Océ brings metrics to document handling
By Staff -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 12/1/2005 12:00:00 AM
According to an August 2005 report from Framingham, Mass.-based IT market intelligence provider IDC, applying quality-control principles to document-printing processes can yield cost savings ranging from 8 percent to 41 percent. Unfortunately, few companies have the kind of information required to measure the efficiency of printing processes.
Printing solutions vendor Océ Business Services says that problem can be remedied with its newly released Océ MAX application, which monitors document-management processes, and enables companies to apply to them the same performance metrics used on the factory floor, according to Kim Collins, director of best practices.
Collins says Océ MAX supports the Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control framework, a key element of the Six Sigma performance-improvement model. "Once measures are defined and targets of performance are established, incremental data is collected to measure effectiveness against those targets," she says.
Elizabeth Halaki, Océ's VP of marketing, says the application goes to the heart of the difficulty businesses face in evaluating the cost-effectiveness and efficiency of their document production and distribution processes—the fact that the information needed to judge them is spread over disparate systems and locations. Because the system is Web-based and comes with translators to gather data from various sources—e.g., printers, PCs, and ERP and warehouse systems—the information can be gathered easily in one place.
Océ MAX gathers information associated with the document life cycle—from capture or creation through distribution, printing, storage, access, and archiving—and presents it in a dashboard format.
"We've identified the key metrics and collect the right data to measure them," Collins says. "For instance, if a company had a corporate goal to improve performance from a 4.5- to 5.0-sigma average, the targets within Océ MAX would be set to reflect this level of performance. The dashboard would show green for 5.0-sigma or better performance; yellow for 4.5- to 4.99-sigma; and red for anything below that."
Collins says the system is not limited to use by Six Sigma practitioners. "Océ MAX is a very flexible system that will support a number of initiatives and frameworks. The default measures in the system reflect what we consider the industry best practices for document management," she says.
A Detroit-based automaker is using Océ MAX at 10 plants. Managers gather information from all of them to evaluate document-management performance globally, and on an individual plant basis. "They're used to applying these kinds of Six Sigma disciplines on the factory line," says Halaki. "The low-hanging fruit in manufacturing may already be picked in many operations. This is a way to take those initiatives to the next level."
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