According to Peter Drucker, “Only three things happen naturally in organizations: friction, confusion, and underperformance. Everything else requires leadership.” Leaders in printing, mailing and fulfillment have a worthy goal of striving for operational excellence. In the last few years, the mix of applications and volume of print work has changed dramatically at many in-plants. Managers are focused on strategies to improve their operations, increase efficiency, and enhance value to their organizations.

Operational leaders are embracing change to improve their operational results. Some by following the Shingo Model from the Shingo Institute. The Shingo Model is similar to other process improvement programs like Kaizen, Lean Manufacturing, and Lean Six Sigma. A key difference is its focus on the behavior of individuals and how to inspire teams to drive improved operational results. The model is based on three tenets of organizational excellence:

• Ideal Results: Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) Require Ideal Behavior Indicators (KBIs)

• Purpose and Systems Drive Behavior

• Principles Inform Ideal Behavior

There are ten guiding principles identified to drive operational results. This article is the first in a series addressing opportunities for in-plants pursuing operational efficiency to remain relevant. In it, I will provide insights for the following guiding principles:

• Embrace scientific thinking

• Think systemically

In my consulting engagements with in-plants, I recommend thinking systemically around the larger goals for the organization. Leaders must consider the various types of work and mix of services they can provide to impact the results for their internal customers and departments. Automated workflows are needed to group and combine smaller jobs into one longer print run for efficient use on inkjet presses.

There are many legacy applications in the highly regulated industries of banking, insurance, and utilities. Often each major application has a separate workflow for staff to manage based on institutional knowledge. Legacy programs often mean there are few (if any) IT resources to modify file formats and make changes to streamline workflows. In-plants have invested in post-composition tools and other solutions to modify legacy applications for effective tracking and reporting during the printing and mailing process. Tracking and reporting at each step in the production process leads to better visibility to improve efficiency.

A manager at a large property and casualty insurance company led her operations team in moving all lines of business to one enterprise content management system. They had clarity on their goal to streamline print mail communications with policyholders and sales agents. During the pandemic, they couldn’t support the many manual processes across the siloed lines of business. By uncovering the number of manual steps, errors and delays she was able to justify a centralized content management system to generate all documents.

A systemic approach for the entire process of generating and mailing documents meant creating a way to increase winning and retaining customers – through multiple channels, by leveraging data, and defining a better process. With automation in place to efficiently manage content and document creation, the operation was able to embrace inkjet printing and eliminate hundreds of pre-printed forms and manual steps in the process. Production inkjet enabled the operation to efficiently produce communications, reduce errors and delays. All with less labor and fewer printers. Efficiency was achieved by assessing the entire process.

The Guiding Principles to embrace scientific thinking and think systemically are foundational for operational improvements. Innovation comes from repeated cycles of experimentation. Leaders must eliminate barriers that prevent the flow of ideas and information to implement change and improvements. Employees who feel confident to express new ideas without fear of failure inspire others to be forward thinking.

The labor challenges throughout the industry are forcing managers to rethink workflow and digital technologies. Most offset press operators are at or near retirement age. Younger workers do not have the skills or desire to learn how to operate offset presses. And managers don’t have sufficient labor to allow for the months of training needed for new operators to master the necessary skills. New operators with little to no experience can be fully trained to run inkjet presses in days or weeks rather than the months needed for offset. When offset press operators retire, in-plants are decommissioned the offset presses.

Several in-plant managers have shared their success in training and hiring new employees to run inkjet equipment. Once inkjet is installed, managers can further pursue operational efficiency by automating short run jobs and improving end to end workflow. One inkjet press can replace three or four toner boxes. Managers striving for operational efficiency see inkjet solutions improving their operations and motivating their teams with new technologies and better workflows.

This article was originally published on Inkjet Insight.