Volume was cranking and new products were scaling well as peak season crept inexorably closer. Staff were struggling with new machines and processes but gradually getting on top of things. The real challenge was the widely varying quality and fail rates on the 2nd and 3rd shifts and the weekend was a work in progress.
It’s a true story. From a distance I watched a company at the peak of apparent success run itself into the ground and end up in liquidation.
Leading an On Demand manufacturing business is hard. A line producing a product with Cost of Goods Sold in the cents can be making a batch in the tens of dollars minutes later, volumes dance around, machines break and stocks vary. It demands agility and attention to detail.
In this article we explore 10 opportunities for stripping cost from Custom and On Demand Manufacturing through Workflow Automation.
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I’ve worn many hats over the many years that I have been in print on-demand. From founding a leading web-2-print brand when digital was first emerging, to creating a full-service white label business and building a plant serving many major retail brands. Now, my team and I, are developers of the ZenSmart cloud workflow automation platform which maximizes insight, efficiency and minimizes plant cost.
These diverse roles have taken me into plants around the world, as a customer and supplier. Each of those involvements provides insight into the different approaches that leaders have use to optimize production workflow. Plants have ranged from those producing just a few items a day to others churning out tens of thousands. Some have ranges as small as 100 SKU’s and others thousands. Some factories are incredibly capital intensive with the latest in machine automation whereas others use a people centric approach. Amongst this group some have failed when they thought they were succeeding where others have brilliantly executed, expanding their product ranges, growing new businesses and creating super-aligned culture. All that exposure has provided a rich perspective on how different companies tackle the challenge of running their plants to the best of their capability.
In this article, I aim to distil the collective knowledge gained from years of observing how various individuals navigate the often-stressful world of operating an on-demand business. I’ve tried to consolidate these observations into a guide highlighting areas where opportunities exist to reduce costs or reallocate resources to enhance overall efficiency.
So, let’s dive in and get started.
I’ll step through them in turn but here they are as a list, if the number of words get in the way and you want to jump ahead:
- Orders: Automate order processing
- Press Room: Automate orders onto the press
- Imposition: Optimise press impositions (ganging) and eliminate waste
- People: Tracking productivity and creating performance accountability
- Machines: Automation and making dumb machines smart
- Materials: (Almost) eliminate waste
- Shipping: Optimise freight costs
- Scheduling: Right product, right time
- Culture: Singing from the same hymn book
- Insight: Finding the truth
Next > Orders: Automate order processing
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