Hotsheet idea Good or Bad

[prepressguru]

I have this request from production/planning department (to prepress my department)

They want us to implement a hot sheet system. Because there are a few jobs where they know we need to adjust some characteristics before it goes to press. The idea is we check this sheet while working on the job and do the change if necessary.

My thought is why can't this info be placed on the docket? They seem to be offseting the responsibility to prepress and not correctly handling the docket information.

The problem with our shop is the planning/production department has no MIS system or even a basic database to properly write dockets. Even if they did have this kind of system I doubt they would be able to effectively use it. Since currently they do not follow up on dockets or collect pertinent/helpful info which would be necessary for later jobs.

Any thoughts on the hot sheet idea would be helpful?


Thanks

p

 

[dabob]

hot sheet . . .??????

hot sheet . . .??????

My opinion is that everything should be easily accessible on as few sheets of paper as possible . . this is why dockets or job tickets are written - to communicate all of the information about the job and a place to note AAs and additional work required. Anytime critical information is written on multiple pieces of paper you are going to miss at least one of them . . . and in an industry where perfection is the only thing acceptable mistake are just to costly . . . write it down and write it down in the right place so it gets done!!!!!

 

[prepressguru]

I have to agree, but the mentality around here is that since they don't look at the files they cannot know anything. Even though we do mention to them. They just do not follow through with the information they have. Extremely frustrating and counter productive.

p

 

[craiglpress]

Pre-production planning and job tickets

Pre-production planning and job tickets

Before production touches a job, each job should have a “blueprint” or plan indicating just how production will produce it. The plan identifies the job specifications, production instructions, and the production processes necessary to produce the job.

Questions or issues involving the job also need to be identified and resolved before the production process; including prepress. This is why it is an industry best practice to perform a level I preflight of the customer’s files during the order entry/planning process.

Carefully planning each job prior to production and determining how the job will flow through the plant to meet technical requirements allows a company to optimize plant capacity and reduce equipment downtime and spoilage.

This information is transferred onto the job ticket, in order to communicate the job plan to the entire organization, from prepress through printing and finishing. The job ticket/docket is the hot sheet.

 

[gordo]

It's also important to confirm that the submitted job is the same as the one that was quoted and that it can be manufactured as quoted.

best, gordon p

 

[mattbeals]

So this comes full circle back to preflight... See http://printplanet.com/forums/prepr...y-need-preflight-software?highlight=preflight . Back in my days of preflighting for a commercial printer and a magazine publisher we treated preflight as part of the sales team and later planning department. I was prepress but provided the info to other groups. When a job came in it was required to be preflighted. The report from PitStop/Acrobat or FlightCheck needed to be accompanied by a composite proof and separated lasers. Yes, more often than not I had to provide the proof and lasers. But! When the art was turned into an order the estimating and planning departments (one person can be a department too you know...) they looked at the report to see how many colors were specified. They looked at the job quote to see how many were expected (and if they even matched). The planning department used the seps and the composite proof to make the layout. Sometimes, I know this sounds completely ridiculous, but they'd even talk to the press room supervisor, and here's the funniest part, they'd show them the composite proof. Hilarious! The idea that someone would communicate and use the tools available to make sound decisions before the job was even assigned a number or scheduled is just the craziest thing! Who'd do that??? I mean, why not wait until the last minute when it's already scheduled to make decisions? Oh man... I haven't laughed that hard in years...

On a serious note, sure it was a cost center. We didn't make money preflighting jobs. We simply lost less money. I could say we were "big enough" ($32 million a year) to afford it. I could say we were seeing profitability increases of at least 8% for the past 8 consecutive years. Or I could say that we tried to recoup my costs over the course of the year simply by learning to better communicate and give the right people as much good information as we could as early as we could. That way when plates were made, paper ordered, time clocks punched, etc. we were trying to be as efficient as we could. Did everyone believe in it at the beginning? No. Did they when there were fewer suprises from billing because of extra prepress charges? Yes. Or when schedules were better able to be met? Yes. Or when the seemingly bottomless pit of prepress dollars wasn't getting quite as deep (because of eating less unbillable time)? Yes.

I guess having a few leaders (cause that's what they do, they lead) believe in the experiment and see it through to get meaningful (even if not positive) results paid tangible benefits for the rest of the workflow. And not to mention helped cause less wasted dollars. Thanks Jim, thanks Greg. A couple of leaders who actually did their job... Of course there were people like Barbara and Len who used the information to give to Dan, Tony and Scott who scheduled and managed the pressroom(s) so they could better organize the work. Gee... I just sounds so damned utopian. It wasn't really all that utopian, but it was less hellish.

"Less hellish", I guess it's better than more hellish.

 

[Morning Flight]

Anytime critical information is written on multiple pieces of paper you are going to miss at least one of them . . . and in an industry where perfection is the only thing acceptable mistake are just to costly . . . write it down and write it down in the right place so it gets done!

