German government comes to Heidelberg's aid

[GeorgeA]

It's confirmed: the German government has agreed to provide Heidelberg with loan guarantees that the company had applied for a few weeks ago. The exact amount involved is not yet known, however.
Details: Heidelberg will receive financial help from the German government

[Erik Nikkanen]

It's confirmed: the German government has agreed to provide Heidelberg with loan guarantees that the company had applied for a few weeks ago. The exact amount involved is not yet known, however.
Details: Heidelberg will receive financial help from the German government

Well this is good for Heidelberg managers.

This will give them more time to remain in the false belief that when the economy turns around, things will be back to normal.

History will probably show that this was just another opportunity missed by Heidelberg to make fundamental changes in their knowledge of the process and to continue a wasteful direction of over applying expensive technology without a clear understanding of the physics of the printing process with respect to the modern manufacturing and economic needs of printers.

Heidelberg's ridged belief that things will be the same after this crisis, makes them a much easier target for a competitor to out maneuver them with new knowledge. The problem is, what competitor will take that direction which is so much against their current beliefs.

History will be the judge on who had more vision.

[Ritter]

History will probably show that this was just another opportunity missed by Heidelberg to make fundamental changes in their knowledge of the process and to continue a wasteful direction of over applying expensive technology without a clear understanding of the physics of the printing process with respect to the modern manufacturing and economic needs of printers.

Care to elaborate on your thoughts?

[Erik Nikkanen]

Care to elaborate on your thoughts?

Ritter,

I won't go into too much detail, since I have been doing that for over ten years without much success.

What I will say is that this industry has a very poor science culture. There is lots of technology but a technology culture is not the same as a science culture. The middle ages had a technology culture but did not have the theory to explain why things worked or did not work.

Much of how this industry understands the processes is by observation and not by a rigourous theoretical analysis. This lead most to thinking that they understand the process but actually they don't.

Press technology, with respect to density control, has had advances in technology but is still basically a refinement of mid 19th century concepts. The science had not been developed well.

The result of this is modern press manufacturers who still avoid working on fundamental science to explain the process. They still try to rely on adding band aid and expensive technologies to try to overcome the problems in the process that they are not willing to address or even understand.

There is a reason why press manufacturers copy each other. They basically have no new ideas to make their older technologies obsolete.

Having a science oriented view helps greatly. Theory that is specific, can be tested. Theory that is valid can be used to design predictable performance improvements that are cost effective.

Since the industry can not understand the importance of theory and how it leads every other industry forward, the only path for this industry is to have new ideas demonstrated. I think the success of one large press manufacturer over others would be a good demonstration. Does anyone (press manufacturer)want to be a Heidelberg killer?

The opportunities are not only in press technology but also prepress. As an industry, you do not solve problems well. Again what it will take is a movement in prepress in another direction where outcomes are predictable and easy to do. You won't get there with the existing path.

[Al Ferrari]

Hi Erik,

Some of us are familiar with your ideas with respect to the density control problem. But unfortunately less is known about your ideas in the prepress area. Perhaps because they have been expressed in other forums.

Can you please briefly outline some of your ideas for fundamental improvements in the prepress area, or give some links to other writings where you have expressed them?

Thanks,

Al

[Erik Nikkanen]

Hi Erik,

Some of us are familiar with your ideas with respect to the density control problem. But unfortunately less is known about your ideas in the prepress area. Perhaps because they have been expressed in other forums.

Can you please briefly outline some of your ideas for fundamental improvements in the prepress area, or give some links to other writings where you have expressed them?

Thanks,

Al

Al,

Since my ideas on prepress are not as specific as the press issues, I would not like to comment too much on ideas that are not well developed. My view is that what is required is to have a group of interested and capable people get together and investigate concepts based on a rational view of the problem. This would not be along traditional lines. There can be lots of good ideas but it takes a knowledgeble group to match the potential of new concepts and the practical nature of what is needed by the industry. I am quite positive that better ways can be developed but can't say what the details should be.

Part of the problem is in how the coloured images are specified. It is very much like how a mechanical part is specified. An engineer in North America can make a drawing of a part and have it machined in India and the result will be predictable. This is due to standard ways of how to specify the part and not due to standard ways to tell someone how to make the part. The specification is related to the result and not the process of manufacturing the part.

