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In tough times, Omnipress cuts time to recover

Madison printing company provides lessons on how to change in a challenging economy

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The result was startling: Within months, the company slashed the time staff took to prepare a conference-publications CD by 70 percent.

"We saw that the QRM principles worked. But to apply these very different principles to only one product we felt would be difficult, since most of our processes are integrated across multiple products," says Omnipress CEO David McKnight. "We also anticipated we could get better efficiencies and results if we applied the concept to the whole company."

Again, results were almost immediate. Within one quarter, lead time – the time to finish a print or digital job – was on average cut by half. Before the reorganization, a bound book published via the offset printing process took almost 19 days from start to finish. Now, it is done in 10 days, and that number is still falling. Almost half of all the forms needed for the frequent handovers between departments were eliminated.

Omnipress can serve customers now better and faster – a big advantage in the competitive media and printing industry. The reorganization also uncovered spare capacity. Relieved from the constant rush to finish the next urgent job, the production workers suddenly turned to the sales people, looking for the next customer project . "It suddenly took a lot of work to feel busy," described Tracy Gundert, Vice President of Operations, the change to QRM.

Changes on the Shop Floor

The streamlined work flow can be seen in Omnipress’ spacious print production facility near the Madison airport. With a low humming noise, large, modern digital printing equipment quickly ejects stacks of printed paper – the raw material for a workbook going to a conference in Arizona. Just a few feet away is a line of workers turning the raw material into properly cut and coiled – a kind of spiral-bind – workbook, complete with a printed cover. Within 15 to 20 minutes after printing, the books are bound, boxed, and ready for shipment.

One of the people in the line is John Troia, an Omnipress employee of 25 years. "This entire workbook will be done in three to four hours,” said Troia. “A couple of years ago, we probably wouldn’t have been able to get this done in one day. The stress-level would have been through the roof."

The main reason for the stark difference in lead time is readily visible from the smooth movement of the workbooks from one work station to the next: the job does not get put down until it is finished. Even though it is most obvious in the print production area, Omnipress has successfully implemented this principle in almost all parts of the company, from office operations, to project managers and designers, to printers.

New Room for Growth

Omnipress continues to adapt to a rapidly changing market. It is expanding its digital and online offerings. Print products are still a big part of the business but the advent of digital delivery options for content has cut into the margins. To address this issue, Omnipress now routinely offers online content collection services, assisting conference planners in collecting the submissions for the final publication. Omnipress’ digital media offerings now help fill the gap left by printed materials migrating to the digital media.

"Most printers these days have been forced to try to expand themselves beyond being just a printing company. QRM gives us a great advantage in that," said David McKnight. With its QRM-inspired workflow in place, Omnipress is well-positioned to weather economic storms ahead. The significantly shorter production times allows Omnipress’ customers more and more time to collect and submit their content – a powerful advantage in this competitive industry. At the same time, the re-organized workflow has reduced costs, increased revenue, uncovered hidden resources and created new growth potential.

In fact, the implementation of QRM transformed the company from a fragmented operation to an agile competitor in a challenging market. For this reason, despite the recession and bad economic news, Gundert remains optimistic. "Our organization is more in a state of openness towards change. We don’t use the economy as an excuse. We continue to challenge ourselves to do better."

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