Digital professional vs. Min. wage labor

[Bretman]

Hey Guy's & Gal"s I have a question...

First let me explain. I am a proffesional printer (30 years). I have been in offset, letterpress and general commercial for ever. Last year we got our first digi (Konica 6500 pro). I began learning the new skillset for digital imaging and feel I have advanced well, learning much about ICC color profiles, toner based color, press/digi pantone matching, calibration, variable data etc. I am also computer savy. I love the new technology and find it interesting related to merging it into the traditional workflow. My boss has recently made this monumental decision that a "digi" operator does NOT need a lot of experience or skill and is just a "button pusher". I disagree.

My question...
Could I get some input from some of you that I might provide to her as to the importance of skill in operation of the digi?
As my personal opinion seems to only go so far, I hate to see our craft demoted to minimum wage by such thinking.

Thanks,
Bretman

 

[Craig]

Take a job that has is is a PITA, and give it to your boss and tell her to "just push the green button" and see what her results are. The skill set is NOT the same as an offset press operator, but many things do carry over. A digital press operator requires more of a pre-press mind set, with an ability to grasp color, and how it is effected by changes.

I can't speak for the KM6500, but that manuals for my 8000AP fill a 3 inch, 3 ring binder, plus additional stuff that I am gathering on my own. Much larger than what came with our ABDick 9870.

Your boss needs to have a crash course in what it takes to run the machine, why not give her one?

 

[Vee]

I think the important thing is that the operator understands although this is digital, it is still a printed good that the customer must approve for quality and consistency. Thus, in my opinion a press operator (a duplicator or small format AB Dick, Ryobi, etc) is the better choice for this position. There needs to be that "pressman mentality" or train of thought to check the job for quality, registration, front to back, thinking about any potential bindery operations that may require over run, etc. At the last shop I was the prepress manager, and myself and two AB Dick ops ran the iGen and we had an awesome team. I didn't run day-to-day, I was the manager in charge of the digital operations, the press ops rotated between AB Dick work, and the iGen - I did fill in to run jobs when needed. I brought the Prepress side w/ Color Management, file management & workflow etc to the table, and they brought the pressroom skills. Great team work.

 

[UberTech]

Depends on your workflow. If the situation is a file turns up on the rip and it just needs to be printed and all the hard stuff is sorted for them like fonts, transparency problems colour matching then yeah perhaps you could get a chimp to push the button.

Either way someone with expereince needs to sort the jobs out may as well be at the press.

I guess your boss prints something on her desktop laser printer and says 'how hard was that?".

Digital is moving more and more into the offset space does she really want someone with little experience printing money?

 

[Keith]

A customer walks in with a piece of paper and says, "I need fifty copies of this please". The employee puts it on the glass, punches five-zero and then presses the big green button. Employee hands the finished copies to the costumer and he pays for them.

Anything more than that will require more experience and/or pressman-like training.

Keith

 

[Vee]

Can't remember the last time I was handed a hardcopy, usually a disc or flash drive with an Excel or Publisher document.... and oh yea, the pictures are in the layout file, you won't need the actual files we placed in the publisher document.

 

[Craig]

Even with the hard copy approach. What's the green button monkey going to do when it jams, or when the cleaning web or waste toner bottle needs replaced? How about when the customer brings in 1 - 4.25 x 5.5 sheet and wants 1000 printed 4 up on 8.5 x 11? Those are everyday things, that some of our employees still need to think about before they do it.

 

[leegreen]

Hardware these days takes experience to make the company money.

Tossing 10% out and wasting 30 minutes attempting to print a job is not productive and certainly not a way to make profit.

Start them with something simple.
1000 variable data color DL flyers printed 2 sides which needs to be printed 6 up, stacked and trimmed so all your stacks are in a particular order when finally merged after trimming, after all - these need to be sequentially numbered.
Now give them an uncalibrated machine with no media profiles, a single PDF document, a CSV file, and point them in the direction of the green button.

Things to go wrong for the Monkey
Everything

 

[Mark]

Equate it to an airline pilot. Modern equipment practically flies itself, but you want a good pilot at the helm when things go wrong.

 

[Bobby]

Digital printing has more challanges, every day is a new issue. We always felt a big difference between experienced operator and beginner one. more experience means more quality and more profit.

 

[Bretman]

Outstanding opinions

Outstanding opinions

Hey Gang, Thanks.

I am thrilled with your responses. I believe I might be able to hit home with this.
Craig, I would like to ask... What is a PITA??
Thanks again for all you're help. Finally I think I may have found a place where I can communicate with true proffesionals at a level where printing is still considered Craftmanship.

Again Thanks,

Bret

 

[Craig]

Craig, I would like to ask... What is a PITA??Bret

Pain In The A$$

 

[CGUK]

Just show that it only takes one big job to go wrong and you not only lose out on that job but possibly the client too. Litlle mistakes can be just as expensive as the big ones - it's just the experienced operator will see them coming and the monkey won't! Time is also the issue as posted by others. Also each machine has it's little foibles and does things differently and it takes time to learn that.

 

[alan4color]

you get what you pay for...- you can pay someone the minimum and loose money with them or pay someone top dollar and make money....

 

[che.c]

In my books minimum wage = minimum effort. It sends a message that you are paying the absolute least that is legal and in return tend to get back the very least effort from the employees that will count as 'doing your job'.

Unmotivated staff will show in the never-better-than-acceptable standard of the jobs that they produce. Mediocre print is acceptable to some clients, but then again I reckon you'd find that your customers would end up going elsewhere.

We've won a lot of jobs because our quality and service is great, even when our prices aren't the cheapest.

 

[Bretman]

Pain In The A$$

I thought it might be something like that. Right on man !!

 

[Bretman]

Thanks again everyone. I go fourth with ammunition!!

Bret