Loss and waste in postpress processing

We do not live in a perfect world, although we often work hard for it. Therefore, we say that waste and loss occur in any post-press processing company or department.
Let us first look at the definition of loss and waste. As defined by the American Society of Printing and Offset Printing (NAPL) in a report entitled Waste and Loss in CNAPL Binding, the loss can be estimated and it is a real part of a business. The cost of the loss is included in the production budget. Therefore, as long as it is within the scope of the company's allowed standards, it will not affect the work cycle, process arrangements, and profits. The waste, or the loss that can be avoided, is completely different. Its unpredictability will make us pay a huge price. Therefore, waste is a great enemy of our workforce, process arrangements, and profits. On the contrary, efficiency is our goal, but it is a prerequisite. How to improve efficiency as much as possible requires us to find out the causes of waste and loss, and propose solutions.
Now let's analyze the reasons. In the post-press processing process, the causes of waste and loss can be materials, plans, machines, and human factors.
In the high-speed rotary printing and in the process of reaching the cutting machine, paper curling often occurs: the cutting machine is most suitable for cutting clean sheets. This problem has arisen. In this case, the paper may cause losses once it reaches the finishing stage. If you develop an unsuitable cycle plan that overlaps with other orders (that is, several orders are completed within a period of time), then a product that requires saddle stitching will not meet our expectations (planned reasons). : Aging regulators will affect folding (machine reason); improper paper accumulation during stapling will also cause loss (man-made reasons). I believe that we can all cite countless examples from past experience. So I think that the method of reducing the loss should be simple to narrate and classify. Let's look at some ways to reduce the loss. Losses caused by material and planned causes often indicate a lack of communication. This point has also been discussed in the past. Therefore, we emphasize that "early coordination and early planning" is absolutely not harmful. In general, the printing department and designers do not consider the post-printing part when studying a job. Once this single activity encounters the peak of the binding, it will happen by mistake. This is likely to be caused by the overlapping of the aforementioned cycles, or the past record exaggerates the performance of the desired binding method and some other properties. Therefore, if possible, communicate with everyone involved in production as soon as possible.
In addition, the printing department and the post-press processing department should also communicate with each other about issues that are currently unrelated to their respective production tasks. For example, when they talk about each other's losses caused by materials, they can find certain rules, which deepens their connection with each other. In other words, this will make the collaboration between teams more efficient. Just now we mentioned that an aging or malfunctioning machine also causes an increase in losses. In Seattle's binding factory, we noticed that if conditions allowed, they would replace the new equipment instead of repairing the old one. Because they believe that maintenance will soon become an inefficient performance. We did find that with some new equipment, they usually have better performance, they can produce excellent products, and they have short cycle times and short lead times. These advantages reduce waste and losses. Moreover, reducing the number of failures also reduces the chances of experienced operators finding and troubleshooting (saving human resources).

However, if we did not conduct a detailed and thorough comparison of cost issues with used equipment before we ordered new equipment, we were deceiving ourselves because we would see the same result. There is a very delicate balance in this. The scale of equipment repair and operation will also affect employee performance. The Seattle binding plant is a very powerful company. Each of their operators is able to learn as much as possible about the characteristics of the machine in a vehicle, and is responsible for a single production task in this workshop. In addition to temporary workers, everyone can become a technical expert. Training is another important factor in developing effective teams. Of course, after each additional training, the production tasks should be manageable, because only in this way can we determine that the training results outweigh the cost value, and that subsequent mistakes (if they occur) can be estimated, of course, Within the company's standard range. Then the remaining waste or loss is really touching the bottom line.
In fact, most of the issues we mentioned are obvious. But there will always be some imperfections. Whenever the phone rings and everyone has a problem, waste and loss should be separated as far as possible, or their respective causes should be properly classified. The most important thing is to first find out where the problem lies.