Publications

The following books are sold by Printing Industries Press, the publishing arm of PRINTING United Alliance. Books are available for purchase at www.printing.org/store.

Lean Printing: Pathway to Success
Kevin Cooper, Malcolm G. Keif, Kenneth L. Macro Jr.

In today’s competitive environment, it is mandatory for printers to find new ways to reduce costs, waste, and setup time while adding value to the products they offer their customers. Lean manufacturing is the solution! By examining proven techniques, Lean Printing: Pathway to Success shows the benefits that come from engaging the entire workforce in recognizing value-adding processes and eliminating waste—whether that means wasted material, wasted motion, or wasted time. Specifically, Lean Printing examines:

• The history and foundations of Lean manufacturing
• The 5S method—sort, straighten, shine, standardize, and sustain
• Setup reduction
• Total productive maintenance
• How to build in quality at the source
• Visual management
• Kaizen—continuous improvement
• Value-stream mapping
• Incorporating consistent flow in the printing process

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Lean Printing: Cultural Imperatives for Success
Kevin Cooper

There’s a reason so many printers are discovering and employing Lean practices in their day-to-day operations. Quite simply put—they work. Unfortunately, many attempts to establish Lean operations fail, not because of a lack of funds, tools, or time, but because the company culture simply will not support the inevitable shift in focus.

Lean Printing: Cultural Imperatives for Success features advice on what it takes to achieve complete buy-in from the top of a company to the bottom, including:
• The importance of leadership
• Team building
• Understanding empowerment vs. control
• Establishing a mission statement
• Properly managing the shift toward Lean
• Handling issues arising from your company’s existing infrastructure

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Setup reduction is how companies increase value to their customers. Yet it is not a simple process. Setup Reduction for Printers outlines a method for reducing setup times by using the proven techniques developed as Single Minute Exchange of Dies (SMED). Malcolm Keif and Kevin Cooper outline a ten-step process that can reduce setup times by 50% or more by focusing on reducing internal makeready tasks and moving those to external tasks. Setup Reduction for Printers goes in-depth by focusing on all aspects of your makeready, from standardizing fasteners to minimizing adjustments to incorporating parallel processing to error-proofing your makeready.

Using practical printing examples, Setup Reduction for Printers shows how you can engage your team, utilizing Lean principles, to methodically work through the process of makeready reduction. Using a motorsports pit crew analogy, your employees can work through the strategies discussed in this book to lower your costs and improve your bottom line. Setup reduction is vital for your success in the competitive landscape of print manufacturing.

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