As we continue interviewing our digital leaders after our fourth digital services study, we are learning more about the digital strategies that propel some companies into the leadership ranks. In our industry surveys and follow-up phone calls, we find many leaders speaking of the importance of measurement-based performance strategies. In these interviews with leaders, most talked about traditional financial and operational measures. But a few told us about some innovative new metrics.
To borrow from Six Sigma lingo, two of the more traditional metrics used in print production are “rework” (First Pass Yield) and “reliability” (Throughput Yield). But another metric used in other manufacturing environments (Six Sigma, Lean, Just- In-Time) is “cycle time.”
Cycle time has never really caught on in print production circles—probably because it is tough to track jobs as they go through each step in the process. Measuring cycle time requires some type of job floor tracking feature, which can usually be found in a Print Management Information System (MIS). The most efficient systems use barcodes that are scanned as the job enters or leaves each department, a feature that is available in many newer MIS versions. Unfortunately, some people don’t know that it is part of their MIS and it goes unused.
Through our interviews, we’ve found that one identifying trait of leaders is their willingness to try new ideas. If you’re willing to look at a new way of tracking the productivity of your staff and effectiveness of your workflow, see if your MIS has the ability to track the time in and time out of each process so that you can monitor cycle time for each step or for the entire process—from the time a job enters production until it ships.
Are you measuring performance? If so, what are you measuring? And most importantly, are you acting on the results of these measurements?
Original article here....http://wtr.mn/Ma57ra
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