In what seems to be a forever-changing regulatory landscape, employers can only imagine what new EPA and OSHA requirements they will encounter in 2015. How can you avoid serious fines, negative publicity, and serious injuries from EHS violations? For managers, business owners, or anyone involved in EHS in the printing industry, those are just a few of the many concerns that can keep you up at night. But if there’s one thing we do know about your job going into 2015, it’s that the stakes are going to get higher and the rules more complicated. Gary Jones, Assistant Vice President of EHS Affairs at Printing Industries of America, has experienced his share of sleepless nights too, usually because he is traveling from state to state helping printers solve serious EHS challenges. We caught up with him in between a print consulting project and a key EPA meeting to talk about the crucial EHS issues facing industry companies today and important regulation changes they need to prepare for. You’ve led several significant EHS consulting and compliance auditing projects for printing operations this year. Can you tell us about some of the latest ones you’ve been working on? Gary Jones: Our team has been busy on a number of projects this year, both on the environmental and health and safety front. For many of the environmental projects, we’re helping operations with obtaining air permits as well as their compliance record keeping and reporting. Most printing companies don’t realize that if you purchase new equipment or if the regulations change, they may need to apply for an air permit—even small companies. While the thresholds vary from state to state, many of them have dropped to very low levels. In fact, in certain areas every piece of equipment that emits pollution must now have a permit. On the health and safety side, companies are concerned with the fallout of the printing industry being declared a high-hazard industry for amputations. OSHA has been targeting printing companies and focusing on how they are protecting employees from machine related hazards which include machine guarding and lockout/tagout procedures. In fact 78% of OSHA inspections in the printing industry for fiscal year 2014 were planned or targeted inspections. This shows that OSHA has clearly become very aggressive regarding inspections in the printing industry. Can you describe the top issues you see for members in the EHS field going into 2015? GJ: OSHA’s new reporting requirements, effective January 1, 2015, will be a game changer. Employers will be required to report any work-related incidents that result in an amputation, loss of an eye, or in-patient hospitalization of one or more employees within 24 hours to OSHA. Any fatality must...

Looking for another great resource for Lean and continuous improvement solutions? We found a helpful tool at FastCap.com. Check out the variety of blogs, videos, and more from Paul Akers, founder and president of FastCap and keynoter at the 2015 Continuous Improvement Conference! Time and money—two things most of us don’t have in excess. And if you’re thinking of using a continuous improvement strategy to reduce costs and boost customer satisfaction, the task can feel like an overwhelming use of your resources! But as the experts know, your journey to operational excellence is not an all-at-once undertaking. Rather it is the accumulation of small improvements by many employees that add up to a strategic advantage for your company. When you can inspire workers to make small-yet-frequent improvements rather than just focus on a few big ones, you are ready to join the ranks of Lean thinkers. What is a Lean thinker? Someone who has been conditioned to look at processes, spot the waste (and teach others to do the same), and apply tools to make the processes more efficient. Lean thinkers can’t avoid thinking that way—that same mindset kicks in when examining processes at home, at restaurants, and when visiting other companies. Take it from Paul Akers, founder and president of FastCap, an international woodworking supply company with distribution in 40 countries. As the “American Innovator,” he publishes a series of videos, blogs, and other resources on his website, including this one, “Becoming a Lean Thinker”. In this blog, Paul breaks down the continuous improvement nature of Lean into three steps, borrowing from the world-class concepts practiced by leading firms like Toyota, Harley-Davidson, and Porsche. Three steps to becoming a Lean thinker: 1. Learn the eight wastes and how to recognize them within your own facility. 2. Take small, consistent steps each day to removing the waste for good. 3. Network and share your company’s Lean journey. Document your improvements. FastCap documents many of them with short videos shared with employees. Continuous improvement is an ongoing process, so listen to the best practices of other companies and keep increasing your efficiency and profitability! Watch Paul Akers’ Video on Becoming a Lean Thinker. When you’re ready to learn new improvement strategies, start at the Continuous Improvement Conference. Here you can learn and network with some of the most innovative thinkers in the field. Paul Akers will also be there to dive deeper into this topic with his keynote presentation, Seeing Waste Like You’ve Never Seen It Before. Becoming a Lean thinker means that you can recognize the opportunities for improvement within your facility and be on your way to greater efficiency and profitability. For more information and to register for...

