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The last column looked at what you can do upstream to give your finishing department the best chance to protect your margins. Here is a look at what you can do in the department itself.
Tooling Around
One key thing product specialists do during customer visits is demonstrate how to optimize organization, tooling, and skills. What constitutes effective organization in your plant is probably different from that in any other; after all, your product mix, equipment, and facility are unique to your operation. However, an issue that seems to come up is the organization of tooling.
The best organized plants usually keep their tooling close to the relevant machines in some form of storage unit that provides protection for both crews and tooling, and keeps components from becoming separated and lost. Also, they never forget that most die-cutter tools are made of wood, which is a natural product prone to expansion and contraction, so they try not to store them where temperature or humidity is substantially different from that around the machines.
The makeready sheets used on your die cutters are just as important as the dies themselves. Keep them close to the machine, too. If you are likely to run a job on different machines, make sure you have a separate makeready sheet for each.
While your folder-gluers might not need the same type of job-specific tooling die cutters require, your operators should still have quick and easy access to the rails, guides, and swords that make up folder-gluer tooling. The easiest way to achieve this is by using a shadow board that allows the tools to be kept in an easily accessible place next to the gluer.
For jobs you run regularly, it can be a smart move to buy extra parts and leave the necessary tooling already built and near the gluer. These assemblies can be quickly and easily placed on the gluer during makeready, and quickly removed afterward, making set-up considerably more efficient.
Almost as important as your machines and tools are the pieces of ancillary equipment you supply. Do your gluer operators have enough toolkits? Do the die-cutter operators have nick grinders, drills, and good quality makeready tape? Small investments like these can have a huge effect on improving productivity and quality.
Beyond organizing your tooling and equipment, simple procedures—like the use of a job record card in either paper or electronic form—can help your operators set repeat jobs much quicker. Information, such as digital counter values, platen pressure, and other job-specific settings can be recorded to minimize set-up times.
The Price Is Not Always Right
When it comes to die-cutter tooling, it is easy to succumb to the temptation to buy on price, but this is the falsest of false economies, because not all tooling is equal. Running with bad tooling will cost you money as it decreases production speeds, takes longer to makeready, and increases stops in production. If it is a repeat job, it will cost you money every time it runs.
This does not mean your die boards and other tools have to come from a big, fancy tool supplier. Make sure the supplier you choose is adhering to best practices and proven standards they have documented and can provide copies upon request.
If your supplier is working to such a proven standard, they should be as interested in the detail of the job as you are, particularly in terms of the substrate you intend to run. This will have an impact on their choice of components used in the tooling, such as rubber and rule. If you are at all uncertain about your supplier, take time to audit its production facilities.
Just as maintenance is critical to machine performance, maintenance of die-cutter tooling is critical to the performance of the job.
In addition to having a system in place for the operator to report any needed repairs, you and your supplier will need a procedure to ensure these are always taken care of before the job runs again.
Staff Check
Once you have gone through everything covered so far, it only leaves the most important and most variable of all the factors affecting your production—the people you employ.
Giving employees the conditions to achieve high performance is bound to improve team morale. However, this is of little use without the skills necessary to do the job. It will be well worth undertaking a regular audit of your staff's experience and knowledge to ensure that there is not a skill gap in your operation.
Before you embark on producing a new product, consider the training implications. After all, it is better to be ready for a wave of new orders, than to be drowned by it.
Chris Raney is vice president, folding carton products for Bobst Group North America, Roseland, N.J. He is responsible for the folding carton business area for the North American market. You can contact him at christopher.raney@bobstgroup.com.
author: By Chris Raney