Do Printers Believe in Continuous Improvement?

[tmason]

Erik,

I just re read you first comment. If the technology is out there to control density why is it not adopted by the press manufacturers? Are we being duped by the man????

Todd

 

[tmason]

Erik,

I searched the posts that you have started and now understand what you are talking about.

I am curious how the ITB system solves the ink water balance. On the press, ink and water migrate together to form a positive emulsion. This needs to be in balance to produce optimum results. There is always a small amount of water in the ink train and when the press shuts down, the water begins to evaporate from the ink. When the press is started again, the first few sheets are generally darker because there is less water in the ink. How does the ITB stabilize this condition?

I must tell you, this is the first time I have heard of your system. I am open minded to new technology to improve anything we do. However, after reading some of your comments I feel your are disrespecting the industry you are targeting for your product.


Todd

 

[meddington]

However, after reading some of your comments I feel your are disrespecting the industry you are targeting for your product.

Erik's been posting his mantra for years, and in his defense, I feel what you perceive as disrespect is really frustration from one who sees the industry in uncertainly, and moving in a direction of symptomatic fixes rather than treating the root cause of the issue. Not saying you have to agree with him, but I don't doubt that anybody who didn't care about the industry would keep it up for as long as he has.

 

[Deleted member 16349]

Erik,

I just re read you first comment. If the technology is out there to control density why is it not adopted by the press manufacturers? Are we being duped by the man????

Todd

No, you are not being duped. It is a cultural problem in the industry and the press manufacturers are just as much victims as anyone else. It is a problem of not looking at the reality of the process. When one hears during one's whole printing career that the process works in such a way and there is no other voice to say that that is not true, then it is very difficult to think in different directions. The cards are stacked against you.

Also within the process, there are several problems that interact with each other and this makes analysing it difficult, especially when there is so much myth to confuse the issues. The industry is still not a science oriented industry eventhough there is a lot of technology in the industry. Science is aimed at finding out truth and the industry tends to avoid truth and clings to myths that are not directly analysable or can be tested.

 

[mattf]

Erik's been posting his mantra for years, and in his defense, I feel what you perceive as disrespect is really frustration from one who sees the industry in uncertainly, and moving in a direction of symptomatic fixes rather than treating the root cause of the issue. Not saying you have to agree with him, but I don't doubt that anybody who didn't care about the industry would keep it up for as long as he has.

I gotta agree as well. I myself came out of Rochester Institute of Technology with a great sense of pride to know that I was joining a industry that had such a long and consistent history. Hell, even my Great-Uncle worked for the Boston Globe as a Linotypist. But when I entered the workforce I saw an industry almost crumbling away and hurting itself over and over again. And really, the uncertainty of "whats gonna fix us" is not the same answer anymore, and that's the biggest problem. Every companies problems might be close to the same, but in the end every print company is unique and the problems they face are also unique.

Trying to find the best way to tackle these unique problems in a systematic way is at times hard. But methods such as Lean, Six Sigma, TPM, QRM, TOC and even RCM has the potential to help within our own respective companies. Whichever is the best is always up for debate, but the fact remains that in order to be able to survive you need to have a plan for the long term. I know my current company does not, we are just trying to survive. But what if we could find a way to stick to a system that creates a sustainable model? All these methods can work, its just up to the company as a whole to embrace those methods.

As we all know, change almost never goes over well when no one cares to try...

 

[tmason]

Erik,

In your first comment, you stated measuring, adjusting and measuring is a failure. Does your system eliminate the need to open and close the ink keys and check for density variation? Are you saying we will be able to run our jobs with your system and not need to make any adjustments like fountain speed or water roller speed?

When we look at equipment investment and process controls, we have to choose proven technologies that have the greatest impact on our operation. We only have so many resources, including time and money to venture into new areas. I would like to see other people develop and perfect a new technology before we invest. We waited two extra years to go CTP and saved about $300,000 on our system. If we would have waited one more year on our latest press purchase, we could have gotten a machine that can change plates while the press is washing up.

 

[Deleted member 16349]

Erik,

I searched the posts that you have started and now understand what you are talking about.

I am curious how the ITB system solves the ink water balance. On the press, ink and water migrate together to form a positive emulsion. This needs to be in balance to produce optimum results. There is always a small amount of water in the ink train and when the press shuts down, the water begins to evaporate from the ink. When the press is started again, the first few sheets are generally darker because there is less water in the ink. How does the ITB stabilize this condition?

