Newspaper Printers

[Saptangshu Chaudhuri]

Hello everyone, I have a question? I am from India. What qualities does a printer need to have? This question can be rephrased as " What is the job of a printer"? How can the "eye of a printerbe developed". I work in a situation where there are a lot of junior printers. I intend to develop them into very good printers for the future.

 

[Neil Meggitt]

Hello everyone, I have a question? I am from India. What qualities does a printer need to have? This question can be rephrased as " What is the job of a printer"? How can the "eye of a printerbe developed". I work in a situation where there are a lot of junior printers. I intend to develop them into very good printers for the future.

They need to be trained by someone who has those skills and IMO if you need to ask what is the job of a printer then I'm guessing you don't have those skills and therefore don't see how you can develop the skills and eye of a printer. Sorry if this sounds a little harsh but that's pretty much it, utilise your skilled workers to train the juniors.

 

[Saptangshu Chaudhuri]

Thanks for your reply Neil....Just that i wanted to know how can we develop our manpower faster....On the job development and training by skilled labours are all good and we only have developed in that way, but for development of printers faster, there has to be a structured training.... For my organisation, i have myself developed tools training presentations all aimed at development of printers eye.... It can be done by senior management faster..... Can be done better , if one has the will......... Just wanted how industry views the training angle....
With due regards

 

[Neil Meggitt]

I wouldn't hold out too much hope for the quality of work you're expecting and I can see a few web breaks each shift. The trained eye is not learned in a seminar.........it is trained and this takes time. If you want to cut corners and speed things up get good first minders that know what they're doing then put your juniors as second/third minders and see how that goes.

 

[ondemandbindery]

I hate to downplay the skill set of sheetfed but a web is much, much more complicated. I have worked in a few web shops and this is something that takes time and is not a machine someone can grasp overnite. Unless you are talking a coldset type press and even those are their own animals.

 

[Neil Meggitt]

I've seen it done and I've done it myself. You can take someone from the street and throw them on as a second or third minder but even still it's going to take a loooooooooong time for them to start soaking things up and you're going to risk losing your first minders as a result or they're going to start demanding more money, either way you'd be better off employing already skilled staff.

 

[rich apollo]

It's an interesting dilemma. In one city I worked in the labor unions were very strong. Part of the union structure for printing required that for every so many journeymen, there would be an apprentice. This insured that there was always a supply of workers that had some knowledge of the industry.

While I'm not necessarily pro-union, this arrangement benefitted companies and tradesmen alike.

Eventually the union membership voted out the apprentice quotas to protect the pay and benefits of entrenched members. It then became more and more difficult to 1) find skilled workers and 2) break into the trade.