Finat, the global self-adhesive label trade organisation, is to encourage its members to adopt World Class Manufacturing (WCM) standards and will launch a pilot project in September from which it hopes to build a format for its other printing members to follow.
Finat president Jan Frederik Vink says: "We will be starting small in Amsterdam on September 6 with between 12 and 14 label printers, and the big advantage of that is we can develop programmes and create the benchmark for our industry."
Vink believes the adoption of WCM is vital as the label industry becomes increasingly globalised although the bulk of the printers is still in the small to medium business category (SMEs) and will need the mutual help that a Finat-inspired scheme can provide.
The driver for the project will be the recently reorganised Label Printing Forum which aims to bring together its printing members in that spirit of mutual help. Part of its programme is to provide a platform for keynote speakers from other industries to explain a wide range of management techniques that could be helpful to the printers in their search for performance improvement.
Vink says, "I call it the Weight Watchers' principal - where we bring people in the same situation together so that they can help and encourage each other to find solutions. This is going to be important if the SMEs in our industry are to put themselves in a position to compete with the bigger companies."
Finat promotes the interests of self-adhesive labelling companies and has more than 400 members in 40 countries.