In printing, standards and methods seem to be realted to how the image should be made such as in what kind of TVI there should be or what the inks should be or other manufacturing related factors. This is dumb.

Separations are similar to tooling in a manufacturing environment. Graphic designers should not be involved with tooling. Deciding on the tooling requirements, requires knowledge of the manufacturing operation (press, paper, inks, etc). Printing is more like an assembly manufacturing process. The press manages the ink to the plate (tooling) and the different inks are assembled on the paper, in the right positions and in the right amounts.

Density and dot gain are process parameters and not colour parameters. The idea is that if the profile is valid for the manufacturing operation and the manufacturing operation is consistent, then the result will be predictable. There is no mythical gray balance of the image involved but more of a point to point capability to reproduce the colour specification of the image.

Press capability is an issue that needs to be addresses so that the manufacturing operation can be consistent and predictable. On top of that, a prepress method that has control at every rational step along the way, instead of the present concept of adjusting curves and hoping for the best, has a better opportunity to make prepress colour management easy and predictable.

It should be a work in progress but one is not going to get to that goal along the highly defended paths that are promoted today.

Peronally, I would want to work in this direction mainly after the press issues are addressed. Just think of the potential. A press manufacturer who not only gets the press issues corrected but also moves prepress in new directions. That has got to be a competitive advantage. :-)

[rbailleu]

what are your thoughts on the new anicolor press.

[Lukas Engqvist]

I think one of the main problems with looking at or understanding the process is the unwillingness to share imperfect results. It is first when we look at faulty TVI curves and bad densities that we can see how they relate.
We did some work, started 8 years back, sharing information and striving to find out how to interpret, and make the most of ISO standard. Too many curves and each one just saying if you have this you may get that.
At the time we decided to make a simple rule. A target density and TVI (on printed sheet) 17% at 50% tone. This was so that we could have a goal acheivable irrespective of flow (some had CTF some CTP). The results of gray etc when we printed a media wedge were so far out…Â*but this is where the science comes in.
We looked at the results and compared them, tried to understand them and see could we have predicted the flaws from the data. I had never seen any bad results previously, but it was very clear wich fault produced what effect. This led me to hunt for the TVI curves, the actual measured TVI for the FOGRA 39 measuring data. I knew that if i did not have the right shape on the TVI I could never match the result.
But as you say Erik we need a clear goal what the printed sheet should look like, not a path with no goal.

[Erik Nikkanen]

what are your thoughts on the new anicolor press.

Anicolor is not a new idea. A some what similar design has been used on newspaper presses for over 20 years. Also the KBA Karat and Genius presses are quite similar. As soon as the Anicolor press came out at IPEX in 2006, I had a very good idea of how it would perform. This is because I had already analyzed the KBA presses above. I knew at that time that the Anicolor press was not going to be a press that was going to obsolete the existing designs.

From a press design point of view, the design is interesting. It does eliminate mechanical and starvation ghosting which is good. Profiling the press should be more predictable due to this.

The goal of having keyless ink feed seems like a good idea but one can have that same potential with a more conventional offset press. If the ink feed is positive and predictable and you have an accurate presetting algorithm, then you have keyless capabilities, since there is no need to adjust the key manually. But if you have such a system, you still have the flexibility to make adjustments. Not only in ink key position (or zone output) but in overall increase or decrease in ink feed that is required for different inks and different papers.

Anicolor is too limiting a press design. Plus it does not eliminate density variation due to water and temperature variations. It is a bit of a joke that a major press manufacturer comes out with a new press that has problems with printing spot colours. Feeding ink with an anilox roller for spot colours makes blending the ink to hit a PMS colour, on a variety of papers and substrates, a big problem.

It seems that Heidelberg did not think things through and just needed something new and so it copies KBA's concepts and rushed development. Most people don't understand that even if you have lots of money and engineers to develop a concept, the concept will never really work well if it was a poor concept to begin with. You can't just force a solution. One always has to work within the rules of Nature. That takes some humility on the part of the designers to accept that they have to do what nature allows. This also applies to software developers.

That is where science comes in. If you theoretically understand what the requirements are, you can see right away why some concept is going to fail or at least fall short of expectations.

