It’s a fact: The cost to acquire and maintain customers is at an all time high. Think about the increasing number of RFP’s and quotation activities just to get your hat in the ring. Think about the increasing digital workflow complexities and the number of changes customers have on average that need to be project managed. We also have people in our organizations today that are masters at the fine art of looking busy. Something has to give. We can’t afford to sustain all these activities that will meet customers demands and deliver a profit.

We know that getting capital deployment from technology to drive productivity growth faster is the number one priority of frontier companies. But what’s also becoming clear is to get capital deployment or an ROI from Intellectual Capital...this includes the human functions, the intangibles...all the domain knowledge and expertise used to convert activity to orders. Working smarter needs to have a payoff.

A detailed understanding of how and where labor hours are used AND how they are integrated with technology investments is essential. Printers that can align technology and systems, along with the human asset function, to these concepts of lean will have organizations based on the highest value add activities ensuring the highest ROI.

The new buzzword is Workflow, workflow, workflow...mapping it, measuring it, and managing it is what it’s all about.

Raine Model for Lean Printing©

In addition to an understanding of the basic principles, creating success in implementing lean beyond the manufacturing floor requires a larger systems view. This view is also critical in understanding why so many technology and organizational implementations have failed – not due to the people or tools, but because of the complexities in integration.

No matter if your organization is focused on Lean Manufacturing, Lean Office, or Lean Selling, the key lies in the "I’s" – those integration points where technology/automation and the personal job function, become dependent on translation, interpretation, or authorization. Interestingly, we have found that even in companies where total automation exists (where customer’s web-based orders download directly into supplier’s production systems); people still pick up the phone, inserting themselves as INTEGRATORS with a crucial role in the process.

To move to true Lean Printing©, not only do you need to understand and effectively manage internal integration points, but also understand the critical integration points inside your customer, and between your customer and your company. Prioritizing which integration points to work on first that give you the biggest bang for the buck is a way to contain/focus activities and to achieve small successes affordably.