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| It's Time to Get Moving |
Spring 2009 | |
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OPTIMISM???
Dare we go here? Well, judging by the majority of the printers I talked to at the recent PINE Vendor Showcase, most feel that the economy has turned the corner. Orders have started to pick up and most are at least moderately busy. This is a far cry from what many have suffered through over the winter.
Nearly everyone has undertaken some major cost cutting moves, either reducing hours, laying off, or cutting pay. While we don't like to do these things, we do what we have to to survive and live for another day. These actions may teach us to run leaner in the long run. However, printing and binding is a service intensive business and we have to maintain a proper support to service our clients.
Now that the weather is getting warmer, the Red Sox have begun play, and with the improvement of business, I and many others am feeling a great sense of optimism. | |
The Everyday Details
Things that happen in the plant every day teach us lessons. All of the following 5 ways to save on binding jobs directly or indirectly happened to us on any given day. Most of what I write about in these newsletters are the little details of what happens daily.
5 WAYS TO SAVE ON BINDING JOBS
1. Review your text and cover layouts with your bindery for proper trims and pagination. Please do not cut corners when it comes to slitting on your folder. If you are unsure about slitting off extra trim on your folder let us fold the job.
2. Include complete instructions on your purchase order so that we don't have to call back and ask questions AND so we don't make any mistakes
3. Skid pack if the job is going to a mail house. We can tie your product in bundles so they will stay together and in good shape. Skid packing helps to save on cartons.
4. Preschedule your jobs as far in advance as possible so that we can plan adequate time for them.
5. Shrinkwrap in convenient quantities or film laminate (yes, we film laminate) when necessary as insurance to protect your job. That way you won't have to reprint a sensitive cover.
BONUS TIP: ENCOURAGE YOUR CUSTOMERS TO USE A STANDARD TRIM SIZE. With a standard trim size your books will fit into conventional cartons and we won't need additional labor to stuff them. Empty space leads to transit marking and spoiled jobs. Suggest to your customer that they conform to an 8.5 x 11, 5.5 x 8.5 or 6 x 9 size and they can save money. And, if you have an unusual size coming up and the run is sufficient in length, with enough advance notice we can order special size cartons!
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GLUE TRAP? DON'T NEED IT!
Advancements in glue application technology have come to the point where we no longer require a glue trap for your perfect bound covers! This will save you money and aggravation.
For years we have been haranguing you to leave a little bit of extra cover to serve as a 'glue trap' for perfect bound books. A glue trap allows any glue that gets squeezed out to have someplace to go other than the machine.
With extrusion side glue and spine glue applicators, we no longer require a glue trap. And our year old Pantera's conventional wheel pot allows a more precise cut off than older wheel applicators. We can stop our glue application within the trim area on the book. So we can bind your book with the same fine results as if you had enough cover overlap for the glue trap. And we won't have to nag you anymore. |
FORMAL LEAN TRAINING COMES TO A CLOSE
Our formal Lean Manufacturing/Continuous Improvement training is coming to a close, and when we say it is Continuous Improvement, you better believe it. How do we sum up the value of the training in this short space?
I'd say that we accomplished two things with our program: We learned about the process of improvement, and the need to be conscious of what we are doing is now ingrained in our daily thinking. The formal training is only a start, a huge start, but it is a process that works only with the intimate involvement of management.
How do we measure what we have accomplished? We have been struggling with that answer. One objective of what we are doing is to reduce set up times. But few of the jobs we do are alike. And we are always starting at different points to arrive at a set up for a particular job. However, we estimate now that our set up times for routine jobs have decreased by 20%.
How does one measure the payback of the program? This can only be known long term. One measure of the value is that credits for defective work have nearly vanished over the course of the training. Our people are much more engaged in what they do. We are learning to look for labor saving procedures. They know that it is these little things that will keep us in business, by our being to deliver work quicker and error free.
How do we keep the training alive after our trainer has departed? The several groups that we formed to study each of our processes will meet once a month for review and further study. We in management owe it to our people and ourselves to keep the fires burning, never being satisfied with the status quo.
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PUR BINDING
You all know that we are New England's PUR specialist and that we have a ton of practical information on our website www.seaboardbindery.com. But my friend Richard Berwick of Point-Control Print Finishing in the UK is their PUR specialist and he has a well organized presentation on his website
http://www.point-control.co.uk/services/pur-binding. Check it out. |
EDITORIAL
The Case for using your Trade Binder
Every printer has binding capabilities which understandably they like to use as much as possible. Most cut, fold and saddlestitch, at least to some degree. Others have grown large binderies in house staffed for all their needs. I am sure most feel that they have to do it to meet demanding turnaround times and to "keep control".
With the economy in recession now, you might look to your trade bindery to meet some of your needs that in healthier times might be taken care of in house. All binderies have excess capacity now. We can do the "impossible" turnarounds. And, we have the qualified staff to give you excellent quality with the right equipment.
This gives you extra flexibility to make adjustments to your own workforce that may not be working as efficiently as in other times. The trade bindery exists to do the work that you don't receive often enough to bring in house. We also act as an overflow resource, so that you can feel free to sell printing and not worry about your in house bindery capacity. We work to help you maximize the return on your own people so that they can do what they do best. That allows us to do what we do best: to make you look good and make you money |
SEABOARDBINDERY.COM HAS BEEN REDESIGNED!
Our website has been redesigned and modernized, and have simplified the process of finding the information that many of you have told us is very helpful. We are planning to do great things with it over time; I will not spoil the anticipation right now. Our focus will continue to be education for old practitioners and new, with the goal of helping you find and design the right kind of binding job for your printed project. We want to help you produce it efficiently so that it will run in the shortest amount of time, at the least cost, and with the highest quality possible.
Check through our new site and give us your feedback. We are interested in what you have to say. |
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