Couldn't agree more! Printing really is an industry where anything short of perfection is unacceptable. In a print shop, the Returns Department is the nearest dumpster.

Writing it down, and writing it down in the right place is a good beginning. What helps even more is writing it down on a keyboard. Computers aren't overly bright, but they do one thing extremely well, and that's copy stuff. PMS 186 on the original order will never change to PMS 185 on the reorder. That doesn't guarantee it won't get printed as PMS 185, but it will minimize the possibility. And losing less money, as Mattbeals points out, is very much a good thing.

Hal

 

[prepressguru]

Before production touches a job, each job should have a “blueprint” or plan indicating just how production will produce it. The plan identifies the job specifications, production instructions, and the production processes necessary to produce the job.

Questions or issues involving the job also need to be identified and resolved before the production process; including prepress. This is why it is an industry best practice to perform a level I preflight of the customer’s files during the order entry/planning process.

Carefully planning each job prior to production and determining how the job will flow through the plant to meet technical requirements allows a company to optimize plant capacity and reduce equipment downtime and spoilage.

This information is transferred onto the job ticket, in order to communicate the job plan to the entire organization, from prepress through printing and finishing. The job ticket/docket is the hot sheet.

Hi Craig, I agree with you 100% the docket IS the hot sheet... I just cannot seem to get this message home here. Unfortunately the planning/production department is poorly organized and they are not willing to do anything about it. These inefficiencies are eating away at prepress time because the jobs are missing information we constantly need to discuss what is on the docket. And when I suggest they record some vital information about the job so next time we know how to run it etc...I get the answer why don't you (I) do it.

Anyhow I have told my operators our hands are tied and we are stuck with this terrible decision.

p

 

[gordo]

Hi Craig, I agree with you 100% the docket IS the hot sheet... I just cannot seem to get this message home here. Unfortunately the planning/production department is poorly organized and they are not willing to do anything about it.

Basically, many shops have a "why fix it if it ain't broke" attitude towards any change in their process. If a problem comes up, or if it's a systemic problem as in your case, they are not going to make a change unless it impacts them directly. That why creatives supply poor files to printers - because they can and there is no direct consequence to them.

So, the planning/production department sees no reason to change since the system, from their point of view, works. The fact that you are having problems is not their concern.

However, most print companies prefer not to lose money if they can avoid it. What may help is if you tried the economic argument with management. Document the time wasted in your department because of this systemic issue and translate that into dollars and available production time.

E.g. If in a typical day you lose 2 hours at $100 each then the company is losing $1,000 a week and 10 hours of potential production time. If management is happy to lose that money then I wouldn't be concerned about the problem any more and just go about doing my job. If management is unhappy about losing that money then it's up to them to organize the departments and fix the systemic problem that is causing the company to lose that money.

Economic arguments help take problem resolution out of the "you should be doing it this way because I say so" or "it would really help me if you did your job a different way." It helps to put the discussion in terms that are meaningful to all the stakeholders.

best, gordon p

 

[pcmodem]

There are several ways of looking at making your job more efficient.

The first one is.

If you make your job for efficient and bill less time to the job. The company does not have as much revenue coming in the door. This is provided you charge your customer based on the time you are clocked into their job. If on the other had you bill according to what was estimated. Then you are taking away from the profit from that job by spending more time.

Provided you update your estimating system with the average of how long it takes to get a job through prepress. By being more efficient, your estimates may help you win jobs you might not have received because your price was too high.

Increasing efficiency can be good if prepress is a bottleneck and work is piling up. This would allow for more work to go through prepress without having to hire another person. On the other hand, if you are going to have more non chargeable time to a job because of efficiency. This could be bad for the company or you.

Sometimes the only way to show savings is to be so efficient you can remove someone from staff. Think of it this way. You are paying the person the same amount to be there whether there is work of not. If they have less work because of efficiency, the expense of the company is still the same. It would show no benefit to try and justify a change to be more efficient based on lost production time alone.

 

[pcmodem]

There might be a solution for you, but it requires prepress to do the work to begin with and eventually move it up stream to the planning/production department.

Create a database of all your customers and a separate table for your job numbers. Linking the two based on the customer number. Then within the jobs table, have a section for prepress notes. This is where you could put special information about what had to be done to the job. This would is good recording keeping for down the road.

Then you can perform a search for the customer number and find jobs you have done for them and look through the notes.

You could make the database as complicated as you would like. such as having description, quantity, ink colors, etc. NOTE: The you might already have this functionality within your current MIS system. In which case, if you start inquiring about this and take the lead on implementing. It will show initiative on the part of prepress to actually get something done and work as a team to solve the problem.

So many times, the departments work against each other creating a wall, instead of working as a team. All this does is cause problems. By having someone step forward to tackle the problem, helps to build faith.

 

[prepressguru]

Thanks all for your input. I am saving the thread on my computer as a reminder on how to help handle this situation. I have not decided which way to go yet.

p