ENGINEERING OF JOB IMPOSITIONS FOR LARGE WEB/SHEETFED OPERATION

lsynadinos

Member
I'd like to get a feel for how many prepress departments are responsible for taking written information (text only, no drawings) and engineering the impositions for sheetfed and full web, how many receive hand-drawn layouts as a reference for creating the imposition in Preps, Metrix, etc., and how many receive an electronic template generated by a imposition software or an MIS system. For those prepress departments that are responsible for engineering the jobs from "scratch," are they being done by specially trained personnel or by journeyman prepress operators who are also bindery experts? If not by prepress, then who? Thanks in advance for participating in my little survey.
 
Interesting question...
I think the sad truth is that very few companies hove connected those 2 dots together, and if production varies from the "planned" information then how is the MIS/Quote updated as those changes evolve, or is it required, since many bill from quoted?

Tying Quotes/Estimates/Orders to job ticket and Graphics to PDF Workflows to Layouts managed through JDF impositions then onto Imposed PDF's for Digital or Offset presses , while all sharing the right and accurate information is the toolkit we have developed to automate and manage this process
 
At the place that I work and all the other places over my career (almost 40 yrs) prepress has always created the imposition from scratch using a program like Preps or in the old days we would draw a rule out for all jobs.
and yes....prepress has to know what press, bindery and any other finishing that is going to be done to a job.



hope his helps.
 
No Title

That's a pretty intense question to ask. With our imposition software called DynaStrip we have been able to compile hundreds of templates over the years for many different sheet sizes and configurations and folds. Each folder has sub folders with book folders or flat sheet with W&T or S/W forms or Tumble sheets. In the (8.5x11 8pg on 19x25" sheet) folder layouts from 2up w&t up to 104pg layouts. We do this so each layout will be the same each time 1 of 5 prepress operators pick up a template. The preflight department will set up the links and pages in Nexus manager and then bring the links into the DynaStrip layout. With in 5 minutes the proofs are running out for the customer. So as long as the customer has sent in the files ready and right the turn around time on that type of book 104pg Spinjet and color proofs 2.5 to 3 hours.

Whenever a new layout is needed we will get the sheet size and come up with a fold and have the bindery supervisor look it over and go from there. And I agree with (giant1958) I started in 1970 with film and us old timers can put a layout together in our sleep.
I have posted photos of our work templates.
 

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As stated earlier, the companies I have worked for over the past 40+ years all impositions were generated from 'scratch'. Presently, I do all the templates for jobs to be printed. I got this job because I had spent many years on a light table stripping, and also a few years in design. You should get someone who understands both ends the design and the pressrun. I receive an email from the designer letting me know the specs of the job, a template is made and assigned a name, this name is then email back to the designer. After the job is sent the plate tiffs are reviewed to make sure all is well and ready for the press.
 

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