I must tell you, this is the first time I have heard of your system. I am open minded to new technology to improve anything we do. However, after reading some of your comments I feel your are disrespecting the industry you are targeting for your product.


Todd

OK, these are good question. The term Ink/Water balance is used for different things. For the operator, the term is used when he must adjust the ink and water due to their interrelationship. He might increase water, which in turn reduces print density, so he increases ink. He has to balance these inputs.

Sometimes the term is used for the condtions on the plate where there is enough water to keep the plate clean in the non image area but not too much and enough ink to print to the right density. Sometimes it is a term that is some how conected to the level of emulsification of the ink and water.

My interest is with the density control problem and therefore I am talking about the Ink/Water balance that the operator must deal with.

The problem is very simple and not complicated as most have been lead to believe. The density control problem has always been and will always be a mass (ink) flow problem. It is not a chemical problem. The ink water balancing problem that the operator sees is due to the interrelationship of ink and water in the press. Not in a chemical way but in a mechanical way. It has to do with the ink feed into the roller train by the ductor. When water is increased, some of this water moves up the roller train and reduces the amount of ink that gets fed into the roller train by the ductor. The operator then increases the ink key setting to restore the lost amount of ink feed due to the affect of the water had onreducing the ink feed.

It is at the ductor that the ink and water are interrelated in the feed rate of ink. The ITB breaks this interrelationship by forcing the ink from the ink fountain roller to the roller train in a way that is not affected by the amount of water. With the ITB, one can not wash out the print even if you set the water to max.

This breaks the ink water balance. That does not mean that one should run with lots of water and that it does not matter how much water one uses. When the interrelationship between ink feed and water feed is broken, then you set the ink feed for the density you want and set the water feed for the quality of print. Changing the water will not affect the ink feed and therefore the density.

A washed out print is not low in density because there is lots of water but because there is little ink being printed.

Conservation of Mass is not a theory. It is such a well established concept that it is considered a Principle.

The ink that goes out on the paper MUST equal the ink that goes into the roller train during steady state condition. This means that if you feed ink into the roller train consistently, it must come out consistently. If you run at one density level and adjust something and the density drops, you should ask the science oriented question. Where did the missing ink go? If you don't know, then you really don't understand the process.

When you start a press, the press is not in a steady state conditions but is at the start of a transient which will converge to the steady state value. If you have a positive ink feed which will feed ink independent of changes in water, temperature or press speed, and if you have an accurate presetting algorithm, your print will converge quickly to the target densities. No one has to adjust it. No closed loop required. Just calibration.

There are all kinds of other benefits with moving to positive ink feeds which are not possible with what exists now. The ITB is just one very simple and low cost way to do it. Breaking up the interrelated condition of ink and water feeds, is the most important problem to correct before the offset press can advance in a scientific way. In a consistent and predictable way. In a low cost way.

I hope that has given you some ideas.

 

[tmason]

Thanks for the explanation of the ITB process.

One area I disagree with is that the amount of ink applied to the rollers must equal the ink applied to the sheet. In theory it should, however when excess water is applied to the ink train it causes over emulsification of the ink. The print is light in density due to the water in the ink suspending the ink on the rollers causing it to build up instead of transfer to the plate, blanket, and substrate.
A perfect example of this is on a Heidelberg alcolor system. The bridge roller between the dampener and the first ink form is where the excess ink accumulates first. The excess water does not allow the ink to transfer to the plate properly therefore the ink builds up in the ink train. This would be easier to overcome if we still ran 10% alcohol and the water evaporated quickly. This is not the case with most alcohol subs these days.
Excess water may prevent a small amount of ink from transferring at the ductor, but when the copy is washed out because of too much water, generally the water needs to be reduced, the ink feed adjusted to the proper ink film thickness for that particular color. This can be more or less ink.

I think your system would work for more consistent ink delivery but there are still too many other variables to be concerned with the to say we could set the ink and leave it. Pigment load, Ink additives for better drying on poor substrates, paper surface. If we all had 100,000 sheet runs the ink water balance and ink feed would be a breeze to control. Our runs are averaging around 2000 sheets. Fifteen MR's per day.
It is a constant moving target. Ink trap, water pick up, press speed, substrate. A press does not get truly balanced until somewhere between 500 and 1000 sheets. A lot of our runs are done by then.

 

[Deleted member 16349]

Erik,

In your first comment, you stated measuring, adjusting and measuring is a failure. Does your system eliminate the need to open and close the ink keys and check for density variation? Are you saying we will be able to run our jobs with your system and not need to make any adjustments like fountain speed or water roller speed?

