led the charge for 10 years?
Wendell Smith
I may be showing my age...
Roger V Dickeson (1970-2006), coined the phrase in 1975 when he wrote "War On Waste I" for the Graphic Communications Association (GCA) and then wrote "War On Waste II" in 1991. I have both books.
congrats to correct winners of Trivia Quiz
Crowley
and 2 email names I do not recognize; craiglpress, and msublas.
It sounds like we have at least 2 copies of that Dickerson book, lets keep them for possible reissue by PIA (??).
Linear Mode
