Prashanth Nagarajan

Reducing Setup Times in a Web Offset Packaging Environment: a Practical Thesis Prashanth Nagarajan

The printing industry has been experiencing steadily rising costs and declining profits, at times leading to the closing down, consolidation, or restructuring of printing companies. Lean Manufacturing is an effective tool that has helped several printing companies to overcome these rising costs by reducing the cost of production and by improving productivity (Cooper, 2007). This research identified methods to reduce setup times, leading to savings of close to $60,000 annually on one press. The average setup time was reduced by 60%, from over two hours to less than one hour. The changes implemented on one press could be standardized on the other two similar presses in the offset department to provide annual savings of over $200,000.