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Oregon Lithoprint:  Pulling the Andon Cord

Oregon Lithoprint is a fourth-generation family-owned printing business in McMinnville. There had been awareness for some time that improvements to the business were needed. Oregon Lithoprint’s lean journey began in the spring of 2008 with the arrival of a new plant manager, Craig Wilson, who had been involved in lean at another company, says Randy Sollars, Process Analyst at Oregon Lithoprint.

FiveS events (sort, straighten, sweep, standardize, sustain) have been held in various departments, but bigger challenges are presented by physical space requirements. Sollars says “we would like to tear out some walls but it’s not feasible now.” Instead, there have been smaller changes. The inserts that go into newspapers printed by Oregon Lithoprint will be moved closer to the machine that does the inserting, saving time and money.

Another small change made a big difference. A board displaying each employee’s hours of work and number of impressions made in a day (that’s how production is measured in the business) was displayed in a visible place. The overall number of impressions per day increased. Sollars says “what gets measured gets done better.” Employees are being cross-trained and the idea came from their neighbor and lean production expert Freelin-Wade.

Oregon Lithoprint employees are encouraged to “pull the andon cord.” When a worker on the production line discovers a problem, a signal is given to stop production and the problem is fixed. That way, the mistakes don’t go out the door to a customer. To be willing to pull the andon cord, employees have to trust that they can admit to a mistake on the spot with no recriminations. In fact, the lean philosophy celebrates problems. Finding problems means they’ve been identified, the first step on the way to a solution.

When asked why more companies don’t go “lean” Sollars answered “because it’s hard - It’s a mindset shift, and changing people’s habits is always difficult.” But success comes one small victory at a time and small victories add up. When Toyota broke through to the U. S. car market, it was the result not of a huge change, but of “a thousand and one quite modest changes”. Oregon Lithoprint is on its way.