This post was contributed by Brian Regan, president, Semper International. Brian will present at the 2015 Print Leadership Summit, May 18–19, in Minneapolis, MN. Read his full article, “Introducing Techcreative: The Next Key Role in Hiring,” from the October 2014 issue of Printing Industries of America: The Magazine.  Have most of your recent hires been in the IT, marketing, or technology teams? As a job seeker, do you notice more companies requiring cutting-edge technical skills like CAD or Graphic Design, SEO or Social Media, or Variable Data or Web-to-Print? Today our industry is undergoing a fundamental shift in our internal rosters from production to technology centered. Brian Regan and his team at Semper International have coined this new role the “Techcreative.” Defined as intermediaries between the two worlds of creativity and technology—those with the technical expertise to make your ideas a reality, Techcreatives are an essential part of a successful team. They are out-of-the-box thinkers who can help you streamline production strategies and improve workplace efficiency. As an industry we need to be prepared to face this transformation. The question is not if business must adjust to new technology and new market dynamics, but what that shift will look like. This infographic gives you a snapshot of the technology and creativity skills that blend to form the Techcreative.  ...

This post was contributed by Brian Regan, president, Semper International. Brian will present at the 2015 Print Leadership Summit, May 18–19, in Minneapolis, MN. Read his full article, “Introducing Techcreative: The Next Key Role in Hiring,” from the October 2014 issue of Printing Industries of America: The Magazine.  Have most of your recent hires been in the IT, marketing, or technology teams? As a job seeker, do you notice more companies requiring cutting-edge technical skills like CAD or Graphic Design, SEO or Social Media, or Variable Data or Web-to-Print? Today our industry is undergoing a fundamental shift in our internal rosters from production to technology centered. Brian Regan and his team at Semper International have coined this new role the “Techcreative.” Defined as intermediaries between the two worlds of creativity and technology—those with the technical expertise to make your ideas a reality, Techcreatives are an essential part of a successful team. They are out-of-the-box thinkers who can help you streamline production strategies and improve workplace efficiency. As an industry we need to be prepared to face this transformation. The question is not if business must adjust to new technology and new market dynamics, but what that shift will look like. This infographic gives you a snapshot of the technology and creativity skills that blend to form the Techcreative.  ...

The following post is contributed by Jim Workman, Assistant Vice President, Center for Technology and Research, Printing Industries of America. Lean is more than a business philosophy, it’s a way of life. It’s also simpler to implement than the consultants would have you believe. And respecting your employees by recognizing and developing their talents must be a central focus. Those are three principle messages from Paul Akers’ 2 Second Lean book. Akers credits Lean with propelling his woodworking supply business from a garage startup in 1997 to a multimillion dollar enterprise with distribution in 40 countries. In April 2015 Akers will be the opening speaker at the Continuous Improvement Conference in Minneapolis. Akers is a master carpenter, pilot, musician, and Eagle Scout, and was already oozing with confidence when he started FastCap, named after his initial invention, a self-adhesive cover for screw holes in cabinets.  His dose of reality came when he ran into inventory problems and was dissuaded of the notion that he knew how to how to manufacture. A consultant introduced him to the Toyota Production System (a.k.a. Lean Manufacturing) and Akers grew into a devout believer, eventually applying a customized version to his manufacturing business.   Akers learned to spot waste everywhere, traveled to Japan to tour companies modeling Lean behavior, devoured management books, and brought an air of efficiency and simplicity to FastCap, saving the company tens of thousands of dollars. He then hit the wall, exhausted, having reached the point that many give up on Lean—realizing that the minute he stepped away from the business, improvement stopped. 2 Second Lean recounts Akers’ struggle and discovery of how to build a culture at FastCap so that continual improvement was in its DNA. He established company goals, instituted staff-wide morning meetings and rotated leader duties, read aloud from his favorite business books, taught the eight wastes and other concepts, and set aside an hour a day for the 3Ss (sweep, sort, and standardize) so that everyone could identify a daily 2 second improvement. He adjusted as needed, hired people who were humble and curious, and documented company ingenuity with endless videos.    The essence of 2 Second Lean is about making small incremental improvements that accumulate into a significant advantage. Akers lays out a roadmap that has lessons for every leader. Paul Akers is a featured keynote at the 2015 Continuous Improvement Conference. For more information and to register for the 2015 Continuous Improvement Conference, April 12–15, in Minneapolis, MN, visit...

