Our present case focuses on a newspaper company we worked with to solve their problem of delivering newspapers on time. In the first part of our case study, we covered the observations that we made during the 4-step newspaper-printing process. In the second part, we elaborated on the process of mapping the current state value stream.
In the third part of this newspaper company case study, we’ll be recapping the bottleneck step (packing) while highlighting the ways by which we solved the problem at hand. Can you recall why the packing step became the bottleneck? It’s because it was ‘counting and packing’ the loose quantities to the standard bundles. Remember the 5 golden rules of Gemba? By applying those rules here, we found that all the other issues such as the excess clutter, lack of flow, and disorganized papers were all offshoots stemming from the packing step.
Understanding the Demand and the Bottleneck
Have a look at the figure below, which shows the key questions that we asked during the process that led to the discovery of Kaizens.
Figure 1: Key questions asked to discover non-value-added time and effort
Discovering Kaizens
Based on the responses that we received to the aforementioned questions, here’s a figure which shows the improvement ideas that emerged from team brainstorming.
Figure 2: Kaizens discovered in the scenario
Summing it up using A3
Using the A3 approach to problem-solving, we proposed the following countermeasures:
Figure 3: Applying A3
Why was packing dispatch the bottleneck?
Packing dispatch proved to be the bottleneck for 2 reasons:
First, how much loose quantity of newspapers should flow to the packing section? This was not tied up with the demand, which is what proved to be a major bottleneck.
Ideally, this should be the amount of loose quantity of newspapers that should flow to the packing section?
- Printing output / minute = 800 copies
- Total copies to be dispatched = 95000
- Total copies in standard bundle = 64400
- Total copies in parcel = 30600. Demand for loose quantities = 30600/95000 = 32% approx. 1 in 3 standard bundle (of 200 newspapers) should flow for parcel making!
Second, there was a significant amount of non-value-added time and effort in the packing process! This had to be identified and eliminated!