The LEGO Group saves time and money with a restructure of their production

By Jan Eskildsen

The global competition in graphic production demands a reduction of prices and time, also when it comes to graphical work. The fight for the contracts is global, and therefore tougher than when it was merely a local one.
This applies, no matter if you’re an ad agency or a printing house, or if you, like the LEGO Group, have in-house production of advertising. It’s necessary to reduce time and costs in production, down to the smallest ad level.
The internet has become an indispensable tool when you’re striving to automate your working procedures, and thereby minimizing your costs.
One of the ways to do this, is by replacing overflowing email boxes with a web-based communication platform.

Globalization and restructuring

The LEGO Group is well-prepared for the age of the globalization, after a radical restructuring of the working procedures and processes, that has been possible, not least because of the company’s use of the unique software, WebProof.
After the restructuring of the company, and the commissioning of new technology, the LEGO Group has saved a lot of money in the production of their promotion material.
When brochures and other promotion material is being produced for many different countries in many different languages, there are extraordinary demands for the way the production is organized, and for the software products used.
And when texts have to be both written in and translated into more languages, and they then have to be graphically paginated into many different versions, the task easily gets immense. The solution is software that can help overcome these time-demanding routine tasks that always come with the job.
In the last few years, there has been a lot of talk about the possibilities and consequences of the globalization, and a lot of production assignments are now done abroad.
This has happened as faster computers and telecommunication networks have made it interesting to let image processing be done in countries where working hours are staggered in relation to ours, and where the costs for wages are much lower. This applies to both adjustment of colours and sharpness and other time-demanding disciplines.

A more rational way of marketing

Niels Svinding, who is Information & IT Management Director in Product and Marketing Development, works on supporting and optimizing the communication between the different departments.

- At the same time as there is work being done on design and new products in one department, packaging, TV-spots and campaigns are being prepared in another department, while creative copywriters and graphic designers at the in-house agency are working on the materials to be used for the marketing campaigns, says Niels Svinding.

- There are of course many people involved in these processes, and that would under normal circumstances involve a great use of time on administrating the massive lot of proofreading procedures between the many departments and people, who are based in many different countries, among others, Hong Kong.

- But by combining in-house, outsourcing and global production – by using the Internet to the optimum effect – we have been able to minimize the use of time and costs substantially, Niels Svinding continues.

- One of the important elements in this process has been the software, WebProof, which has made us able to rationalize the working procedures with our materials. After we optimized the working procedures, we saved 3% of our expenses, but after we started working with WebProof, we have seen savings of up to 35%.

- We can have up to 500 users on the system, and I’m one of two super-users, who can help, if there are problems. But there are hardly any calls for us, since it’s simply just working.

- It is still the LEGO Group’s purpose to deliver”good playing” (the acronym LEGO is created from the Danish Words for “play well"), that develops children to be better equipped for the challenges of the future. My job has been to prepare us for a more effective production.

- We have seen improvements in speed and got more transparency in the development process – actually more than we had hoped for, Niels Svinding from the LEGO Group concludes.

The competition comes with new demands

All trades that can be internationalized, will be. This means that some jobs will be done abroad instead of at home.
We can’t prevent this, but we have to work on creating new jobs within other segments or segments related to these jobs. Obviously, it can’t be jobs with the same standards of qualifications, but new fields need to be worked up.
In companies where the Internet is used as part of the strategy and as a work tool, the management has to ask itself: Are we competitive with the East, or could we be, on the company’s existing address?
If the answer is no, then you have a problem that needs to be solved.
At the LEGO Group, the answer is yes. With the help of WebProof, they have been able to outsource a great part of the production, and have thereby secured the company, as well as creating new possibilities – and the capacity for – attracting new clients with their rationalized working procedures.

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About LEGO

The LEGO Group is a privately owned company with headquarters in Billund, Denmark. The company was founded in 1932 and with its 4,500 employees, it is today one of the worlds biggest suppliers of toys and playing materials for children. The LEGO Group is dedicated to the development of children’s’ creativity and imagination. LEGO products can be bought in more than 130 countries. LEGO and the LEGO logo are trademarks of and belong to the LEGO Group. ©2007 The LEGO Group.

This article has been approved by the communication department of LEGO.

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Graphic arts specialist Jan Eskildsen serves as freelance editor for AGI and PACKmarkedet (in Denmark) and as contributor to The Seybold Report (USA).

Published April 17, 2007