by Dianna Brodine

In each issue of The Binding Edge, a bindery or loose leaf manufacturer is placed in the “spotlight,” providing an inside look at its history, capabilities, and goals. In this issue, the magazine revisits three of those former Binding Spotlight companies to see what changes have occurred and how the companies have reacted to one of the most challenging periods in the industry’s history. Triggered by a depressed economy, consolidations among printers, and an increasingly demanding customer base, binding and loose leaf have faced faster turnaround times and shorter run lengths. Rickard Bindery, Universal Bookbindery and Trends Presentation Products have weathered the storm. Although the challenges aren’t completely behind them, all are optimistic about the future.

Rickard Bindery

Since 1900, Rickard Bindery has been a part of the Chicago landscape. Opened as Rickard Circular Folding Company by Fay Rickard, the company has a long history of technological advancement. In 1922, with Fay’s guidance, the Faydon Sealing Machine Company developed and patented an automatic tabbing and sealing unit and in 1945, Fay developed what is believed to be the first mechanical gate fold attachment. The company has remained family-owned, passing from Fay to his son Les, and then to Les’ son, Jack. Jack is still president of Rickard Bindery, a position he has held since 1966, and his son, Kevin, is currently vice president of operations.

The bindery keeps its focus on its core competency – folding paper. It has no mechanical binding, perfect binding, or case binding capabilities, and the recent revenue environment has discouraged Rickard Bindery from expanding its service offerings. “Over the past three years, our priority has been fine-tuning the equipment we have on hand, rather than overextending ourselves financially,” explained Kevin Rickard. “With minor adjustments, our existing equipment continues to serve our market niches well.” Those “minor adjustments” include adding glue units, modifying existing folders with special purpose feeders, and adapting the pharmaceutical folders to handle thicker pieces. Rickard Bindery also added automated padding equipment more than a year ago, which has contributed to a more efficient workflow and much quicker turnaround times.

In 2006, when the company was profiled for the Fall issue, 75 employees operated the folders during three shifts each day, creating pharmaceutical inserts and instruction sheets, coupons and product inserts, and direct-to-market products, like maps. Today, those same products are being produced in three shifts by 70 employees. “Like many of our peers, we’ve adjusted the size of our company to fit the reality of changing market conditions,” said Kevin. “Specifically, we’ve reduced our bindery worker and supervisor workforce as appropriate. However, we serve the high-volume production needs of many customers and are committed to maintaining three-shift capacity.”

To counteract the impact of the economy, Rickard has made an effort to expand its geographic reach, with 70 percent of its business now coming from outside the greater Chicago metropolitan area. In addition, the bindery has developed manufacturing partnerships with select companies to reduce the amount of capital investment required to maintain its presence in less profitable business sectors. Such partnerships allow Rickard to provide resources to customers without compromising its cost structure. Perhaps most important, Rickard is placing a priority on those customers who pay their bills. “Customers who pay on time and adhere to our terms are our company’s lifeblood,” Kevin explained. “And it may be just us, but we’ve noticed the others tend to go out of business.”

Rickard Bindery believes that the markets it serves have stabilized, at least from a per-piece volume standpoint. The company expects industry consolidation to continue and that doesn’t worry Kevin: “Consolidation means that fewer companies will produce higher volumes of work. This is good news for Rickard Bindery as long as we prioritize excellent customer service and develop stronger relationships with the survivors.”

Rickard Bindery is leaner, meaner, and more customer-centric than at any time during its 110-year history. “We may not like certain trends, such as shorter runs and turnaround times, but we’ve learned to adapt,” said Kevin. “One lasting change is that we’ll never take our market position and good fortunes for granted.”

Universal Bookbindery

Universal Bookbindery, Inc., located in San Antonio, Texas, was founded in 1918 by Leo Picard and Bob Hearn. After building the business by doing school textbook rebinding, the company evolved into a manufacturer of hard and soft cover books, and then developed a line of highly decorated yearbook covers that were sold to printers and other binderies across the country. A series of acquisitions followed in the 1980s, but Leo Hearn (son of Bob Hearn) repurchased the bookbinding and loose leaf divisions in 1986. That’s when Trip Worden, Leo Hearn’s stepson, made his way back to the company. Attaining the presidency in 1996, Worden has been guiding Universal Bookbindery through the economic downturn.

