Workflow & Operations Assessment


By Dillon Mooney, Technical Consultant, Printing Industries of America


Your company is turn- ing a profit. You feel you have good personnel. You have made some capital investments in equip- ment/technology. Are you overlooking any- thing? What about your workflow?


Workflow is more than an organizational flow


The Magazine 18


WINTER 2017


chart documenting the various steps or procedures in your manufacturing process. Workflow includes all activities and the relationships of those activities necessary to produce a job or printed piece. Aside from the flow chart, many managers are not adept at evaluating their workflows as the procedures and tasks are ingrained in the company culture—“This is how we do it and it works.” Using a set of indepen- dent eyes can identify improvement opportunities to make your processes more efficient and less prone to defects.


A workflow or operations assessment can be cus- tomized to the needs of a printing operation. It can examine the physical layout of the plant in regard to location of the different operations and how their proximity affects excessive employee motion and wasted time transporting work-in-process inventory. Progressive management philosophies incorporate concepts from Lean manufacturing in their work- flow, seeking to continually reassess and look for improvements.


Evaluation of workflows can include the following:


Human Resources • Are skilled people being hired and retained?


Customer Service


• Do communications with customers and outside designers include file preparation guidelines and quality and delivery expectations?


Estimating


• Are production costs being tracked and documented?


• Are budgeted hourly rates for the equipment calculated for the actual equipment?


• Is the estimating software integrated into the MIS software?


Scheduling


• Does the MIS software use an electronic job ticket that tracks the job in real time, and are changes easily identified by the operators?


Prepress


• Is the equipment suitable and efficient for the workflow?


• Is color management being used and implemented correctly?


Pressroom


• Does the equipment suit the type of work being produced? Does it include technology and auto- mation that makes it cost competitive?


• Is the equipment, including accessories, working correctly?


• Is there a written maintenance program with records?


OPERATIONS


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