Job Security

[D Ink Man]

Sir, you have said a lot! And you have spoken PURE TRUTH.

As short as 30 years ago the conundrum you present here was handled by the ink men. Truly, I present.

It was the job and task of the ink supplier true technicians to interact, evaluate, troubleshoot and sometimes share a beer together at the end of the day. Note: The beer would only come after the press/pressroom was running at maximum efficiency.

Then what happened? The MEGA sized corporations (names unmentioned) gobbled up the medium to small size ink companies that provided these services. These MEGA fellows did not purchase, acquire the little guys for their expertises. They grabbed them because of the business they possessed. They did not and still do not realize that the reason the smaller entities had the business was because they provided but two things.

1) Product > An ink product that fit a printing machine and provided the necessary runnabilty and printability to produce quality reproductions for their customer. Henceforth, the ink suppliers job was to provide CONSISTENCY of product. That is all it is.

2) Service > A boots on ground 'LIVE PERSON', that was available 24-7-365 to SERVICE their customer and provide assistance, help, consultation, reformulation and anything necessary to the point of admonition. It was the responsibility of the ink man to earn the business via these methodologies.

And guess what? It worked!! The pressroom ran like a well oiled machine and the ink company received TOP DOLLAR per pound for their ink because of what they did. Selling price was not an issue. The printer paid whatever price the ink company sold it at, because of the total package that was delivered and that was delivered consistently.

Now to today. For the most part, the bean coiner as you refer to, decides to buy the CHEAPEST priced ink he can find. What are the repercussions from this?

Well sir, your reply I just provided quote to, explains everything.

D Ink Man

I want to make one more point here by further providing reply to my quote.

The reason the ink technician is the best candidate to be the human being that keeps a pressroom running at peak efficiency is at least two fold.

1. When a press is having run, print problems usually the first guy the printer calls is the ink supplier. Why? Because the ink is the vehicle of printing and more importantly it is the easiest thing to change. It may not even be an ink problem, but when it's 5:00 on Friday night a press room supervisor is not going to be calling ANY of his other consumable providers to fix the issue. He is going to call the guy that can make the quickest modification and consulting service in order to deliver that one bugger job say, by early the next Monday. The supervisor sometimes cannot figure the issue out sometimes, no matter what level of expertise he has. He needs help, and he needs a professional. So within the hour, here comes the inkman; packed with his tools, his know how and hopefully previous encounters with the press in an well running situation, as well as any problems previous in the history of service. The ink technician knew that press form infeed to delivery to bindery as well as all past historical happenings with documentation.

Usually armed like this, the ink tech will figure out the problem at hand, learn to work with the press room supervisor, and in psychological manner, get the supervisor to ask the question that was planted by the tech. This methodology makes it seem that the customer, supervisor figured out his issue and ids feeling quite good about everything. This here now is an art that only very experienced, and wise technicians can execute. One last note here; personally of all the problems I have solved on press, much more than 50% were not the culprit from the ink. However a great deal of them were remedied by doctoring the ink. Just a truism worth mentioning.

2. The inkman is the best principal to offer assistance and help in the press room, outside anyone internally in a print shop. Why? Because the ink technician encounters hundreds of presses, press rooms, consumables, personalities, both working and in a problematic state. The inkman, a good one, just doesn't show up when things are rainy and stormy in an operation. He shows up when things are bright and sunny, proactively, to capture every condition that is there for the picking. He than documents this data, accurately, and utilizes it in future interactions for the benefit of all. It really is easy, once trained and experienced, but it is a culmination effort over time that builds the strong foundation.

That is all, quite Ben Franklin like perhaps (trying to keep modesty), but more and more, becoming a lost art of proper business technique and shared, enjoyed profitability.

D Ink Man

 

[turbotom1052]

I want to make one more point here by further providing reply to my quote.

The reason the ink technician is the best candidate to be the human being that keeps a pressroom running at peak efficiency is at least two fold.

1. When a press is having run, print problems usually the first guy the printer calls is the ink supplier. Why? Because the ink is the vehicle of printing and more importantly it is the easiest thing to change. It may not even be an ink problem, but when it's 5:00 on Friday night a press room supervisor is not going to be calling ANY of his other consumable providers to fix the issue. He is going to call the guy that can make the quickest modification and consulting service in order to deliver that one bugger job say, by early the next Monday. The supervisor sometimes cannot figure the issue out sometimes, no matter what level of expertise he has. He needs help, and he needs a professional. So within the hour, here comes the inkman; packed with his tools, his know how and hopefully previous encounters with the press in an well running situation, as well as any problems previous in the history of service. The ink technician knew that press form infeed to delivery to bindery as well as all past historical happenings with documentation.

Usually armed like this, the ink tech will figure out the problem at hand, learn to work with the press room supervisor, and in psychological manner, get the supervisor to ask the question that was planted by the tech. This methodology makes it seem that the customer, supervisor figured out his issue and ids feeling quite good about everything. This here now is an art that only very experienced, and wise technicians can execute. One last note here; personally of all the problems I have solved on press, much more than 50% were not the culprit from the ink. However a great deal of them were remedied by doctoring the ink. Just a truism worth mentioning.

