In the last six months, which jobs went out quickest, and why?
And which stage held up the most jobs. Which client's approvals cost you the most days. How many more jobs the same press could have finished.
Three presses. Each one thought they already knew where the time was going.
None of them were careless. They were all running on the same thing every press runs on, what people remember, and what people say when you ask.
A rigid box manufacturer in Mumbai was asked how long artwork corrections usually take. He said a few hours. Everyone in the room agreed.
Nobody had measured it, because there was nothing to measure it with. A file went to the designer, and it came back when it came back.
Once every stage carried a timestamp, the average came out at 2.4 days per job, and almost none of it was design time. The file was simply sitting. The designer did not know it had arrived, and the person who sent it assumed it was being worked on.
He changed one thing. Every artwork query had to be answered within four hours, and the screen showed anything older than that in red.
A commercial printer knew he had wastage. Every press does. His quotes carried the usual allowance for it, and at month end the numbers looked close enough to what he expected.
What he could not see was which stage it was leaving from. Month-end tells you the total. It never tells you the address.
Quantity in, quantity out, recorded at every stage. Within three days the answer was on the screen: lamination was losing 18% of every run.
The cause was not a mystery either. A worn roller. The operator had known for weeks, he had mentioned it once, to someone, and nothing happened. It was never anybody's specific job to escalate it, and there was no number that made it urgent.
Identified on day three. Roller changed on day four.
This one is the quietest, and it costs the most.
Jobs were finishing on time. The press was doing its work. But finished goods were standing in the packing area for an average of 1.8 days before dispatch was told they were ready, and billing only raised the invoice after dispatch confirmed.
Nobody was at fault. The packer finished and moved to the next job. Dispatch had no reason to walk over. Billing was waiting to be told.
Three days, on every single order, for years. On a business raising invoices worth crores a year, that is a permanent three-day hole in the cash cycle, money already earned, sitting in a corner of the packing area.
None of these three needed a new machine, an extra shift, or one more person. Every one of them was solved by being able to see something that was already happening.
Every stage. Every material loss. Every opportunity.
This is how a job moves through your press. Clicarity gives you live visibility at every phase, and flags delays before they become client calls.
What improves in packaging businesses using Clicarity
Questions from packaging manufacturers
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