Profiled in the Summer 2005 issue of The Binding Edge, Universal Bookbinding continues to specialize in medium- and large-run casebound books, with elaborate covers that could include metal appliqué, embossing, top stamping, spot graining, and antiquing. At the time of its Spotlight article, Universal Bookbindery employed 80 full-time employees. These days, the company operates with 65 employees. “Our volume was much larger in 2005, both in number of jobs and total sales dollars,” explained Worden. “The recent slowdown really didn’t affect us until winter of 2009, but now it has forced us to adjust our employment levels.” The company continued to reinvest in the business, adding a new high-speed Kolbus DA-270 casemaker and a Polar cutting system with jogger and unloader in 2008. “Each of our significant equipment and technology acquisitions has helped us be more competitive and react quicker to the market,” he said.

With volume down, Worden took the opportunity to embrace Lean Manufacturing Training. “The San Antonio Manufacturers Association has been touting the benefits of lean for a while, but the thing that made me realize it was a worthwhile process to undertake during a down time was watching our local Toyota plant,” stated Worden. The Toyota plant had been hit hard by the economy and, during the summer of 2009, the plant was idled for eight weeks. Employees were kept on with reduced hours to work through the enhanced lean manufacturing process. Worden decided the time was right. “I will tell you, it’s not easy and it’s not cheap, but I believe lean manufacturing has been a great thing for us,” he said. “We were already a well-organized, well-lit manufacturing plant. But you look at us now and look at us a year ago, and it’s a world of difference.” Focused on eliminated waste – including labor, time, and actual materials – lean manufacturing promotes a highly organized plant floor. “Lean promotes reduced spoilage and, while we can occasionally stub our toes, we have been really impressed with how well the plant floor operates,” stated Worden.

A significant change to the atmosphere at Universal Bookbindery occurred in January of 2010 when Leo Hearn passed away. Although a succession plan had been in place for 15 years and Hearn was no longer involved in the day-to-day operations, his absence has left a noticeable gap. “When he passed away, it was more of a jolt than I thought it would be,” said Worden. “With business down, it would have been nice to have him available to talk about the current challenges and solutions to those challenges.”

Worden believes that over the next five years, the companies that have made wise investments in their people, equipment, and facilities will be serving a customer base that – while probably smaller than is in place today – will be glad to have successful finishing options available to them. “It appears the market is shrinking,” said Worden, “but we do not feel it is in danger of going away. There will always be a need to print and bind the printed word, along with offering creative packaging solutions for a wide variety of users. The investments we made when times were good are a good part of why we’re still here today.”

Trends Presentation Products

Profiled in the Spring 2005 issue of The Binding Edge, Trends Presentation Products, Washington, Mo., began as Stationers Loose Leaf. Originally an archival binder supplier, Stationers had entered the commercial binder market but the advent of office superstores turned the company’s focus to custom turned-edge binders and packaging. As production lead times were cut, production runs became smaller, and service demands increased, the company attempted to look into the future. It looked as if a web-fed digital press was the answer.

Trends became the first loose leaf binder manufacturer to purchase a Xeikon web-fed digital press in 1999. The press was large format, 18.7 inches wide by 36 feet, and had duplexing capability. Expensive film, contract proofs, and printing plates were completely eliminated with this new piece of equipment. The Xeikon is still in use today, and Trends has made continual investments to keep the press up-to-date in order to maximize its digital capabilities. Graphic design programs also have been upgraded to ensure the highest quality of graphics.

Producing custom turned-edge products, including ring binders, catalog binders, post binders, slantboxes, slipcases, tote boxes, menu covers, easel binders, point-of-purchase displays, and much more, Trends still sells exclusively to resellers. “The pressures of the economy, combined with easy accessibility to the internet, have pushed many manufacturers to start selling their products direct,” said David Inman, sales manager. “We have decided against that and want to keep the loyalty and trust between our dealers a priority. We believe that still means something.” Utilizing a variety of techniques, Trends can screenprint, foil stamp, emboss, deboss, diecut, laminate, and use digital technology to customize its products.

The recent digital/on-demand printing trend seems made to order for Trends Presentation Products. “As demand for faster turnaround, just-in-time delivery, customization using variable data, and shorter runs have increased with digital printing, we feel fortunate to be in our position,” stated Inman. Trends Presentation Products has positioned itself carefully in this niche market, with more than 12 years of experience thanks to its 1999 Xeikon purchase.