Looking for another great resource for Lean and continuous improvement solutions? We found a helpful tool at FastCap.com. Check out the variety of blogs, videos, and more from Paul Akers, founder and president of FastCap and keynoter at the 2015 Continuous Improvement Conference! Time and money—two things most of us don’t have in excess. And if you’re thinking of using a continuous improvement strategy to reduce costs and boost customer satisfaction, the task can feel like an overwhelming use of your resources! But as the experts know, your journey to operational excellence is not an all-at-once undertaking. Rather it is the accumulation of small improvements by many employees that add up to a strategic advantage for your company. When you can inspire workers to make small-yet-frequent improvements rather than just focus on a few big ones, you are ready to join the ranks of Lean thinkers. What is a Lean thinker? Someone who has been conditioned to look at processes, spot the waste (and teach others to do the same), and apply tools to make the processes more efficient. Lean thinkers can’t avoid thinking that way—that same mindset kicks in when examining processes at home, at restaurants, and when visiting other companies. Take it from Paul Akers, founder and president of FastCap, an international woodworking supply company with distribution in 40 countries. As the “American Innovator,” he publishes a series of videos, blogs, and other resources on his website, including this one, “Becoming a Lean Thinker”. In this blog, Paul breaks down the continuous improvement nature of Lean into three steps, borrowing from the world-class concepts practiced by leading firms like Toyota, Harley-Davidson, and Porsche. Three steps to becoming a Lean thinker: 1. Learn the eight wastes and how to recognize them within your own facility. 2. Take small, consistent steps each day to removing the waste for good. 3. Network and share your company’s Lean journey. Document your improvements. FastCap documents many of them with short videos shared with employees. Continuous improvement is an ongoing process, so listen to the best practices of other companies and keep increasing your efficiency and profitability! Watch Paul Akers’ Video on Becoming a Lean Thinker. When you’re ready to learn new improvement strategies, start at the Continuous Improvement Conference. Here you can learn and network with some of the most innovative thinkers in the field. Paul Akers will also be there to dive deeper into this topic with his keynote presentation, Seeing Waste Like You’ve Never Seen It Before. Becoming a Lean thinker means that you can recognize the opportunities for improvement within your facility and be on your way to greater efficiency and profitability. For more information and to register for...

The following post was contributed by Rick Ciordia, Territory Sales Manager at Standard Finishing Systems and member of the BIA Board of Directors. Traditional diecutting in the bindery has been around for many years. There are many types of diecutting. In this case we are discussing diecutting for the commercial print and light packaging industry. Rotary diecutting is one of those processes that has always given a printed piece a look and vision of class, elegance, function, and, most importantly, higher profit margins for the manufacturer. Diecutting had traditionally been an area of high investment, complex die creation, highly trained operators, and long runs. Today diecutting is getting a makeover. With the advent of digital print devices, shorter runs, fewer skilled operators, tighter margins, and turn-around, diecutting is now entering a new phase of simplicity, with the same qualities of higher-end machines in a small package. New small-format rotary magnetic diecutting units from several manufacturers allow the customer to use magnetic dies from a plethora of sources around the world. Many of the die manufacturers have been making these types of rotary magnetic dies for the flexographic, forms, and packaging industries for years. The dies have been manufactured for runs of hundreds of thousands to millions, depending on the requirements of the run length and substrate. Typically the rotary diecutting was used for webs and flat bed for cut sheet. Cut sheet diecutters are for medium to long runs but are very high in price ($450,000 and up). Older flatbed letterpress devices are typically modified for diecutting but hold mediocre registration, are complex to set up, and many times are unsafe. The new family of rotary magnetic diecutters, such as the Standard Horizon RD-4055, allow an unskilled operator to produce a very short run or a longer run with ease and quality. Kiss cutting, embossing, scoring, perfing, and stripping are all available on some of these systems at a much lower cost than traditional diecutters, along with exact registration and even the ability to step and repeat in order to keep die costs low, which is important for a very short run. The ability to store jobs in memory and recall them at the touch of a button is also very useful when there are many jobs that rerun on a regular basis. This allows your customers to truly request diecut work on an on-demand basis, saving them storage space and allowing more scheduling flexibility. Diecutting also increases your opportunities to bring higher-end work to your facility, as many jobs that are diecut are usually done on higher-end substrates with high color. Discover more resources that come with a BIA Membership by visiting...

The following post was contributed by Rick Ciordia, Territory Sales Manager at Standard Finishing Systems and member of the BIA Board of Directors. Traditional diecutting in the bindery has been around for many years. There are many types of diecutting. In this case we are discussing diecutting for the commercial print and light packaging industry. Rotary diecutting is one of those processes that has always given a printed piece a look and vision of class, elegance, function, and, most importantly, higher profit margins for the manufacturer. Diecutting had traditionally been an area of high investment, complex die creation, highly trained operators, and long runs. Today diecutting is getting a makeover. With the advent of digital print devices, shorter runs, fewer skilled operators, tighter margins, and turn-around, diecutting is now entering a new phase of simplicity, with the same qualities of higher-end machines in a small package. New small-format rotary magnetic diecutting units from several manufacturers allow the customer to use magnetic dies from a plethora of sources around the world. Many of the die manufacturers have been making these types of rotary magnetic dies for the flexographic, forms, and packaging industries for years. The dies have been manufactured for runs of hundreds of thousands to millions, depending on the requirements of the run length and substrate. Typically the rotary diecutting was used for webs and flat bed for cut sheet. Cut sheet diecutters are for medium to long runs but are very high in price ($450,000 and up). Older flatbed letterpress devices are typically modified for diecutting but hold mediocre registration, are complex to set up, and many times are unsafe. The new family of rotary magnetic diecutters, such as the Standard Horizon RD-4055, allow an unskilled operator to produce a very short run or a longer run with ease and quality. Kiss cutting, embossing, scoring, perfing, and stripping are all available on some of these systems at a much lower cost than traditional diecutters, along with exact registration and even the ability to step and repeat in order to keep die costs low, which is important for a very short run. The ability to store jobs in memory and recall them at the touch of a button is also very useful when there are many jobs that rerun on a regular basis. This allows your customers to truly request diecut work on an on-demand basis, saving them storage space and allowing more scheduling flexibility. Diecutting also increases your opportunities to bring higher-end work to your facility, as many jobs that are diecut are usually done on higher-end substrates with high color. Discover more resources that come with a BIA Membership by visiting...