There is good news. A great amount of performance improvement can be made without great costs. It only takes a press manufacturer to be a bit more humble and ask for help. Unfortunately, there is not much chance of that happening.

[Erik Nikkanen]

I think one of the main problems with looking at or understanding the process is the unwillingness to share imperfect results. It is first when we look at faulty TVI curves and bad densities that we can see how they relate.
snip

This led me to hunt for the TVI curves, the actual measured TVI for the FOGRA 39 measuring data. I knew that if i did not have the right shape on the TVI I could never match the result.
But as you say Erik we need a clear goal what the printed sheet should look like, not a path with no goal.

Lukas,

I have done a lot of theoretical thinking about these issues beside the practical work with testing on and off press and running production related to packaging material. From this, I have come to some conclusions about what has to be done to fix the process. There are many problems that now still exist in the process and without taking a holistic view of how all these are interrelated, there is very little chance for significant progress. The good news is that many of the problems are not difficult to understand and not so difficult to address. But it does take some action by those who want to understand the problems and solve them in different ways.

The use of curves is one of the problems. Even if one solved the ink feed problem and the relative uniformity of inking of the plate, mathematically, curves still can not solve the problem of defining what the screen values should be on the plate in order to get a predictable result. Close maybe, some of the times but not in a predictable way. The reason for this is due to the non linear and non independent way the ink is printed on the paper.

The press prints the way it prints and no amount of changes in curves changes how the press prints. The job of a properly designed press is to print consistently, in every part of the image. If that can be accomplished, then a map of how the press prints can be the guide to predictability. In such a case, dot gain is not important at all. Dot gain is then only a process control issue. And even if most do not want to think about it, dot gain variation is greatly affected by ink film variation that shows up as density variation. That is why density variation is so critical and can only be obtained by making the process inherently consistent. The industry does not yet understand this. It won't face the facts.

It is great that you have put so much effort into trying to get the best possible curves, but that kind of effort is an indication that the method being used is flawed. I have never had to work to hard to get my TV to work. It just does because someone made it that way.

The general problem has to be attacked from two directions. One direction is that the press must me made to print consistently and predictably in any place on the image and during the run. The other direction is that one must realize that the press prints the way it prints for a set of inks, screens, paper, etc. Don't fight Nature but instead use that property to develop the predictable link between input structure and output colour. No curve required.

There needs to be a real change of thinking if there is any real hope of having a more consistent and predictable process with lots less frustration. Frustration comes from not being able to see where one is or where one is going.

Here is a simple example of different ways to look at a problem in printing.

Of course, this is about the density control problem. Let's make this the most simple example. A solid 20% bar printed across the sheet or web. The problem is the about density variation. Why does it happen?

We have been looking at the press or the process for over a hundred years and we say that the density variation is due to problems with the control of water, chemistry, temperature, rheology, viscosity, roller pressures, plate types, etc. It goes on and on, and it is understandable why people can not understand the problem. Especially when institution perpetuate this view by its experimental approach to knowledge.

This has lead to all sorts of efforts to have better dampening systems, temperature controls, closed loop colour controls, new chemistry, new plates, and even waterless technologies in order to try to control the problem.

Looking at the process is the problem in this case.

Now let's look at the product. We are printing a 20% solid across the sheet and as we run, the density changes. If we adjust the water, the density changes.

Looking at the product. If you asked most people, they would probably say that the bar that shows less density probably has a thinner ink film and the bar that shows more density probably has a thicker ink film. Less density means less ink and more density means more ink. Obvious to a grade school kid.

Ink is a substance. The invisible water on the sheet will evaporate and will basically not change the density. The press might have been hot or cool but that has no bearing on the density. The only thing that directly affects density is the ink in the printed film.

From the product's point of view, ink is the ONLY variable that is important. So the needed goal is to change the process, so that the ink is fed consistently to the paper.

In a real world demonstration, when you properly feed the ink into a press in a positive and consistent way, density is very consistent and changes in water, temperature or press speed will not substantially affect density. You can not wash out the density no matter how much you increase the dampening.

Looking at a problem from a different perspective can change a very complicated looking problem into one that is simple. The problem in the industry is that they look at problem the same way, over and over again, and it is understandable that they can't get anywhere. They seem to insist that there is no other way to look at things. Working hard at doing the wrong thing will not lead to solutions.