Make sure to keep an eye out for different types of waste. Look for items that might be considered a reject or a defect. If you are keeping these items around because you think you might fix it, just eliminate it. It will help with your sustaining process in the long run. Keep an eye on your inventory. Ordering inventory when it isn’t necessary is a waste of time and money. If you don’t need it, don’t buy it. 5s-ing should be saving you money and if you ordering things you already have and aren’t using it up quick enough, than you are wasting what you could be pocketing. Also, find a way to track your inventory so that you know when you are getting low. That way, you only order what you need.

Waste doesn’t just mean items; waste is also using unnecessary employee time or them abusing company time. Make sure employees always have something to do. Make a schedule and check lists for each department. That way, if there is down time, they have something to do. Waste is also unnecessary motions that can be eliminated by reevaluating your processes. Try to find ways to cut production times that won’t affect the quality of your product. Pay attention to the steps employees are taking to finish a product and try to find a better way to save time, energy, and money. Also, keep an eye out for wasted human talent. You might just have some employees that aren’t trained, focused or challenged. Employees need to be evaluated as well.

Remember, the process of 5s should be making things easier at work. It’s a long and continuous process, but if done right, it helps you, your employees, and your company in many ways.

How has 5s helped you?

To accomplish this task, make sure that you are reinforcing 5s daily. A common way to make sure that you are keeping up with the sustaining process is to use a daily/weekly scorecard to track areas. If you catch that things are out of order early, than you avoid having to start the process over. Think about having meetings with all shifts about the current state of things or daily reminder emails that can go around your organization.

Remember, the key to 5s is consistency. Think about all of the benefits that you have gained through using this method in your workplace. It saves time, money, and energy when everything has its place and when there is a place for everything.

What do you feel is the most beneficial thing about the 5s process?

Not only is the work area important, but you should also think about your online practices (i.e. company intranet) as well and how documents and work instructions are kept and maintained. They need to go through the same practices as your building in the 5s process.

Keeping things standardized will increase everyone’s potential and it will reduce the amounts of errors that could potentially happen. Make sure that you are constantly going through work instructions so that they are up to date. Keep quantities of extra supplies minimal so that you can reduce waste and try to avoid having an over abundance of stock. Most importantly, make sure that everyone in the 5s process has a role and that they are constantly keeping up with standardization.

What does your work place do to keep up with maintaining work areas and online documents?

Cleaning our areas is very important and when done correctly, it shows a certain pride in our work. Not only does “shine” include cleaning but it also covers keeping your area consistently organized and bright. This is not something that should be done on occasion but as an everyday activity to keep up with the 5s process.

When the shine process of 5s is followed correctly, you should be able to recognize when something is out of place or if a problem exists. When there is always an array of chaos, problem areas are hard to spot. You will find that when shining is done consistently, that people will be happier and more productive.

Have you found “shining” to be helpful in any personal or professional quarters?

When sorting, don’t go overboard.  Make sure to keep essential items. Throwing things away that you may need later will only hinder the 5s process. Eventually, 5s-ing can save you money, and if you are buying things you already had, it becomes evident that you went overboard in the beginning.  Items can still be stored and moved as long as they are identified appropriately with labels or signs and they need to be kept in an appropriate space.

Are their areas in your office or homes that need to be sorted?

5s stands for sort, straighten (set in order), shine, standardize and sustain. Over the next few postings, we will go over what each of these mean in accordance to 5s.  The first S that we will go over is Straighten (set in order).

Straightening in conjunction with 5s means almost the same things as straightening in your house. Everything should be in its place. Sounds simple? Well, with 5s it also needs to labeled and arranged in a way that will promote an efficient workflow. It’s so much nicer to not waste time daily looking for a file or tape.  Labeling everything may seem tedious, but say you have a stock of receipt tape in a certain place, clearly labeled, when it starts to run low, you know to order more.

Straightening may not seem like it, but it’s a cost saver. You won’t order more supplies than needed because you know how much stock you have. You won’t waste time looking for something because you know where it will be. You will spend more time completing your work than finding the supplies to finish it.

