January 2007– GIRUS shop floor data helps Skanem achieve 10% improvement in productivity.

Girus Limited, the recently formed Welsh company specialising in shop floor data collection for the printing industry, have released a new development that they say will transform the way printing companies operate. Their system, which connects your printing machines to your computer network and collects productivity data directly from the machines 24 hrs a day is able to highlight inefficient practices, low return jobs and general weaknesses in production.

Over the past 9 months Girus have been testing their GIRUS system at the Skanem Cardiff plant in South Wales, and they have produced some remarkable results. Colin Stafford, Managing Director at the Cardiff plant provides feedback on his experience:

“We have always tried to acquire data from the printing machine using timesheets with little success, but using the GIRUS system we now have very accurate data when and where we need it taking the frustration out of data collection. Monitoring the actual to estimate performance of every job now forms part of our daily practice, using the GIRUS system to filter out the low performance jobs and identify why they are not performing as well as others. We also analyse our material waste and downtime on a daily basis, constantly looking for inefficiencies. In essence, we find the best working practices in the company and apply those practices across the board. As a result we are improving make ready times, wash up and strip down times and reducing lost time and material waste considerably.

As an overall benefit to Skanem Cardiff the GIRUS system has been invaluable. Being able to measure the performance of a job just minutes after it is complete is exceptional. At the one end of the scale we have eliminated written timesheets and saved at least one salary because we no longer need to decipher timesheets and enter that data into a computer. But at the sharp end, I can tell you that since we started using the GIRUS system we have increased productivity by over 10 percent. That’s a massive improvement for us. Don’t get me wrong, you still have to think about the problems and work on ways to improve production but if you can’t see what’s wrong then you can’t fix it, and that’s what Girus does superbly, it shows you where your going wrong. From then on, to choose to ignore this information is completely negligent.”

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