The following post is contributed by Jim Workman, Assistant Vice President, Center for Technology and Research, Printing Industries of America. Lean is more than a business philosophy, it’s a way of life. It’s also simpler to implement than the consultants would have you believe. And respecting your employees by recognizing and developing their talents must be a central focus. Those are three principle messages from Paul Akers’ 2 Second Lean book. Akers credits Lean with propelling his woodworking supply business from a garage startup in 1997 to a multimillion dollar enterprise with distribution in 40 countries. In April 2015 Akers will be the opening speaker at the Continuous Improvement Conference in Minneapolis. Akers is a master carpenter, pilot, musician, and Eagle Scout, and was already oozing with confidence when he started FastCap, named after his initial invention, a self-adhesive cover for screw holes in cabinets.  His dose of reality came when he ran into inventory problems and was dissuaded of the notion that he knew how to how to manufacture. A consultant introduced him to the Toyota Production System (a.k.a. Lean Manufacturing) and Akers grew into a devout believer, eventually applying a customized version to his manufacturing business.   Akers learned to spot waste everywhere, traveled to Japan to tour companies modeling Lean behavior, devoured management books, and brought an air of efficiency and simplicity to FastCap, saving the company tens of thousands of dollars. He then hit the wall, exhausted, having reached the point that many give up on Lean—realizing that the minute he stepped away from the business, improvement stopped. 2 Second Lean recounts Akers’ struggle and discovery of how to build a culture at FastCap so that continual improvement was in its DNA. He established company goals, instituted staff-wide morning meetings and rotated leader duties, read aloud from his favorite business books, taught the eight wastes and other concepts, and set aside an hour a day for the 3Ss (sweep, sort, and standardize) so that everyone could identify a daily 2 second improvement. He adjusted as needed, hired people who were humble and curious, and documented company ingenuity with endless videos.    The essence of 2 Second Lean is about making small incremental improvements that accumulate into a significant advantage. Akers lays out a roadmap that has lessons for every leader. Paul Akers is a featured keynote at the 2015 Continuous Improvement Conference. For more information and to register for the 2015 Continuous Improvement Conference, April 12–15, in Minneapolis, MN, visit...

Time. No matter what, it seems like there’s never enough, right? One way to save time is to make your workplace more visual, infusing it with information that answers the critical and recurrent questions of people working there. With a glance people can get the information they need without having to waste time searching for it. Visual Management systems “enable anyone to immediately assess the current status of an operation or process at a glance, regardless of their knowledge of the process. Visual displays relate information and data to employees in an area through the use of charts, graphs, and process documentation.” (Continuous Improvement Glossary) In the article “Visual Management,” authors Phuong Nguyen, and Jim Mullen, Nosco, Inc., give the 15,000-ft view of how to immediately spot areas to improve and apply this system to an operation. Examples from the pressroom You notice that the preproduction team was overproducing for some presses and underproducing for others. Now staging orders for the presses has become disorganized, causing frustration across departments. What do you do? Call a cross-functional team meeting to decide how to improve the staging order of the presses. Have them create makeready carts with a preflight checklist to visually communicate when a cart is ready. Tape off and label areas around each press for completed staged carts to reside until your press operator needs them. Your results: Reduced downtime—everyone knows when staged orders are ready. A visual management method for the process of staging orders. A sustained process—front-line leads and managers use a Kamishibai audit board (uses a red/green card system along with standardized questions to ask various team members how the process is working. Red means the audit was not done. If the card is green, this means the audit was completed. Any corrective actions are written on the green side.) How to get started Implement the 5S system (Sort, Set-in-order, Shine, Standardize, and Sustain). Use visual tools to create a Lean environment, including signage, labeling, location markers, color coding, standard work visuals, and metric boards. With these visuals you will have a clean plant and can better manage your processes. We also recommend studying other successful Lean organizations with a proven track record of recognizing and leading change. Some managers, like Managing for Improvement Award recipients William Denzen, general manager of rollfed and Red Rock Technologies business units for Smyth Companies, and Timothy Keran, CEO and owner of Western Graphics, have found winning recipes for creating real and lasting improvement for their companies! Think of it like this The bottom line for visual management is staying tuned in to what’s happening in your operation. As a parallel example, say you’re at home watching the Super Bowl....

Time. No matter what, it seems like there’s never enough, right? One way to save time is to make your workplace more visual, infusing it with information that answers the critical and recurrent questions of people working there. With a glance people can get the information they need without having to waste time searching for it. Visual Management systems “enable anyone to immediately assess the current status of an operation or process at a glance, regardless of their knowledge of the process. Visual displays relate information and data to employees in an area through the use of charts, graphs, and process documentation.” (Continuous Improvement Glossary) In the article “Visual Management,” authors Phuong Nguyen, and Jim Mullen, Nosco, Inc., give the 15,000-ft view of how to immediately spot areas to improve and apply this system to an operation. Examples from the pressroom You notice that the preproduction team was overproducing for some presses and underproducing for others. Now staging orders for the presses has become disorganized, causing frustration across departments. What do you do? Call a cross-functional team meeting to decide how to improve the staging order of the presses. Have them create makeready carts with a preflight checklist to visually communicate when a cart is ready. Tape off and label areas around each press for completed staged carts to reside until your press operator needs them. Your results: Reduced downtime—everyone knows when staged orders are ready. A visual management method for the process of staging orders. A sustained process—front-line leads and managers use a Kamishibai audit board (uses a red/green card system along with standardized questions to ask various team members how the process is working. Red means the audit was not done. If the card is green, this means the audit was completed. Any corrective actions are written on the green side.) How to get started Implement the 5S system (Sort, Set-in-order, Shine, Standardize, and Sustain). Use visual tools to create a Lean environment, including signage, labeling, location markers, color coding, standard work visuals, and metric boards. With these visuals you will have a clean plant and can better manage your processes. We also recommend studying other successful Lean organizations with a proven track record of recognizing and leading change. Some managers, like Managing for Improvement Award recipients William Denzen, general manager of rollfed and Red Rock Technologies business units for Smyth Companies, and Timothy Keran, CEO and owner of Western Graphics, have found winning recipes for creating real and lasting improvement for their companies! Think of it like this The bottom line for visual management is staying tuned in to what’s happening in your operation. As a parallel example, say you’re at home watching the Super Bowl....