Yes that is basically correct.

Once the ink feed is set properly, then there should be no need to adjust it.

On the water side things are a bit different. Water does not only go out on the paper but it also evaporates. Evaporation would be related to press temperature, environmental conditions in the pressroom and speed of the press etc. Therefore water does have to be monitored to avoid scumming or over feeding of water that can result in poor print quality.

The important thing and the thing that sells the print is that changes in water will not affect the average density. There will be fluctuations about the average but the average will be very consistent.

 

[Deleted member 16349]

One area I disagree with is that the amount of ink applied to the rollers must equal the ink applied to the sheet. In theory it should, however when excess water is applied to the ink train it causes over emulsification of the ink. The print is light in density due to the water in the ink suspending the ink on the rollers causing it to build up instead of transfer to the plate, blanket, and substrate.

Excess water may prevent a small amount of ink from transferring at the ductor, but when the copy is washed out because of too much water, generally the water needs to be reduced, the ink feed adjusted to the proper ink film thickness for that particular color. This can be more or less ink.


It is a constant moving target. Ink trap, water pick up, press speed, substrate. A press does not get truly balanced until somewhere between 500 and 1000 sheets. A lot of our runs are done by then.

Tmason,

You are assuming performance in a method that you have never had any experience with. I can understand that it is hard to imagine but what I have talked about is not random theory. With the ITB you will not be able to wash out the print. That has been demonstrated many times.

Some of your comments are good and almost right. When changing the water setting, there will be some change in how the press stores ink but this is a transitory situation. If there is a drop in ink transfer to the paper, the ink feed will be feeding ink at a slightly higher rate that what is being printed. This results in more ink on the roller train, which in turn overcomes the drop in ink transfer. It reestablishes the original ink transfer rate. The final result is the same density that you had before. It is self correcting.

These fluctuations are happening all the time but if they are small, for practical purposes they are no problem because the density will always fluctuate about the average which is directly related to the ink feed.

As I said, the plate can be soaking wet and shinny but that will not affect density. Although if you are printing on plastic, it will cause print quality problems. But that kind of variation in water feed is way outside your normal running conditions. It is just a clear way to demonstrate the breaking of the interrelationship of ink and water feeds on presses.

Please think about the ductor on your press. If you backtrap ink into your roller train, some of that ink will end up in your fountain. Too much water and then highly emulsified ink will end up in your fountain. These type of conditions show that the ductor does not transfer ink in only one direction and there is a great difficulty to determine just how much ink is transferred.

Now if you have a positive ink feed and an accurate ink key presetting algorithm, you will get to balance in maybe 50 impressions. That is a practical target.

 

[tmason]

Erik,

You are right, I don't have any experience with your system. I was trying to calculate how may jobs I have run in my career and the best I came up with is well over 20,000.
I won't debate about the ITB system anymore and I promise to explore your technology.

However, it seems you are making assumptions that we all use the latest and greatest technology, or should be, and live in a perfect world and don't care to be the best we can. For example, not everyone has CIP capability to preset ink fountains. We do, but the profit margins with today's technology aren't as good as what we made twenty years ago. It costs so much money to purchase equipment and even though we have less people, competition dictates we lower our pricing because we can do it faster. It is not cheaper, it is a diminishing return on investment. I say this even though our company blows away the profit leaders according to the PIA ratios. By the way, we also lead every category.

I would love to drive the best car, live in the best house, marry the most beautiful woman in the world (which I did) but the reality is, we all make decisions based on our individual circumstances. We all try to do the best with what we have available to us. This is where Lean comes in, to define, standardize and control that which we can.

As for the original question that started this blog, we do care about quality and we try every day to get better.

I wish I could golf like Tiger Woods. even if I followed his process and spent as much time on the course as he does, I would not make the PGA but I can print and manage a shop and turn a profit even in a down economy.

Todd

 

[Deleted member 16349]

Erik,

You are right, I don't have any experience with your system. I was trying to calculate how may jobs I have run in my career and the best I came up with is well over 20,000.
I won't debate about the ITB system anymore and I promise to explore your technology.

However, it seems you are making assumptions that we all use the latest and greatest technology, or should be, and live in a perfect world and don't care to be the best we can. For example, not everyone has CIP capability to preset ink fountains. We do, but the profit margins with today's technology aren't as good as what we made twenty years ago. It costs so much money to purchase equipment and even though we have less people, competition dictates we lower our pricing because we can do it faster. It is not cheaper, it is a diminishing return on investment. I say this even though our company blows away the profit leaders according to the PIA ratios. By the way, we also lead every category.

