The long-held vision and dream to see three organizations come together to produce an industry wide event became a marvelous reality last month in Palm Desert, California, with the launch of the first Vision 3 Summit. The buzz in the dry desert air was palpable as printers and vendors assembled by the hundreds to share ideas and speculate on what the future holds for our great industry.  I could not be more thrilled with the success of the event and how wonderful the collaboration was between Printing Industries of America, NAPL, and NPES. The event kicked off with arguably the most unconventional economic forecast by Dr. Lowell Catlett from New Mexico State University.  Dr. Catlett combined home-spun charm and humor to reinforce just how strong the United States economy is and that the future is indeed bright.  Industry leader Mike Panaggio followed this theme and shared his business philosophy of focusing on talent to drive organizational success.  Mike is one of the most visionary entrepreneurs in our industry, and it was a privilege to have him share his strategic vision.  If this weren’t enough, he also designed personalized websites for all of the conference attendees, chalk full of business ideas and blueprints. The first day continued with an informative innovators panel featuring David Fox of Valpak, Chuck Gehman of Mimeo.com, and Andrew Field of Printingforless.com.  Lisbeth Lyons provided a fascinating look into the political scene as the keynote luncheon speaker and day one concluded with a motivational address by John Wright who challenged all to be winners instead of losers. If homespun charm was the theme of the first economist, then a dose of reality was the theme of the Summit’s second keynote address by Alan Beaulieu from the Institute for Trend Research.  Mr. Beaulieu explored the economies of most major industrialized nations and gave predictions on when the economy in North America would rise and fall.  Gina Testa from Xerox was next up and facilitated one of the best marketing panels I have ever seen featuring graphic communications execs with their customers.  It was amazing.  Tuesday’s luncheon speaker was Chris Morgan, HP’s Senior Vice President of Graphics Solutions, who explored how the changing digital landscape is affecting the future of print. On day three I was honored to open the conference by facilitating a pacesetters panel featuring Craig Faust from Quad/Graphics, Bill Gilmer of Wordsprint, and Scott Vaughn from the Standard Group.  All three discussed how they are transforming their businesses by diversifying their offerings and working more strategically with clients.  The conference concluded with economist No.3—the ever entertaining and insightful Andy Paparozzi from NAPL who summarized all of the conference presentations with a cogent blueprint for printers...

The Continuous Improvement Conference is approaching (April 10-13) and we thought we’d check-in with a past attendee to see how they’ve leveraged the valuable information and techniques presented at the conference. Mike Fehr, Systems & Quality Manager at Friesens Corporation, talks about his takeaway from the Continuous Improvement Conference as well as Lean in general.  What has your experience with the Continuous Improvement conference been like? What have you garnered from it? My experience has been very positive. In fact, this conference has consistently given me more value and ideas than any other conference I have attended. Generally I come home with more ideas than what I have time to implement. We have all experienced that challenge. The difference here is that I hear great low cost ideas that are clear, easy to implement, with good value. In addition, I have been able to pick up the phone and talk to the companies where the ideas have come from and ask additional questions. Do you feel that operational excellence is something all printers should employ? Yes. Although this looks very different to each one of our organizations. The more challenging part is defining and helping people understand what operational excellence is to us. Have you always tried to be as Lean and efficient as possible? What have you learned on your Lean journey? Lean has always been a part of our culture. We formalized this process within our organization by training a few people for their Green Belt. This was done through a Lean Sensei in Vancouver. Although we have tried to practice being Lean, we did not have the tools to do so. After training we were able to formalize ways of acting Lean more efficiently. After attending my first CI Conference a few years ago, I changed much of my language from Lean to Continuous Improvement internally. Essentially all of the blitzes, projects, etc, are all CI initiatives to become better.  There are many things that we have learned during our Lean journey. Here is a snapshot of a couple: Be sure to involve the right people in blitzes. The most successful ones include facilitators (Green Belts), experts (operators/staff members) and decision makers (managers of the area affected). Also, include experts from multiple shifts.  We have a Lean Team responsible for CI type initiatives. They include a cross section of staff and managers.  Any advice for other printers looking to embrace the Lean lifestyle?  Be less concerned about trying to quantify ROI than about achieving desired results. The return is there. Be sure to involve some senior management with Lean reports. How do you go about learning new Lean techniques? I learn new Lean techniques through conferences and...

