Background

Trinity Mirror North-East incorporates NCJ Media Ltd and Gazette Media Company Ltd. More than 1.4 million adults read their publications, which include the Evening Chronicle, The Journal and Sunday Sun.

They also publish a range of free weekly newspapers, including the Herald & Post, which are delivered to homes across Tyneside, Northumberland, Tees Valley and South Durham.

Knowing a high quality printing operation is essential to their business success, Trinity Mirror recently invested £15m in a new full-colour press facility for the North-East division, and introduced the company’s Lean Programme which involved improving business processes within printing operations.

Smartspeed were asked to support the company’s Lean Programme with practical workshops.

 

What I did

Delivered a series of training workshops to help develop the ideas of Lean Transformation and managing change.

Worked with the staff at Trinity Mirror to identify areas in the workplace that could benefit from Lean improvements.

 

Results

We identified areas in Trinity Mirror’s workplace that could benefit from Lean approaches, then we worked together to design an action plan on how those changes could be implemented.

Each session identified at least 15 new improvement ideas that the business could act upon.

One of the most significant results was that the people who took part could now see their business in a different way.

 

What the client said

“At the end of the workshops there have been lots of smiles as people have realised that making changes to how they work doesn’t have to be painful” David Bullock (Production Manager) explains.

At the end of a waste reduction workshop, for example, one of the participants declared, ‘I’ve been converted!’

We have really had our eyes opened to a different, better way of working.”

David Bullock, Production Manager
Trinity Mirror Printing (Newcastle)