I would love to drive the best car, live in the best house, marry the most beautiful woman in the world (which I did) but the reality is, we all make decisions based on our individual circumstances. We all try to do the best with what we have available to us. This is where Lean comes in, to define, standardize and control that which we can.

As for the original question that started this blog, we do care about quality and we try every day to get better.

I wish I could golf like Tiger Woods. even if I followed his process and spent as much time on the course as he does, I would not make the PGA but I can print and manage a shop and turn a profit even in a down economy.

Todd

As long as you keep an open mind , that would be great.

By the way, the ITB technology is low tech. It is basically a roller and a special blade. It would be very suitable for older presses too.

 

[David Dodd]

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this discussion. My view is that, in general, printing company leaders and managers tend to equate process improvement with technology. Therefore, they tend to believe that significant improvements in efficiency or productivity will require the implementation of new or better technologies. Clearly, technological advances have driven important changes in the way printing companies operate. But, the reality is that most printing companies have significant improvement opportunities that don't require technology. Instead, they require a systematic and disciplined approach to analyzing business operations. That's what lean, six sigma, theory of constraints, TQM, and other business management methodologies provide.

If your company is reasonably up-to-date with technology and you'd like to get a general idea of now much more opportunity for improvement exists, I would challenge you to calculate a measure called Manufacturing Cycle Effectiveness, or MCE. MCE is calculated by dividing value-adding time by total throughput time. So, the MCE for an individual print job would be calculated by dividing the total amount of time spent performing value-adding work on the job by the job's total throughput time. The throughput time is the total chronological time that elapses from the moment you receive the order for the job until the job leaves your shop. Here's the challenge. For one month, track the value-adding time and the throughput time for a representative sample of your jobs and calculate the MCE for each job. When the month is over, average the individual job MCE's to get an overall MCE for the month. I think you'll be surprised by the results you get.

Two other thoughts. First, I disagree strongly with Erik's contention that lean is preventing progress in the printing industry. Lean, like six sigma, theory of constraints, TQM, or any other management methodology, can be misused and misapplied, either because of lack of understanding or even intentionally. When this happens, any management tool will become a barrier to progress. I do agree that lean alone is not sufficient to guarantee success.

Finally, it's important to understand that no company can achieve significant and sustained improvements in productivity and efficiency until its leaders and managers make time to work on the business as well as in the business. In my opening post, I said that many printers have shifted into "survival" mode to get through the current recession. But, even when the recession ends, printing will continue to be a tough business, and it will always be easy for managers to postpone business improvement activities. Other things will always feel more urgent. The old adage says that it's hard to think about draining the swamp when you're up to your ass in alligators. That's true. But it's equally true that unless you deal with the swamp, you'll always be fighting alligators.

 

[Deleted member 16349]

First, I disagree strongly with Erik's contention that lean is preventing progress in the printing industry. Lean, like six sigma, theory of constraints, TQM, or any other management methodology, can be misused and misapplied, either because of lack of understanding or even intentionally. When this happens, any management tool will become a barrier to progress. I do agree that lean alone is not sufficient to guarantee success.

.

My view is that Lean does not want people to do development on untried approaches or technologies. It tends to want people to be innovative with existing methods and technologies. Expanding the knowledge of printing does not seem to be a Lean goal.

Also printing is a very interesting manufacturing field which I think does require the Toyota thinking. It has problems that are perfectly aligned to that total approach.

I believe it was in the book, "The machine that changed the world" SMED was stated as the concept that made all the other concepts in the Toyota system possible. SMED was the idea that you have a setup so well understood that when the previous job stopped, the next job started up very quickly and was in production quickly without producing waste and without adjustments required. To do this the set up process had to be totally rethought. This was not based on continuous improvement but on breakthrough thinking.

In the printing industry, the set up is critical. The aim is to have a set up that once the press starts, there are NO adjustments needed.

This is the part that the industry does not get and the Lean consultants do not get. It is ignored.

I have studied and worked at this specific problem since 1984 with a SMED view. I understand the problems that need to be corrected and I understand what has to be done. The Lean consultants have no interest to correct this problem and therefore will have limited success with all the other related problems that require SMED.

Lean is great at getting the easier waste problems out of the system but has problems with the critical core problems.

