Lean Manufacturing helps companies drive toward greater efficiency and productivity while reducing waste. It’s an essential strategy for manufacturers that decreases operational costs and improves quality. One of the areas that it supports is accuracy. Lean manufacturing accuracy is critical for transactional print and mail. That’s why PCI Group adopted it.
What Is Lean Manufacturing?
Lean Manufacturing is a systematic method that an organization adopts to operate in the most efficient manner. Its foundation is continuous process improvement. It leverages tactics to identify and drive out waste. It’s not only a waste of materials but also time, effort, and motion.
To do that, it has five pillars:
- Sort: Eliminate the unnecessary
- Set in Order: Organize and identify parts and tools needed.
- Shine: Clean and inspect areas.
- Standardize: Ensure regular maintenance
- Sustain: Make 5S a habit
The idea behind these is to create a manufacturing floor that’s safe, organized, ready, and clean. In such an environment, companies can operate consistently. The next part of Lean Manufacturing is defining and establishing standard works.
What Are Standard Works?
Standard works come from 5S and document how operators perform work. Processes can have hundreds of steps, and a standard work breaks them down in the correct sequence. In doing so, you can optimize the tasks to improve quality and accuracy.
The reason they are so valuable is that they ensure consistency. Otherwise, operators may do the same tasks differently, which can cause issues. If there’s no definitive way, then there are many ways, and that’s confusing and detrimental.
So, how does a company create standard works? For PCI Group, we put those in the hands of the people that actually do the work. Our top-performing operators defined these and agreed on the “best” way. In all, we have over 270 standard works related to transactional mail and print.
Lean Manufacturing Solves Accountability Concerns
Another essential part of Lean Manufacturing and its impact on accuracy is its implementation facilitates accountability. The optimized processes hold all those involved accountable.
Everyone is cognizant of their goals, and tracking of those occurs. We display KPIs (key performance indicators) visually, so workers see them, keeping them top of mind.
Lean is much more than a strategy or tactic. It’s a culture, and when everyone is on the same page, Lean lifts an organization’s efforts holistically.
Lean Manufacturing Accuracy Supports Transactional Print and Mail’s Stringent Guidelines
In transactional print and mail, accuracy is EVERYTHING. There is literally no room for error. Because errors can cause big problems, from exposing confidential information to being non-compliant with regulations.
That’s why Lean Manufacturing is such an ideal practice for the industry. Process auditing happens regularly to identify any variabilities and work to improve them. This pursuit of continuous improvement never ends, and staff can continue to hone their skills and drive positive change.
Since we implemented it, its impact on accuracy has all been positive. In turn, it’s motivated employees to suggest standard work adjustments to keep moving the needle on accuracy, which currently sits at an industry-leading 99.9999%.
For any organization with a high volume of transactional mail, working with a Lean Manufacturing provider should be a priority. There’s just no room for error when it comes to these type of mailings.
Learn more about working with our Lean-focused operations today.