2. The inkman is the best principal to offer assistance and help in the press room, outside anyone internally in a print shop. Why? Because the ink technician encounters hundreds of presses, press rooms, consumables, personalities, both working and in a problematic state. The inkman, a good one, just doesn't show up when things are rainy and stormy in an operation. He shows up when things are bright and sunny, proactively, to capture every condition that is there for the picking. He than documents this data, accurately, and utilizes it in future interactions for the benefit of all. It really is easy, once trained and experienced, but it is a culmination effort over time that builds the strong foundation.

That is all, quite Ben Franklin like perhaps (trying to keep modesty), but more and more, becoming a lost art of proper business technique and shared, enjoyed profitability.

D Ink Man

D,
not to minimize all you do but a fully competent pressman, or if it needs to go that far Pessroom supervisor should be able to fix, or at the very least determine the cause of most problems encountered. When I was still working in the trade the ink tech was called AFTER Id already done the required troubleshooting and made the decision that it was an ink related problem that could not be remedied with stuff in our own inventory. If the issue was a paper problem I did the same. This is the level of competence I spoke of in my initial post. Im not looking to take a bow here just looking to inform the people that matter of how handy it is at times to actually hire qualified people.

 

[aqazi81]

D,
not to minimize all you do but a fully competent pressman, or if it needs to go that far Pessroom supervisor should be able to fix, or at the very least determine the cause of most problems encountered. When I was still working in the trade the ink tech was called AFTER Id already done the required troubleshooting and made the decision that it was an ink related problem that could not be remedied with stuff in our own inventory. If the issue was a paper problem I did the same. This is the level of competence I spoke of in my initial post. Im not looking to take a bow here just looking to inform the people that matter of how handy it is at times to actually hire qualified people.

I agree with Turbotom,

When I was a pressman in the trade, in the beginning of my career I thought whatever the salesman is saying is a holy grail but now I'm also working with a pressroom consumables supplier and I know many unethical practices in this business are being followed just to sell the products.

 

[Cornishpastythighs]

I was fortunate enough to go see a new KBA sheetfed press running at 20,000sph. I would imagine the Technology/Engineering involved in feeding, printing and delivering 6 colours all in perfect dot for dot register was quite impressive.

 

[D Ink Man]

I agree with Turbotom,

When I was a pressman in the trade, in the beginning of my career I thought whatever the salesman is saying is a holy grail but now I'm also working with a pressroom consumables supplier and I know many unethical practices in this business are being followed just to sell the products.

D

 

[Alois Senefelder]

Hello Cornish,

You were impressed by the KBA demonstration, I'm curious how long was the

test run ? 2) Sheet size? 3) Paper + gsm?

Regards, Alois

 

[Deleted member 16349]

I would think that press manufacturers know exactly what they're doing. Most have been designing and manufacturing presses for a very long time and IMO, the modern offset press is actually a pretty awesome machine in both the way that it works, and the product it produces. There may be some who have issues with the design(s) and performance of today's offset printing presses, but I don't think there's a better print available from any other type of machine.

I understand how one might feel that the press manufacturers are doing their best. Some press manufacturers are better in some areas than others.

The following statement is from a web page for a Goss product.

Web page.

http://www.gossinternational.com/cli...rinted0508.pdf

Statement on the fourth page in the Productivity heading.

"The Goss FPS press achieves low start-up waste by the combination of automated controls technology working in conjunction with pre-set ink values provided by Goss DigiRailTM digital inking. As a compact, state-of-the-art ink metering system, also available on other Goss presses, this inking system delivers high quality even ink density without the need for closed loop color control systems."


It states that it provides predictable and consistent density "without the need for closed loop color control systems".

Now if anyone's sheetfed press can do that, good for them but what I see is that the sheetfed press manufacturers have to offer closed loop color control to their presses because they don't control ink feed well enough.

But if you are happy with what you have, that's fine too.

Even though Goss and now Quadtech have technologies that aim for this level of control, I know the fundamental problems they have in their approach and I have known it for twenty years. They too could do better.

 

[Cornishpastythighs]

Alois, This was not a demonstration of a KBA put on by the press manufacturer but a machine in production. I got to talk to the pressman running the equipment and he loves the machine. Carton printer running 16 point board 38 x 25 sheet I believe. The machine ran for over an hour at 20K and the pressman told me they run pretty much all their jobs at 20k. This was also the case at another KBA user not far from me who runs their press flat out at 18K (earlier model) on similar carton work. Pretty impressive watching KBA's infeed sideguide system at work at 20,000 an hr

 

[D Ink Man]

Alois, This was not a demonstration of a KBA put on by the press manufacturer but a machine in production. I got to talk to the pressman running the equipment and he loves the machine. Carton printer running 16 point board 38 x 25 sheet I believe. The machine ran for over an hour at 20K and the pressman told me they run pretty much all their jobs at 20k. This was also the case at another KBA user not far from me who runs their press flat out at 18K (earlier model) on similar carton work. Pretty impressive watching KBA's infeed sideguide system at work at 20,000 an hr

Better than the West Bank and I guarantee it.

Thank you for your offset perspective sir.

D ink Man