15 November 2004

UK printing industry delivers improved competitiveness from DTI initiative

The DTI-backed industry forum for the printing industry, Vision in Print (ViP), will shortly publish its International Benchmarking Study which demonstrates that the UK print industry is beginning to effectively tackle its productivity challenges and now has the opportunity to pull away from the rest of Europe in terms of competitiveness.

The DTI Print21competitiveness report published in 2000 in conjunction with the British Printing Industries Federation (BPIF), quoted a 1997 government white paper on competitiveness that stated there was a productivity gap of 30% between the UK printing industry and that of Northern Europe.  Based on the evidence of this report, the UK has not only caught up but has opportunities to overtake its continental competition.

BPIF chief executive Michael Johnson congratulates Vision in Print on the study.  “This international productivity report not only tells us where we are, but more importantly highlights where we could be if we performed excellently in all areas.  I will also be using this report to prove to the government how effective sector specific initiatives can be.  The industry, supported by the BPIF and other industry organisations, has absorbed the Print21 study, learnt by it and implemented its recommendations. With the hard work put in at company level coupled with that achieved by ViP and other such initiatives, we are beginning to see positive results.  We can and will make the UK print industry a world leader.”

The international benchmarking report covers 29 companies and 40 presses in two sectors, book production and magazines and catalogues in UK and on the Continent. It provides data on general company performance, detailed productivity measures and qualitative measures of management practice.

Vision in Print’s chief executive Richard Gray stresses the opportunity for UK book and web-offset companies: “Whilst on this evidence UK printers are broadly competitive against those in Western Europe, this masks a wide variation in performance. The best UK printers in this sample perform well when set against the best participants in mainland Europe, although there are no companies in our sample that cannot make further strides on one or more aspects. However there are some UK operations which need to urgently and radically improve performance if they are to prosper.”

“All companies need to rise to this challenge in order to keep pace with ever faster technological development, the increasing power of new investment and the emergence of lower cost manufacturing in Eastern Europe – all of which could threaten their ability to raise profitability.”
One important finding is that whilst UK operations are broadly competitive, when it comes to good management practice, UK companies have some lessons to learn from their European counterparts. Specifically they need to place customer needs at the heart of their strategies and ensure that strategic policies and investment decisions are more carefully linked.

“There are three main actions which all companies should address: First to compile a comprehensive productivity plan based around the concepts and techniques of lean manufacturing.  Second, directors should review their management practices and work up their strategic development and investment plans more focussed on specific customer needs.  Finally it appears that almost all companies would benefit from an increased investment in well targeted training,” he concludes.
Despite this encouraging report, both Michael Johnson of the BPIF and Richard Gray of ViP are disappointed that the DTI’s current regionally-focused business support policy no longer supports new sector specific initiatives: “Print is a £14bn industry which is evenly dispersed throughout the country, thereby severely reducing its chances of being identified as a regional cluster ‘priority’.  In addition, any regional development agency which does recognise print, such as that by Yorkshire Forward, will necessarily only impact a small group of printers.  It is tragic that the government and the taxpayer will lose what is proven to be a cost-effective route to delivering performance improvement and competitiveness to British businesses through national, sector specific projects,” says Michael Johnson.  Through Vision in Print, the printing sector was the third last industry to be able to take advantage of the DTI’s highly successful Industry Forum initiative. These Industry Forums have together delivered just over 3000 programmes to 18500 staff at 3000 companies with a total added value benefit of £208m.

The International Benchmarking report will be published on 30th November at a seminar held by ViP at the DTI conference centre in London in collaboration with the Book Production and Web Offset Special Interest groups of the BPIF. Book and web offset printers interested in attending should book online at www.visioninprint.co.uk.