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Summary:
Increased throughput with existing resources is the key to increased profitability, and the negative trends of today's economic and digital realities are forcing printing businesses to reevaluate their management strategies. This paper describes how applying the Theory of Global Optimization (TGO) and TGO-designed software tools remedies the problems of decreased profitability due to a changing world, a changing demand for print, changing production processes, shorter runs, lower prices, higher costs, shorter lead times, increased make-readies, too much waste, and increased variety and complexity of products produced.
The Theory of Global Optimization is the science of managing a printing or packaging operation with a global view. The three foundation principles of TGO recognize that a manufacturing operation is a chain of interdependent links; that only a few constraints control the throughput, on-time delivery, and cost of the entire operation; and that by identifying and removing or managing the constraints, you increase throughput and profits. By identifying the constraints proactively, the impact of those constraints is minimized, resulting in better processes, improved capacity utilization, higher throughput, and improved profitability.
The TGO theory is put into effect with a unique software tool that employs an interactive, graphical approach to provide a global view of the company in real time. Using business and production rules to automatically minimize switchover and setup times, TGO-designed dynamic scheduling software communicates with all other systems in the workflow, including JDF-enabled equipment, to synchronize and optimize every aspect of production. This leads to higher profit margins through improved on-time delivery; optimized capacity utilization; reduced waste in time, materials, and processes; and increased throughput using existing resources.
TGO is not a production strategy; it is an end-to-end workflow improvement strategy that yields benefits in acquisition, administration, planning, production and delivery. When TGO is implemented with big-picture training and motivation, the culture of the company is transformed; everyone performs with the global view in mind, and everyone performs smarter.
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