At the same time, the current economy has definitely had an impact. “Like many businesses, we were forced to stop and re-think everything,” said Inman. “This included how we quoted items, deciding what products to offer, how products are delivered, and even how we answered the phones.” The company organized quick pricing methods to ensure timely turnaround for quotes and renegotiated its supplier prices, including shipping rates. Inventory levels were closely watched and Trends found creative ways to continue offering its full line of custom packaging.

“There is no question that the next five years are going to be challenging for us and for the industry, especially as social media applications increase and become a stronger way for companies to market products,” said Inman. With a soft economy and the tempered buying habits of consumers keeping pressure on price, the focus for Trends Presentation Products will be controlling costs and improving productivity. In addition, Inman believes more consolidation is inevitable for the industry and he is determined that Trends will not become one of the casualties.

“We believe in our products, service, and customers, and plan to stay optimistic,” he said. “We are operating more efficiently than we ever have before. We know what our customers want and need, and if a project is within our ability to handle it, we will do it. That hasn’t changed.”

by: Staff

For lean manufacturing to become part of a company’s culture, the majority of team members must think about continuously improving all processes – then make those ideas a reality. Below is an interview with Jamie Swan, production manager at Duraweld Ltd. in Scarborough, England, with a report on the plant’s lean improvements, which began in 2006.

Q: What triggered Duraweld to begin implementing lean manufacturing practices?
A: Four years ago, the production manager had left Duraweld due to illness. Richard Senior, the company’s managing director at the time, decided to advertise for a replacement with lean manufacturing experience. For 14 years, I had worked for a U.K. company that was part of a global group supplying the automotive industry. As a project supervisor there, I worked on the implementation of lean techniques like 5s, line balancing, standard operations, and visual management. After I was hired by Duraweld in 2006, I quickly started to implement a program of lean improvements. Richard was very supportive of the changes, and I formed a great partnership with Terry Cooke, Duraweld’s print manager at the time (and now sales manager).

Q: What goals did Duraweld set when beginning the lean manufacturing process?
A: Duraweld makes bespoke plastic stationery-protection products, including those with a range of decoration available on a tight turnaround (usually 10 days). As a result, Duraweld had a machine-utilization rate of around 50 percent and a staffing level that could easily deal with impacts. This meant that when an operator stopped making bespoke product, he was directed to make stock products based on a “gut feel” for what was required. The supervisors had a very poor view of what jobs were in the system and had become attuned to “firefighting” the workload.

I set initial goals to bring under control the waste in motion, conveyance, and overproduction that could be tackled immediately. The medium-term plan was to build a supervisor-led 5s program to drive organizational improvement throughout the plant and construct cell manufacturing units, where possible, to further reduce conveyance time. The ultimate goal was to build the whole entity of Duraweld into a synchronized system that eliminated non-value-added activity across the board.

The last goal required buy-in at every level of the business. Fortunately, the company’s dedication to integrating the core values of lean into a synchronized system took a step closer to realization with strategic investment in an ERP system and the dedication to delivering improvement by Hannah Senior and Mark Yeung, the company’s new managing directors.

Q: What were the first steps?
A: The first steps were considered to be, in lean terms, the low-hanging fruit – easy gains that would allow people to feel more in control of their workload. Our first step was to convert a “push” manufacturing flow to a “pull” process, which involved creating a visual management system that incorporates scheduling and maintenance. Kanbans also were introduced to stop overproduction. Previously, the material was issued for a job when the order was placed – even before that job was scheduled to begin. By simply changing to issuing material as a job commences meant that no work was carried out unnecessarily, taking up machine time, space in the factory, and other valuable resources.

The production schedule was handled on an Access database. Using supervisor control, the system tracked jobs through the factory using a traffic-light system: Jobs waiting were red, jobs in progress were amber, and jobs completed were green. Simple visual management techniques, such as shadow boards, make it quick and easy to interpret information about the job in hand.

The second step was to implement a 5s program that would be communicated to everyone in the business, from the managing director to the cleaner. I chose an area of the factory to become a model of excellence. Using a one-day workshop, the operators from this area were given an overview of the 5s and what we wanted to achieve by implementing 5s, then carried out a red-tag sorting exercise in the afternoon. The impact of the red-tag session was quite amazing. Duraweld had always been a relatively tidy environment, but during the first sorting session we removed a “hidden factory” of unused equipment and mess from inside the working factory.