 

[eastppress]

Lean Improvements

Lean Improvements

As for printers implementing Lean, my experience has been that many 'traditional' printers (the commercial printer who grew from the press operator or are operator-centric) have difficulty truly embracing and championing Lean. They will not apply the cultural changes (as clearly defined in Jim Collins' "Good to Great: Why some companies make the leap... and others don't") to their people and support the changes necessary in process. I have seen a full fledged application where personnel changes were made with all the aspects of Lean were trained and applied (5-S, cell, automomation, visual management, SMED, problem solving, etc.) When the programs initiated, there were increased waste and lower productivity. However, after 2 years there was an increase in productivity with very slightly higher sales with 1/3 fewer people, including eliminating 80% of salaried supervisors. At another company I have also experienced a good attempt to train and implement training (supported by a state grant) that reduced setups by 60+% for the press lines along with 7% scrap reductions in 6 months. Unfortunately the personnel assessments and changes were not part of the owner's commitment. Nor would the company face the facts of opportunities to reduce waste by $1 million annually due to overruns that were waste--not sure why they wouldn't look at the data. In this later case the Lean program and advances (setup crews for one) were substantially shelved due to sales declines and perceived cost savings.

I conducted a research study and thesis on Lean implementations on a number of printing and packaging companies. Although my data did not have a large enough population to statistically validate the results, what I observed was that those companies that fully committed to implementing Lean with top management commitment and follow-through to the lowest levels including training and sustained implementions were substantially improved in financial results than those that didn't. As a matter of fact, some of the poor implementation companies are no longer in existance or have been taken over by others.

Much of the earlier discussion focused on ink/water mix while that is one area of Lean's problem solving. What I have seen is that greater savings can be obtained through many other opportunities to reduce waste (setup reduction, OEE, eliminating over-runs, visual management systems, scrap reduction programs). Next, apply Lean to the sales and office environments.

One of the earlier writers mentioned a vision and business plan. This is very true. Then comes the leadership (level 5 and at all levels per Collins), and relentless pursuit through execution.

 

[mattf]

@eastppress

That was me with the whole idea of vision and business plan. And yes, leadership must ensure these goals are followed through to completion. Execution and understanding of the end goal is the key to getting there. That is where it starts. Management has to understand and be on board with the whole concept.

In my own situation, management doesn't want to deal with it and just wishes to bury itself in the day to day stuff. This of course, doesn't help the implementation at all. Creation of a long-term plan to be used and followed by all levels is a sure way to get people aware, but teaching and learning these concepts needs total dedication from all levels of a company.

 

[pcmodem]

I have a question about eliminating over-runs. What happens if you run short on a job. there was scumming on part of the run, setup of the folder/stitcher took longer, etc. If you eliminated over-runs, you would have to put the job back on press to make count. This has the possibility to cost more than what the over-run would have cost, making this process not lean.

Since we know if the job is asking for 1,000 finished pieces. We can't print exactly 1,000 and make count because each process down the line requires a percentage of waste.

What is the percentage of waste at each step to stay lean?

 

[Ritter]

pcmodern,
The idea is the perfect each step to produce the minimal waste as well as minimize setup time and complexity. Where I realize that you will never be able to produce absolute quantities if you now require say 200 extra press sheets of a 8 page 8.5" x 11" booklet to be right angle folded then stitched on a single pocket of a saddle-stitcher with 3 knife trim the goal is to reduce that 200 through improvements in the folding and stitching area. If you figure out how get it down to 100 you have cut waste in half. Once you reach 100 you re-evaluate how to get it down to 50 or until you get to the point where these opportunities are truly at their maximum potential (minimal waste, least amount of time). This where the situation changes and only advances in technology be made utilized to increase effficiency. Institute the multiplier effect and and if you run 500 jobs like this you have effecitvely made them 50% less wasteful and more efficient which means more profit in your pocket or passing the savings on to the customer theoretically increasing business and profit in your pocket.

 

[Al Ferrari]

"booklet to be right angle folded then stitched on a single pocket of a saddle-stitcher..."

There's part of your problem right there! Stitch them in the saddle instead.

On a more serious note, I find interesting that no thought enters your mind of passing some the savings to the workers that make the whole thing happen.

Al

 

[David Dodd]

pcmodem,

I agree with Ritter's description of the lean approach. The objective is to continually reduce the amount of waste. There is no magic percentage that means you are now lean. I do believe that the first step is to accurately measure the amount of waste that your current processes are creating. As Deming said, you need to understand a process before you try to improve it. I've seen many companies set waste allowances in their estimating softare based on guestimates or on some supposed industry standard. Then, they increase the allowance "just in case." It's no wonder there are overruns.