Would straightening be effective in your workplace? Share your thoughts below.

What is typography? A boring definition of typography, according to about.com would be, “the practical and artistic arrangement of type and printing with type.” Although there is nothing wrong with defining it in that way, typography is much more.

It started in the early days of printing with the invention of the moveable type and printing press. They could arrange the type on the page in any way they would like. The drawback then, was that the fonts were standard and there wasn’t much variation. As things moved forward, typography was actually a unique occupation until the digital age and then things started to change. Now, typography is almost like art. You can arrange your type in any way that you would like it. Bold the letters, italicize, make every letter look different, it really is just what is appealing to the eye and the type of work you are doing.

A cool design aspect with typography is that it’s common now for typography to be used to spell out shapes with words. You can see an example of that here: Ki6rcXvUWP0

The most important thing about typography is that you need to make it interesting.  To the consumer, if it is boring to look at it, it might be boring to read. Use appealing colors, switch it up and don’t overload the design. Typography can be a lot of fun; you just have to use your imagination!

What is ClingZ? It sounds like a new rock band or dance club, when in actuality; it is a type of substrate/material that is gaining popularity to be printed on. The difference between ClingZ and any other type of substrate is that it is a charged film that can adhere to almost any surface. Amazingly, it uses no glue or adhesives.

“ClingZ can be used to hang on drywall, glass, wood and even brick,” according to ClingZ’s website. When it comes to using this material, advertising ventures are easy. Once printed, it is a cinch to hang because it is charged with a polypropylene film as opposed to other types of substrates that have glue or adhesive on them. This can help with large advertisements because the chances of bubbles or wrinkles are greatly reduced.

Recently, ClingZ was printed on for a mural for a college art show.  It was printed in strips and then attached to the wall easily. Another cool way ClingZ was used was for an interactive makeup tutorial that allowed you to remove the directions from the makeup book to attach it to the mirror for ease of use when it came to applying the makeup and looking at the directions. The possibilities are endless. Miles is a certified ClingZ printer and we would be happy to answer any questions or take on your next project!

Augmented reality might be a new term for most people. A lot of you might even be asking, what is augmented reality? Well, unlike virtual reality which completely replaces all layers of the real world, augmented reality or AR is a virtual layer and a real life environment placed all in one. But what does this have to do with print?

Like QR codes, augmented reality gives print a chance to come to life. Instead of scanning like you would with your QR code and being immediately taken to the internet, AR allows you to bring paper to life. For example, you are walking by a movie poster and it has an AR code on it, it might allow you to scan the photo with your phone, iPad, etc and watch the trailer embedded in the poster. It might make something on the poster move or come to life. AR can also revolutionize the way students learn. With codes inside textbooks, students will be able to scan it and see 3-D renderings of say the Earth or inside volcanoes. The possibilities are endless.

Sometimes print is thought of as a dying source but according to the Marsid M&M group, “AR is causing print to evolve.” The main thing with this new technology is that it allows print and computers/tablets to work together instead of being forced to use one or the other. These technologies are coming together which is rare. Although AR isn’t as mainstream as QR Codes it is definitely gaining momentum. What do you think of Augmented Reality? Leave your comments below.

It’s pretty obvious that when advertisers want to get consumers attention they look to billboards, magazine ads, and commercials to sell their products. Sometimes, they hit the right buttons with buyers and other times they go overboard and the point gets lost in translation. If you want to try a new direction, our suggestion is to look into shelf talkers.

Often called Shelf Screamers or Shelf Barkers this type of advertising is definitely gaining momentum. Shelf talkers are small signs attached to the edge of shelves at stores that advertise a product, a sale, or whatever else worth accenting. They are even a good idea to help advertise something eco-friendly or healthy. In the grand scheme of advertising, they are very small in looks but they definitely pack a punch when you would like to note something of importance.

They can be printed on many different types of substrates and Miles Printing is more than happy to meet your Shelf Talker needs! Let us know, we would be happy to help!