With the printing world going through the kind of upheaval last seen when Gutenberg started printing Bibles, Nisku-based Ion Printing has not only survived but thrived by transforming itself into a highly automated lean manufacturing operation.
In this video, Craig McEwen, a managing partner at Ion explains and catalogues how Ion makes productivity happen and how it is intertwined with their very ambitious sustainability goals.
Transcript
The business of print has drastically changed. Originally a craft practiced by ink stained tradesmen it has transformed itself into a highly automated custom manufacturing work environment.
Craig McEwen is a managing partner at Ion Printing in Nisku and has deep roots in the print world.
“I was born into the print business,” says McEwen. “I’m a fourth generation printer and I got started as a young lad on the floor of a print shop cleaning up everybody’s messes.”
Sustainability, productivity and lean thinking are inextricably linked at Ion.
“The key is lean manufacturing. A lot of the environmental things spin out of lean. What we believe in is sustainability and the idea of leaving our world so future generations can make a living from the environment. With that as a core philosophy it’s pretty easy to start making decisions about which way to go and it’s reallly worked it’s way into very useful savings.”
A very simple example of those useful savings can be found in their lighting upgrades. They reduced the number of lighting fixtures in the shop by 2/3rds, purchased larger, more efficient lights and saw a full payback on their investment in 18 months. Not only did they save on their power bill but it made the plant a better, safer place to work.
“I was really surprised when we made the changes and improved the lights how many staff came up to me and said you can’t believe how much better it is to work here because I can see what I’m doing,” says McEwen.
Ion recently committed to improving productivity with a serious cash investment. It spent $5 million on a Komori ten colour printing press. It gives them a massive comparative advantage in their market and McEwen has been extremely happy with the increased efficiency and capabilities.
“The key to it is really one of doing more with less. From a customer perspective we need to produce more print, faster and it has to be at a very high quality and you don’t have time for the craftsmanship that print once was it’s really about lean manufacturing now than it is about producing that perfect print. The automation has helped us produce that perfect print in a very efficient manner. With an eye on the environment that leads to doing the most we can with one unit of energy.”
When McEwen starts talking about the Komori, it’s hard to get him to stop.
“Another one of the great factors is the double side cylinders,” says McEwen clearly loving explaining how the press works. “The sheet only has to move half as much. In a traditional operation it’s a single side cylinder so the sheet has to move all the way around. As you can imagine that means the bearings, the rollers, everything has to move twice as fast. You increase the size, you decrease the speed, you reduce the wear on the bearing s and you need power to run it and it’s better for everyone.”
But while a big new press helps it’s a top down commitment to eliminating waste that has seen Ion institute an internal wiki to steamline the sales process.It also reorganized the salespeople, planners and estimators to be in the same work pod to increase their efficiency.
With its commitment to sustainability, the environment and productivity Ion is setting themselves up for success.
“For us to be competitive we need to think out the process and be better. To me that’s the real difference in management today is that we have to more with less, constantly. That ties very well into the environmental philosophy that if we all did more with less then there would be more resources for future generations to innovate.
