ATTACK PLAN 2004

Print Action, Mar 2004 by McIlroy, Thad

"So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it and stick your head out and yell, I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"

- Howard Beale (actor Peter Finch) in the movie Network 1976

"In this game, manufacturing discipline will win. The craftsman who has to leave his thumbprint on every page will lose... We are a decade behind in manufacturing best practices."

- William L. Davis, Chairman,

President and CEO R.R. Donnelley

I think that managing a printing business in these tough times leads many to frustrations, even to rage. You can easily start to feel like Howard Beale: Tm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" But where are you going to direct that rage? I hope it won't be toward your perceived enemies, be they the Web, digital printing, or these still challenging economic times. I recommend that you direct them inward, toward your organizations, and say: It's finally time to make the drastic changes that are necessary to stay in the game of communications.

A recent economic study from the U.S. International Prepress Association (now called The Association of Graphic Solutions Providers) contains a fascinating article on what it takes to be a profit leader in the graphic arts. It turns out that there's no magic bullet, but rather a series of small steps, that need to be well executed. These steps affect every area of a print operation, from sales to manufacturing. The profit leaders execute these steps across the board.

Theories aside, there are really only two ways to improve manufacturing productivity. Either you train and/or motivate your existing staff to produce more, or you buy better technology for existing staff to use. Training has always been an elusive pursuit for corporations. It's hard to determine the best training procedures, and it's hard to measure the ROI on training. By comparison, buying a new machine is so much easier to define, plan and measure. Of course it's essential to follow both paths.

Staffing is the most underrated problem that printers face. In a recent survey, 77.2 per cent of web printers rate this as their number-one problern (second place goes to a 75 per cent rate for low competitive pricing). Human resource management can no longer be assigned to junior management. It has become a top management responsibility.

Printing is manufacturing

The printing industry is changing rapidly, but from my perspective, just not fast enough. Try this phrase, and see if it rolls comfortably around your tongue: The graphic arts industry must get its act together from a manufacturing perspective. Are you willing to give up five centuries of craft-based print and accept that the printing process can and should be controlled?

What we've learned in the last few years is that technology has finally afforded us the opportunity to control print production. Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) is the cover-all name for it. specifics include colour management, content management, colour control and job control (JDF - the Job Definition Format).

I believe that a prerequisite for remaining in the print game is to fully embrace CIM and its associated components. For the first time print has a real competitor - the Web - and only by simplifying the time and cost associated with print manufacturing will it be able to compete.

What about technology?

After a decade and a half of investing in new digital prepress technology, printers are at a crossroads. Despite the many millions of dollars that printing companies have poured into digitization throughout this period, profitability has remained essentially constant. You've transformed a significant part of the manufacturing process, without making it significantly more productive.

There are two kinds of technology that matter to printers. The first is technology on the market today that improves quality and/or productivity. The second is technology that takes you where you need to go in the future. Too many printers ignore the first category; most ignore the second.

From another perspective, technology investments fall into two broad categories: incremental improvements and major capital investments. Both require careful scrutiny. Few printers are doing everything they can to explore digital asset management, colour management and PDF workflows. For relatively minor capital investments, printers could be operating more efficiently, with fewer errors and with greater customer satisfaction.

The press has always been the ultimate workflow bottleneck. Most printers didn't expect to make money in prepress - it was often offered more as a customer service than a profit centre. The IPA report referred to above proved that top financial performers perform well in prepress too.

But the pressroom represents a completely new technological and financial challenge. New offset presses are at least 25 per cent more productive than the equipment they replace. You can have as much productivity as you can afford. The parameters become: who has the best access to cheap capital and the best staff to implement new technology as it is installed.