After 23 years of examining and researching the printing industry, Dr. Ronnie Davis thought it was time to assemble the insight, knowledge, and lessons he learned about the printing industry into one resource, his new book: Competing for Print’s Thriving Future: Understanding and Taking Advantage of Emerging Economic and Industry Forces. Here, he has compiled a “soup-to-nuts” reference book on key economic and management issues for the printing industry, including how various economic and market forces have shaped competition and performance in the industry in the past and how the industry will look in the future. It also provides readers a plan to take the analysis and turn it into a sustainable competitive advantage in order to compete for print’s thriving future. By focusing on the future—the emerging printing industry—the book helps ensure readers are looking to the future potential of the industry and not at the past. It is ideal for printing firm executives, industry supplier executives, college and secondary school instructors and students, and others interested in the future direction of the printing industry and key success factors for surviving and thriving in the future. We asked Dr. Davis to share some insights, highlights, and background information on the analysis and features within his new book. To begin, what do you see as the main takeaway after reading Competing for Print’s Thriving Future? The key message of this book is that, contrary to all of the negative information about the current state of America’s printing industry, and in spite of the very serious challenges facing print at this time, there is still a lot of life and opportunity in print’s future. Indeed, a case can be made (and is made in this book) that print could undergo a reversal of fortune and grow long-run revenues in the foreseeable future. Even if this most optimistic view does not materialize, our backup future scenario is one of a thriving future for at least a significant proportion of the printing industry and printers. The overriding general theme is the need for a new focus on positive thinking regarding the printing industry. More specifically, the book addresses how printers can create their own positive future by understanding and taking advantage of emerging changes in print’s driving forces, those changes that are shaping the printing industry of today and tomorrow.  Then, how would you advise a reader to apply the information contained in this report? To fully comprehend and properly utilize the information and guidance provided in Competing for Print’s Thriving Futureprinters need to read the entire book. Indeed, the book should be read and discussed by the full management team and a plan for surviving and thriving developed.  What are the best opportunities for printers? The...

There’s a lot going on here at Printing Industries of America and what better way to showcase that than with a channel of videos? If you haven’t seen our YouTube channel yet, I suggest taking a look. We’re addding new videos all the time and the scope of our association allows us to produce videos on a variety of topics. Available to you with a single click are videos about continuous improvement and operational excellence, a short value of print video, an interview with an attendee of the LPIA Technical Institute and a preview of the BIA Annual Conference. Keep checking back the channel because we’ll be increasing our offering to you in the future. Let us know what you think about the videos in the comments...

Recently my young granddaughter asked me about 3D printing.  What?  A ten-year-old asking about an article she read in the Economist?  OK, so she only saw the headline but then my son who is a Gen Yer, asked me what I knew about 3 D printing.  This is great, I could actually talk about it and guess what? We have a DPC Tech Talk article about it.  Click here for the DPC Tech Talk.   If you want to read the other Economist articles, try these links. Go 3D...

Can you believe the Vision 3 Summit is only three weeks away? It doesn’t seem like so long ago that we sat down with NAPL and NPES to plan a groundbreaking new leadership conference to help invigorate our industry. The reason the three associations have come together to form the Vision 3 Summit is indicative of what our industry must do to survive—work with one another to share ideas so we can provide consumers with new and innovative products and services. To facilitate this, we’ve put together a conference to prepare industry leaders for the future as well as offer panels filled with innovators in the field. For instance, the aptly named Innovators Panel gathers some of the visionaries in the field to share their inspiration and advice with you. You’ll get to hear David Fox, Vice President, Manufacturing, Valpak®; Chuck Gehman, Vice President, Product Management, Mimeo.com; and Andrew Field, President and CEO, PrintingForLess.com (PFL) discuss their business models and solutions. The Pacesetters Panel—Leading the Industry by Example gathers Craig Faust, President and CEO, HGI Company; Bill Gilmer, President and Owner, Wordsprint; and Scott Vaughn, CEO of The Standard Group, to talk about the different paths of success they’ve followed to get to where they are today. Those are just two of the many sessions we’ve put together. Whether you’re looking to expand into vertical markets, plan for the future, embrace social media, or figuring out new ways to grow, the Vision 3 Summit has you covered. We’re all very proud of the program, and we know those who attend will come away with solutions and the drive needed to push their company forward into the “new world” of print. For a more in-depth sampling of content showcased at the conference, visit the YouTube page, follow the conference on Twitter and Facebook, or read blog post from speakers at Printing Impressions. Additionally, Vision3summit.org has a summary of every session at the...