Pratt Lean
Our Process is Your Gain
The use of resources for anything other than the creation of customer value is wasteful and can be a target for elimination. Pratt Visual Solutions has embraced this process of continuous efficiency known as Lean. Our innovation in this area has helped us reduce waste, reduce total cost, and improve quality in these four areas:
- Productivity improvements
- Inventory improvements
- Minimization of errors
- Reduction of lead times
Lean Innovation
Here are a just a few examples of Lean innovation that have contributed to our customer's bottom line:
NASCAR-Inspired Press Changeovers
Most printers are experiencing a trend of shorter production run sizes and frequent time-consuming changeovers. Pratt Visual Solutions was no different with changeovers that could last as long as four hours. Inspired by Indianapolis' pit crew and racing heritage, along with Lean tools like 'shadow boards,' the team identified ways to overlap functions and create a more fluid, rapid changeover. Within months, the average changeover was reduced 80%.
Inventory Cost Savings, Not Write-offs
We manage inventory at lower quantities to reduce client write-off costs while improving delivery performance and cash flow. As a Midwestern-based company we know that just because your signage is on our shelves doesn't make it right for us to overproduce and ask you to foot the bill.
Pratt Visual Solutions has reduced décor rollout costs for a major client by $20,000 per store. We maintained minimal inventory levels- reducing write-off risk, created single-unit flow builds for each store specific pack-out, built crates packed and organized by install location. Not to mention a 99.92% on time and in full delivery of a 3,200-item program.
The Unquestionable Deliverable
Pratt Visual Solutions has a commitment to a sound in-store deliverable that clients will look at with complete confidence. Within the first two years of Pratt's Lean launch, color variation was improved by more than 85%, scrap was reduced by 65%, and rework was reduced by 68%.
With one convenience store client, Pratt Visual Solutions was able to eliminate process waste that led to 25% savings through site-specific distribution. This included a StoreSmart Database to reduce administration time, web-based ordering for regional differences, audit monitoring to track store attributes and updates, and a customized kit by store to simplify the ordering process.
Shorter Timelines
Pratt Visual Solutions works to reduce lead-time to improve speed to market. This lets our clients have more time to manage their business. We map the Value Stream to identify where there is value and where there is waste. Since the inception of Lean at Pratt Visual Solutions, we have seen lead times shrink by more than 50%.
With Lean methodologies in place, the following measures have also been achieved:
- Value Stream lead-time improvement from
18.6 days to 11.3 days
- Manufacturing lead time improvement from
8.6 days to 4.9 days
In one store décor installation program we were recently able to reduce lead-time by 140 hours. Lean tools led to 165 opportunities for installation improvements, including five safety improvements, and total installation time reduced by 2 days.