Over the next four weeks, the same team took on the organization and cleaning of the model area. The floor was painted to define the work area, aisle space, and location of necessary items. Storage areas for quick-moving materials were set line-side, and shadow boards for essential tooling were created. We painted the floors under the machines white to assist with early warning of maintenance issues (oil or metal filings are often an early sign of wear). A labeling program ensured that items were always returned to their location and to help with waste management for recycling. Cleaning and maintenance procedures were advertised, and operators moving through the factory were likely to be asked about why they had left their work area.

Once the model area was set for maximum impact, everyone in the factory was given a tour in small groups to learn about the changes. There were nine more workshop sessions, which followed the same process. Eventually the whole factory has been transformed into a clean and organized workspace. A champion was then nominated for each of the 5s locations (we have 10 areas), who would drive the communication through the team of operators.

Two cell-manufacturing units were constructed for repeat stock products. By linking the process routes together, we were able to reduce conveyance and set-up time, build product awareness of previous/next process, and increase operator productivity. Kanban cards meant that we made only enough stock to keep supplies topped up, freeing operators to complete other work when the stocks were up to the maximum level.

Q: What challenges did Duraweld encounter during the implementation?
A: Duraweld staff responded very positively to the early changes. The workshop sessions helped to clear the path to change. Concrete goals, communicated well, usually have the desired effect. Lean manufacturing is a very simple, commonsense approach to making products, and when people realize that they can contribute, they will get involved.

There were some less enthusiastic people within the business who thought it was a revolution, rather than an evolution, or just felt that it would disappear as other incentives had. These were usually the people who felt most threatened with change or could see their role diminishing as efficiencies increased. The visual management techniques and work-area organization served to ensure that people were kept working. And by relentlessly challenging people who left their work area, the message eventually got through. Access to proper workflow schedules allowed me to limit the impact of some of the more negative people, and I could keep them busy with long-running work to ensure that their negativity didn’t spread.

Continuous communication, training, and the discipline to keep going through difficulties make a difference. Promoting positive values and creating an environment where best practice can be shared will eventually generate a momentum that makes it difficult for the dissenters not to join in. It’s a very rewarding moment when you get someone resistant to change to put forward a good suggestion and allow him or her to take the idea forward.

Q: What has Duraweld done to ensure that the lean manufacturing process will be sustained, long-term? Are there review procedures in place?
A: To achieve the next two stages of the 5s – standardize and sustain – we needed an audit and feedback system. The audit was devised to keep the areas under visual control, and five supervisors were given two audits to complete bi-monthly. I still provide the feedback to make sure that improvements in any area are communicated and adopted across the shop floor. The 5s audit scores are one of the company’s key performance indicators.

As a result of cleaning up the shop floor, Duraweld vastly improved its waste segregation and management. With a much-improved environmental policy, Duraweld achieved accreditation for ISO 14001 and pioneered the recycling of our own polypropylene manufacturing waste into print-grade material. We now recycle 100 percent of our manufacturing waste as well as much of our office and break-room waste.

In 2008 the introduction of Winman SSL, a Windows-based ERP system, allowed Duraweld to integrate electronic lean manufacturing concepts. Production Kanbans are now fully electronic, making tricky changes like seasonal stock adjustments easily manageable. Using a configurator to construct a structure for each quote, we no longer have to estimate costs manually. When the quote converts to an order – the manufacturing order is sent with one mouse click – the tracking schedule is filled with the traffic-light process flow, and the color changes from red to amber or green are generated through bar-code scanning. We also have a binder configurator on our website, where customers can create their own product; when a customer buys an item, the order instantly hits the shop floor. Duraweld is truly beginning to realize its commitment to lean manufacturing excellence across the whole business spectrum.

Q: How has lean manufacturing affected your production efficiency and profit margin?
A: Over the past four years, shop-floor staffing levels have been reduced by 37.5 percent – from 72 employees to 45 – meaning a 15 percent drop in our wage bill (even taking into account inflation, pay raises, and multiple increases to the U.K. minimum wage). Fortunately, we were able to gradually make these changes through natural wastage and by not replacing staff as they retired or moved away. Efficient staffing levels allowed us to keep the number of redundancies low when the recession hit. In addition, 49 percent of our products are now standard configured products, reducing office and administrative costs.

We also make money from our waste materials by good segregation and clean recycling processes. Process capability and control of defects in our main production product lines has just shown the best three-month period yet. In addition, visitors from other manufacturing organizations were given a presentation and tour of our facilities last February in an event organized by the UK Manufacturing Advisory Service. We are very proud of our factory and of a workforce who has responded so well to making lean practices work.