Why do we do this job????

[ajr]

Had this great email from my boss today, they werent waiting for plates just used itas an excuse as they couldnt get the job to print on their web press, this press btw is a 6 colour web that they have bolted on 2 extra units!!!



I am disappointed that once again we have wasted half of a shift because we have been waiting for plates for the xxxxxxx which is scheduled to run an urgent xxxxxxx job! Tom got a full set of plates at 10.35 am when his shift starts at 6.00 am!



We have discussed before the need for plates to be ready the day before a job is due to go on press, particularly when a job is due to start at 6.00 am. I have had complaints about your approach to this and therefore I am asking you to change your attitude towards the urgency needed for plates to be available. Let me confirm again to you that not one printer in our company rates the Studio as an efficient department and will actually go as far as blaming our inefficiencies on the delays and poor attitude of the Studio team. This needs to change with immediate effect and a indifferent attitude is not acceptable. If I hear of any presses waiting for plates I will have to restructure things in order to avoid such a situation as we have a lot of urgent work pilling on behind this job.




Please let me know how you intend sorting this out!?


Answers on a postcard please!!!

 

[DCurry]

I hope that there is a slug somewhere on your plates that indicates the output time and date. If there's not, put one on there. It's pretty tough to argue with that data.

 

[margadri]

Prepress gets blamed for everything anyway. Don't get upset. Answer that next time you will output plates on time. No matter what. They will pick on somebody else for a while.
Never had an email saying "thank you for your hard work, we appreciated your help staying late last night fixing all our cockups" (well, I actually did once, and it felt good)
Here in Australia good operators are hard to find. We wouldn't receive an email like the one you received.
Good luck on your reply

 

[ajr]

Will reply today just been thinking what to say, what bugged me most about this is that the Director that wrote this didnt actually speak to me face to face first but sent this email to me (by the way he works in the same office) and he also copied in all the other directors and managers. I personally think the guy doesnt like me as I have spoken to all the minders and they are happy with the studio. If I could walk out today I would but have wife and 3 kids to support and its not like I could get another job easily (I'm in the UK).

Margadri, I would love to work in Australia, Im half oz anyway on my mothers side so I can get my oz passport and technically come tomorrow I dont need points for immigration etc. Where is the best loaction to find work at the moment do you know anywhere that needs a studio manager (obviously one with a crap attitude) Would love to have some pointers as I'm really fed up with the UK at the moment.

A

 

[easiprint]

If it really wasn't the plates holding it up, then you need to tell the director this. No way you should be taking the blame for the minders inability to do his job properly.

I agree, UK is tough at the moment (I'm UK too - Cambridge), but is the grass really greener elsewhere? The world is full of pillocks! We had a national client come in yesterday to complain about their leaflets. They had a huge billboard advert displayed somewhere (you know the ones at the side of roads) and then had some A5 leaflets printed by us with the same artwork. They complained that on our A5 leaflets, they could not read the serial number on the product in the poster as well as they could on their huge billboards. Of course, must be our printing at fault. I had to explain that as the A5 leaflets are a fraction of the size of their billboards, the number was too friggin small to be read. Customer - O yeah, never thought of that

 

[margadri]

Margadri, I would love to work in Australia, Im half oz anyway on my mothers side so I can get my oz passport and technically come tomorrow I dont need points for immigration etc. Where is the best loaction to find work at the moment do you know anywhere that needs a studio manager (obviously one with a crap attitude) Would love to have some pointers as I'm really fed up with the UK at the moment.

A

Try and look on the seek.com.au
SEEK - Printing & Publishing Services Jobs. Printing & Publishing Services Job Search Australia

You might get lucky.
Can't go wrong coming to Australia mate.
We still got hope. Money is crap but lifestyle can't be beat.
I am in Perth and there is not much movement but in the Eastern States it's a different story
As I said, good luck

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

Was the planning reasonable. Demanding plates to be ready is one thing, but also there needs to be a clause about "provided that the material is trouble free and approved n-days/hours before the plates need to be ready".

If plates are not ready when the press is to run it is just as much (if not more) a planning problem more than a studio problem. It reminds me of the article I read about city busses going empty past queues of passengers not having time to stop to pick them up, because that would break their tight timeline.

