Lean and the "Burning Platform"

[David Dodd]

In a post that appeared yesterday at the Print CEO Blog, Adam Dewitz discussed a news story that appeared in the Small Business Times relating to declining employment numbers in Wisconsin's printing industry. According to the story, employment has declined about 16% since it peaked in 1999. In his column today at WhatTheyThink, Dr. Joe Webb included a chart that compared the growth rate of inflation-adjusted GDP to the growth rate of inflation-adjusted print shipments since 1994. According to Dr. Joe, GDP growth on a year over year basis has never been negative since 1994, while print has been negative in 34 of the 58 quarters.

These facts shouldn't be surprising to any of us. We've been hearing about the decline in inflation-adjusted print sales now for several years.

What has this got to do with lean? Well, many lean experts argue that most companies won't be really successful with lean unless they are dealing with a "burning platform." The phrase "burning platform" is used to describe a "no turning back" reason for change. The story behind the burning platform idea goes something like this: A man who was working on an oil platform in the North Sea was awakened suddenly one night by an explosion. The platform was on fire. This fellow made his way to the edge of the platform. As the fire billowed behind him, he decided to jump from the platform even though it was a 150-foot drop from the platform to the water, there was debris and burning oil on the surface of the water, and even if the jump didn't kill him, he would die of exposure with 15 minutes in the 40 degree water. Luckily, the man survived the jump and was rescued. When asked why he jumped despite the risks, he replied, "Better probable death than certain death."

Is a buring platform really necessary for lean success? Many companies say they are going to adopt lean, but they really just "dabble" with lean and try to fit a few lean tools into their non-lean practices and mindset. That's usually a sure recipe for frustration and, perhaps, failure. Lean is one of those things that is relatively "simple" but not "easy." It requires a commitment to thinking and acting differently. So, maybe success with lean does require a burning platform. If so, it seems to me that most printing companies can easily find one.

 

[Michael Josefowicz]

The conventional wisdom is that decisions are motivated by greed and fear. That's behind all the ROI blah, blah, blah.. My take is that changing what has worked in the past is not about greed. If greed were operative, they probably wouldn't be in the fix they are in. For every big decision in a going concern that I've seen, it's fear. Thanks for the "burning platform" meme. Sort of captures the decision making at American auto companies as well as most going operations. If it's not broke, don't fix it makes a lot of sense, until it's broke.

 

[mattf]

Is a burning platform really necessary for lean success? Many companies say they are going to adopt lean, but they really just "dabble" with lean and try to fit a few lean tools into their non-lean practices and mindset. That's usually a sure recipe for frustration and, perhaps, failure. Lean is one of those things that is relatively "simple" but not "easy." It requires a commitment to thinking and acting differently. So, maybe success with lean does require a burning platform. If so, it seems to me that most printing companies can easily find one.

I like the idea of the burning platform. Its short, sweet, to the point and sadly true. The print industry is being hit very hard by the evolution of technology. Its not a bad thing for the most part, there are great concepts that can come from technology. Such can be said for a specific example, pre-press. It use to be the most labor intensive part of the print workflow, at times right up there with press side in terms of workers needed. With the introduction of technology, pre-press is one of the sure examples of what happened.

Brown Printing is a great example. Their pre-press workforce was over a hundred people a few years ago. Once they introduced the DALiM software, MiSTRAL, they were able to cut almost the entire pre-press workforce from around one hundred to four people. The catch about that is three of them are RIT graduates (School pride here ), and none of the people who work in prepress now I believe are over the age of 28.

This huge change saved the company money as well as helped to increase their profits by turning around jobs very quickly. Granted, not all companies can buy this kind of machine. One reason is the cost. As far as I know its around a quarter of a million dollars up front. Most small to medium print shops can't even think about dropping that much money into a software system like that. Another reason is usability. Its all good that you can work with DALiM and are able to process files faster for pre-flight, color management, faster proofing and so on. Some printing companies cannot do this type of system because of their very specific market that they print to. If a lot of jobs are unique and completely different every time it will be harder to use a system the same way as some larger companies do whether they print magazines or books.

I am not an advocate for the DALiM software, even though it sounds like it; I learned a great deal about the software when I was studying at RIT, but I see why it was created and how it can be used by larger companies to their benefit.

In the end, us small and medium sized print shops have to take into effect that there is less and less printing companies now then there was years ago. A key thing most of us know is that without technology we won't be able to survive. That is the main reason why companies invested in computers and lean practices, to give their company the edge in order to survive. Lean is a big thing now, and without such practices it's only a matter of time before such companies go under.

Granted, some companies do alright without lean, but of course they could do a lot better with the lean mindset in place. And again, back to the original analogy, the burning platform idea is correct in my point of view within my company. The Chief Operations Officer saw what was coming and what needed to be done in order to survive this hard time. A big part of that is to develop lean practices.

It was either stay on the oil rig, do nothing and die, or jump and take a risk and hopefully you'll be saved. However, with lean practices in place, you'll already have with you a parachute and a raft with a distress beacon when you jump, so you'll be just fine!