Ryan McAbee, PixelDot Consulting co-authored this article
I keep a close watch on my production line I keep my workflow updated all the time I automate for the tie that binds Because it’s prime I walk the line
Paraphrasing Johnny Cash, “I walk the line”
How many times have you heard the word automation in the last few weeks? It’s a big word and covers a vast territory. Automation – the one with a capital A – is the big tent. Under that big top are processes previously done by people but now handled by combinations of software and hardware with a goal of improving efficiency, productivity, and quality. It is often associated with manufacturing processes in factories producing cars, machinery, engines, and a panoply of other goods, but automation is everywhere. If you have a smart thermostat or have programmed the lights in your home, you have automation, too.
Automation is all around us in the form of robots, co-bots, machine automation, and process automation. Some automation is fixed, where the same process is repeated endlessly, as you see in assembly lines. Some automation is programmed, allowing for process flexibility. You see this when robots and co-bots can move among a set of fixed tasks based on programmed triggers. There is also a growing automation practice focused on flexible automation, where robots, co-bots, and processes are easily reprogrammed to take on new roles as needs change. Coming soon will be automation leveraging Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, so it learns and refines over time.
The continuing advancements in manufacturing automation are exciting because they all apply to the processes of print. It is manufacturing using raw materials, component manufacturing, and final assembly with many potential points for automation. The next series of articles dive into the power of hardware, software, and process automation, but first, we will look at typical processes in a print shop – the ones you see and the ones you don’t – to set the stage.
You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know
We must state the obvious. In any complex manufacturing environment, it is easy to believe that senior leadership and managers know every touchpoint and integration point, and intuitively know where automation can bring value. This is rarely the case. There are many degrees of separation between business management, sales, front office, back office, and manufacturing that breed assumptions about how these processes are accomplished. Some beliefs are based on how things were done a decade ago, and others on how things were done for products no longer in the catalog.
That leads to the first step: know thy print shop!
Start with a blank sheet and leave your assumptions in the parking lot. A lot of detail goes into walking the line, seeing how the work moves from task to task, who is rekeying information from handwritten forms, and who is rekeying from printed forms. Where are the bottlenecks, and where is the friction? How many software tools are in use? This is just the start of what to look for as you visit each element of your processes. But don’t forget the hardware!
As you renew your understanding of the shop, what hardware is over-scheduled, and what is barely scheduled? Where are the most common maintenance failures, and which equipment is still baffling to the operators charged with using it for production? Your printing and finishing equipment are just the start. What do you have that is manually operated? Do you already have robots or co-bots on the production floor?
When we do the deeper dive, there will be dozens of things to consider. There will be many threads of automation, manual work, and hybrid processes. For those areas of the business that can benefit from automation, you will want to know what currently happens, how many touchpoints it takes to accomplish a task, and where the integration points are to other processes.
Most importantly, we will answer your questions on what it takes to automate tasks and processes. Most vendors will tell you their successful projects begin with a prepared client. Before you talk to any solution vendor (even your current providers), you need to understand your shop in intricate detail. If you put the cart before the horse and invite a vendor in to automate the shop, the job becomes orders of magnitude harder.
The vendor’s professional services teams are happy to engage, but if they spend the initial engagement in discovery, your automation project will cost more and take much longer. Each time they find anomalies in your processes, conflicting processes, or other inconsistencies, it takes more time for them to build a plan. Even experienced independent consultants need a place to start to be effective.
Let’s Look for Hidden Gold!
Your shop has dozens of overt processes, no matter what segment you serve. They are the ones you can see as you walk through. You might hear a salesperson on the phone with a client to dial in the order specifications needed for an estimate or a CSR chasing missing information. As you walk through the shop, you will see printing, finishing, and preparation for client delivery or insertion into the mail stream. In each area, you might note what people are doing and what automation is in place, but don’t think you have captured the complete picture.
In every shop there are also covert operations, and it is essential that you uncover them, expose them to the light, and understand how to make them part of the mainstream. You will find them in every department, hidden below the surface and sometimes under keyboards. Here are some things to look for:
- Spreadsheets. In business, many people are comfortable with building spreadsheets to help manage and track their work and support requests or because they don’t trust the software used in their shop and want a familiar backup. These are your hidden enemy. In some cases, it is these unvetted, unofficial spreadsheets that are the guiding business operations, out of sight of department supervisors and managers.Sometimes the covert spreadsheets are more visible. Team members agree that things are complicated, so they build a spreadsheet to help them and to share with other teams. Over time, the spreadsheet becomes the primary guide, and the print MIS becomes out of date. Instead of a single source of truth, you have multiple reference points, and none is completely accurate or integrated to talk to the other.
- End of Shift Catch-ups. Walk the line at the end of each shift for a few days. Watch for furtive updating in your production tool. Are people spending the last 30 or 60 minutes of the day transferring information from their spreadsheet to your MIS, ERP, MES, or other tool? In doing years of assessments, we always ask if data entry happens in real-time, and we are almost always told yes. Then we spend some time watching, and that is where it becomes clear. The staff often don’t relate their activity to creating a problem.Workflow tools that automate data capture and sharing ensure that everyone is working from the same baseline. Even in this type of shop the covert end-of-shift data entry adventures mean that production information and statuses are not available during the shift.
- Jean Does That. Many shops have seasoned team members who become the experts in their departments. Their internal computer tells them the best imposition to use or the best nesting plan. They know how to tweak color profiles to produce what the customer has always wanted, and they know the magic to keeping the bindery equipment running. They might have a special relationship with specific customers and become the go-to problem solver when that client brings a complex request. Look around to see who your go-to experts and unofficial leaders are.These people are assets, but they are also a hindrance hiding in hero’s clothing. When people hold on to knowledge that isn’t shared or systematized, the business is at risk. You don’t need heroes. You need to know that you have teams of people and systems that can solve problems when they arise because if you rely on a hero who is on vacation, you have a problem.
- Everyone knows those jobs come in broken. When you sell a job based on an estimate, it may not consider what everyone knows about those jobs. And everyone who knows may not be communicating that knowledge upstream. The result is that minutes, hours, or days of activity may be involved in bringing that job to production that is never accounted for. Walk the line when you know a big job, complex job, or a job everyone complains about is in the workflow. See how it is handled, how much time elapses, and if it is accounted for.
- Production floor change requests. There will always be late-stage changes and delivery emergencies, but you should be accounting for them. What is the process used when change requests come in? Are sales team members permitted to add discounts without approval before a job goes to invoicing? If a substrate must change, where is that information captured?A million things can happen once production starts, but that doesn’t mean that they should be done without a process that includes accountability.
Think about the covert activities in your shop. They aren’t malicious, but they have an impact on productivity. As you consider automation projects, if these activities fail to surface, you may be automating the wrong things.
Going forward, keep automation firmly in view. Once it is in place, the rewards come in the form of time saved and increased profits from lowering the cost of production, but it isn’t magic. There is work to be done to prepare for big A Automation strategies and little a automation tactics. The most successful projects have executive buy-in and involvement, as well as ongoing communication with the departmental teams. We all live in an automated world. Bringing that power to the printing plant can be your superpower!