Does that mean you are allowed to give them blank plates to print if the job is not approved, with the possibility to add the information once it is approved by client/production manager?

We enforced that no job was allowed to be booked (fixed schedule) in press until the production manager had signed off that it was approved.

 

[TheProcessIStheproduct]

If the job was plated then yes you can and should defend yourself. HOWEVER, I would take the high road just so you do not make enemies. And to defend management and even production, I know a lot of shops in which people are hustling to meet a deadline and when a problem on press is brought to pre-press it is not approached with a sense of urgency, often times because pre-press does not work under the same deadline driven schedule. Even if it is just lip service, say "I'm going to drop everything and jump on this so we can get it replated and back on press"...

 

[ajr]

The main problem was that the job was going to be printed somewhere else but they decided to print it here at the last minute and we were given the wrong spec for the job or should I say no spec and told just get on and make plates etc etc etc which we did we had staff in at 6 in the morning when the shift starts to cover any issues, the guy on the press didnt know how to run it as it was a 4/4 job and he had never run anything like that before. Its easy to blame us for any issues.

 

[FlexoGrunt]

It's just part of prep. If the customer doesn't approve the proof it's because we (not the salesperson) weren't diligent in getting the customer to sign it. The scheduler sees something is approved so they put it on the schedule for the next day not understanding that 5 copies @ 7 colors each copy takes time to plate properly (Flexo) so it's prep's fault. The press doesn't have plates in time. 4cp print doesn't match the proof (they hadn't checked densities of the inks). The plates are causing the print to look poorly (they're running on uncoated stock). There is banding so the plates are bad. etc.. etc.. etc..


Pick and choose your big battles. For the rest buy some Teflon spray. Most of the time you are working with people that can't be wrong so it's better to nod it off and move on. When they you're right let them know you're just glad the job is moving forward (letting them save face). Management will be bright enough to see that and will apreciate (privately) the fact that you keep the peace and the flow going. At least that's what I've experienced.

 

[Stephen Marsh]

If the job was plated then yes you can and should defend yourself. HOWEVER, I would take the high road just so you do not make enemies. And to defend management and even production, I know a lot of shops in which people are hustling to meet a deadline and when a problem on press is brought to pre-press it is not approached with a sense of urgency, often times because pre-press does not work under the same deadline driven schedule. Even if it is just lip service, say "I'm going to drop everything and jump on this so we can get it replated and back on press"...

This is opposite to my experience as in-house prepress at a printer. Traditionally printers did not have in-house prepress and some did not value the prepress role as much as the printers. Prepress was a necessary evil. When a job needed replating or corrections made, prepress had to drop everything - it was made very clear to prepress that press time was more profitable and more critical than our time.


Stephen Marsh

 

[rsands]

Pre-press is crucial in any business and one of the most important departments we have...without it running perfectly then press is stuffed from the outset. However, our press operators are trained on running plate makers, etc so if they desperately need a new plate due to one being damaged or something wrong when it was originally made then they can quickly grab that plate themselves. Saves telling joe blogs in prepress that they need a plate...then he goes and organises that, etc...precious time wasted.

 

[jetzerm]

I feel your pain. My prepress department is constantly told that the Front Office is our Customer and treat them as such. Then is the same breath the pressroom is our customer treat them as such. We slowly learned, that data wins. We use a workflow which tracks every action in the workflow, time date every proof, plate, imposition, log when job tickets come and go and broadcast to the company when we get incomplete or bad information. For awhile we were seen as the road block, but after a time the rest of the company realized that many of the ISSUES, where not the prepress departments doing.

 

[Tpyo]

@jetzerm - That, I've found is the only way to get management to 'see'. Like any good defense, meticulous documentation is a bacon saver. Documentation of a job gets to be a habit when done as an integral part of the process.

 

[printsnpaints]

So sorry to hear about that. I guess it is inevitable at any workplace. You can't really please everyone only most of them. Just unfortunate that that person happens to be the Director. You should probably try to confront him face to face in a closed-door meeting. Explain to him how it works. Maybe there's something in the process that he doesn't understand and needs to be educated. Who knows, you just might be able to find yourself in a more pleasant conversation and a more friendly relationship when you've straightened things out?