Lean manufacturing has a useful exercise called touch counting. Pick a single unit of work — in our case, a sleeve — and count how many times a human picks it up, moves it, or handles it from receipt to return-to-storage. The number is almost always shocking.
The typical touch count in a chaotic mounting room
Sleeve received from prepress and placed on a cart: 1
Cart pushed to a temporary staging area: 0 (it's a roll)
Sleeve lifted off cart and placed on the floor near the press: 2
Sleeve moved to a different floor location to make room: 3
Sleeve picked up and mounted on press: 4
After the run, sleeve removed from press and placed on a cart: 5
Cart pushed back toward storage: 0
Sleeve unloaded from cart, set on a shelf temporarily: 6
Sleeve eventually moved to its proper storage location (sometimes): 7
Seven touches. Each one is a chance for damage, a contribution to operator fatigue, and a piece of wasted time.
The optimized touch count
Sleeve received from prepress directly into job-kit cart: 1
Cart wheeled to mounting station, sleeve mounted directly from cart: 2
After the run, sleeve placed back on cart: 3
Cart wheeled to storage, sleeve placed directly into defined location: 4
Four touches instead of seven. Each one purposeful, none of them creating damage opportunities.
Why this matters
Touch counting is quick, free, and visible. Anyone can do it. The exercise itself surfaces the workflow problems faster than any analysis report.
If you do nothing else this quarter, count touches on five sleeves through a complete cycle. Then think about what each unnecessary touch costs you.
The Flexopodz Team
Purpose-built mounting room solutions for flexographic printing.