On 19 September 2024, the European Commission announced plans for a study on the production and use…
PakMarkas in Lithuania hosts the first Lean in Europe visit since 2019
After a gap of almost 3 years, the EU-Japan Centre’s Lean in Europe visits resumed on 29 and 30 September. The first visit was to PakMarkas in Lithuania, a manufacturer of labelling and flexible packaging, industrial packaging engineering and automation solutions.
16 participants from a range of industries across Europe took part in the visit led by Prof. Richard Keegan, the EU-Japan Centre’s Lean Advisor and Adjunct Professor of Lean Operational Excellence at Trinity Business School in Dublin.
Lean in Europe is a 1½-day activity with a preparatory meeting and group networking dinner on the first night, and the actual site visit the following day. During the preparatory meeting, Richard got the participants to work together to observe and improve a simulation of a facemask production line.
PakMarkas is an SME, established 28 years ago. Product decorating solutions account for 70% of its activities – it prints 2,000,000 m² per month. Its lean activities began in 2016 and it currently has 7 tools – 5s, Kaizen, PDCA, SMED, Asaichi, Kanban and TPM. Virginijus Gumbaragis (General Manager), Deividas Akelis (Lean Manager) and Jolita Daunoriene (Director, Printing Department) hosted the visit to ParkMarkas.
The first part of the visit consisted of an introduction to the company and its lean activities and a first visit to the Gemba. The second part of the visit saw PakMarkas set two practical problem-solving exercises: The participants made a second Gemba visit to observe a changeover process on a flexo-printing machine and the packaging process used for the finished product and then discussed and brainstormed potential improvements to optimise the processes and shared those ideas with PakMarkas.
The EU-Japan Centre is arranging future visits to other companies elsewhere in the EU. If you would like to join or host a future lean visit, please contact lean(at)eu-japan.eu or see our website.
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Joint venture established in 1987 by the European Commission (DG GROW) and the Japanese Government (METI) for promoting all forms of industrial, trade and investment cooperation between the EU and Japan.
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