Editor’s note: The first installment of Scott Cornish’s series on process improvement appeared in the July issue of Newspapers & Technology. In this article, Cornish explains the terminology that describes process improvement.

How do you define process improvement?

Many managers say they believe they’re familiar with the terminology. So that everyone can start our process improvement journey from the same point of understanding, I think it’s helpful if we review the terms. All definitions are courtesy of the American Society for Quality (ASQ). Note these definitions have an emphasis on manufacturing and while newspapers are classified as a service, production is the manufacturing function of that service.

Let’s start with process: According to ASQ, process is “an activity or group of activities that takes an input, adds value to it, and provides an output to an internal or external customer.” That’s good and concise. As I noted in the first installment of this series, I make a distinction between different types of “customers,” but the key takeaway is that a process must add value.

Process improvement? ASQ says it is “the act of changing a process to reduce variability and cycle time and make the process more effective, efficient and productive.” In other words, processes change but any improvement must make an aspect or aspects of it better.

Inputs, outputs

What are inputs and outputs? An input is “material, product, or service that is obtained from an upstream internal provider or an external supplier, and is used to produce an output.” OK. An output is “the deliverables resulting from a process, project, a quality initiative, an improvement, and so on. Outputs include data, information, documents, decisions, and tangible products.” We’ll discuss inputs and outputs, with examples, in future articles.

While we’re on the definition bandwagon, here’s another one that’s popular with the process improvement crowd: Six Sigma. One must be clear when using this term since it has two meanings. One is as a “quality attribute” and the other is as “an approach.”

As a quality attribute, Six Sigma basically means it’s a very tightly defined statistical measure.

As an approach, Six Sigma’s definition is much broader, according to ASQ: “A quality philosophy; a collection of techniques and tools for use in reducing variation; a program of improvement.”

Let’s examine closer its usage as a quality attribute. In this case, it’s a statistical term that indicates when a process is well controlled, specifically a process that falls within ±3· from the centerline in a control chart, and requirements/tolerance limits ±6· from the centerline.

Taking it apart

That’s a technical mouthful and might be confusing to some. Let’s take it apart to understand it in non-statistician terms.

First, process limit. That’s basically the “go or no go” point where whatever is measured and controlled is deemed acceptable or not.

· (the Greek letter “sigma”) indicates standard deviation. This designates how much measurements vary around a target. In this case, the target is the “centerline,” which is a statistically determined aim or objective value. Put another way, it’s what you’re shooting for.

To obtain a Six Sigma (or 6·) Process means an operation with no more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities (DPMO). If you’ve reached this level, congratulations. You have a process with very, very few defects.

To show some of this terminology at work in the real world of newspaper production, let’s examine black solid ink densities (SIDs). Through testing and many years experience, the industry has settled on a black SID target value of 1.05. Additionally, measurements can vary around the target by values of +/- 0.05, which in this case is the sigma.

(Don’t worry about understanding any of this further at this point. We’ll get deeper in a later article when we go over the basics of run and control charts, along with process capability.)

Ever-changing

Our last term is variability. Many disparage variability as a disease or enemy that must be wiped out. But variability will always exist; it’s not going away. If you pull 10 consecutive newspapers from your press and measure the SID in the same black area, in all likelihood those measurements will vary.

That’s where process improvement comes into play. One of its key objectives is to minimize variability as much as possible.

To conclude this month, here is an interesting fact to consider about newspaper (and all print) production compared to other manufacturing industries.

Twenty-five years ago, I heard a presentation by a manager in Kodak’s Graphic Arts division. He began his speech with a quote I never forgot: “Printing is an unusual industry because all the components up to press never see the customer.”

He (unfortunately, I did forget his name and shame on me) went on to explain that nearly all manufactured products, such as automobiles, have sub-assemblies or other externally supplied components that reach customers.

In printing, that is not the case since only ink and substrate are what end up in consumers’ hands.

The point of his presentation was that the typical industrial quality control focuses on managing products: The carburetor from Supplier A today must match the same model from Supplier B next week.

In printing, we must control the process.

Next month, we’ll begin to lay out the framework to build a practical process improvement project.

Scott Cornish has more than 20 years’ experience in production and quality assurance at newspapers large and small. He can be contacted via e-mail at scott@practicalprocessimprovement.com