Black Belt project saves media company £140,000

A prominent media company is the publisher of multiple daily newspapers and many other magazines. Despite the dominant role of digital news, the traditional newspaper delivered to subscribers’ doorsteps is still an essential part of many readers’ daily routine. As a result, a significant amount of paper and ink is used daily in the printing press in the factory.

One of our Black Belt participants with a background in newspaper production began working at the company right out of school in 1999 as an assistant printer. He pursued graphic training internally and climbed the ranks to become a team leader in nearly 25 years. “You get every opportunity here to develop yourself. When a Black Belt programme was initiated for nine colleagues last year, I was one of the fortunate ones to be included. It was challenging but incredibly educational.”

The Director of Operations nominated him and also had a promising project in mind to tackle. “Starting a printing press until the first flawless edition comes out – especially in terms of layout and color, etc. – involves generating ‘waste,’ meaning that a certain number of newspapers are initially printed but not sellable. It’s unavoidable, but it can be managed.”

QI, the intelligent software that controls the printing process, assumes an average of 250 revolutions (newspapers) as waste. “We were well above that, at around 650 revolutions,”. “The task I received was to ensure that we meet QI’s specifications. To achieve this, I utilised all the tools from the training provided by The Lean Six Sigma Company.” The DMAIC method (Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, and Control) was followed. “First, we collected data over a six-week period to gain a realistic view of the four production teams. This confirmed what we already knew, that we were far from meeting QI’s specifications. A box plot showed that it wasn’t attributable to a specific team, as they performed more or less similarly.”

Together with the project team he assembled, they reviewed the results and brainstormed. After several sessions, an Ishikawa diagram was created (the graphical method to identify and analyse potential causes of a problem). “From that, we then created a Pareto chart based on the 80-20 rule. After a dot voting process, we had a top three of potential causes, of which we actually addressed the first two. We engaged stakeholders in the project to build support, including the introduction of a ‘visual management checklist’ to minimises the chance of human errors. Additionally, we examined maintenance and adjusted work methods to ensure the machinery is always in top condition. All of this, combined with improved machine settings in the press control, means that we now start well within QI’s specifications. So far, we’ve saved nearly £140,000. Every day with less waste is a pure gain; a gain in money because it costs less and a gain for the environment because we waste less.”

These are impressive results, but it didn’t happen effortlessly. “As a team, we put in a lot of work, and I’m proud of that. As I mentioned earlier, I found it to be a highly valuable but challenging training, especially since I wasn’t used to sitting in a classroom anymore. But Edwin Boon from The Lean Six Sigma Company, who provided training on-site, explains things clearly and guided us perfectly. He served as a resource during my project. I’m already looking forward to future projects, and it’s great that I can collaborate with my direct colleagues because we now have several Black Belts in-house.