Just a few changes to your production environment can make a huge difference to your efficiency and to your bottom line. In the run up to Workshop 06, hosted by Komori in Leeds in September, Philip Dunn, Komori UK Head of Marketing, considers some of the ways that printers can increase productivity, reduce costs and remain competitive.
It’s a universal truth – a printer doesn’t make money until the sheets go out the door of his or her business. Many businesses operate efficiently – and many don’t. But every printer can make changes to their workflow today that can have significant effects on their productivity and ultimately their profitability – and it doesn’t have to be difficult or expensive to achieve.
Whatever the size of your business, it’s worth standing back and taking stock. Your press is probably the single most expensive piece of equipment that you own and it has to work hard. Increasingly shorter run lengths have added an extra element of pressure and companies have to be more efficient upstream and downstream of the press than they have ever had to be. You now have to speed up your prepress to deliver more plates to the press in a shorter space of time and you need to cut your press make-ready times to the minimum. The goal is less wastage overall – in terms of plates, time and materials. Saving a matter of minutes here and there can have a considerable cumulative effect. An extra 5% of production matters an awful lot, so you can imagine what an extra 15 or 20% can mean to your bottom line today?
A lot of manual and semi manual tasks have traditionally been considered to be essential from the time you receive a job until it is completed. Today, the key is to cut as many of these as possible and achieve as streamlined a production process as you can with your machinery working to as full capacity with as little downtime as possible. Look at the areas where each piece of kit isn’t in full operation, find out why and what small changes to your operation you can make to improve the situation.
The trick obviously is to fill the capacity of your press. All the time it is lying dormant it is not making you money. With the recent advances in workflow and press controls, most printers today have the capability to increase their level of automation upstream. Simply by downloading ink jet data from a job to automatically preset a press, for example, will make a dramatic difference and it’s not hard to do.
If you can, invest in a platesetter that can image plates at the speed you need to feed the press. All too often, presses stand quiet because they are waiting for plates and in the current competitive environment, this should be considered unacceptable. Many CTP systems today give you the option to start with a manual device and move up to a fully-automated, multi cassette version as your business grows. Look too for integrated plate punching which shaves more time of the process and improves registration quality.
The same goes for finishing. Can your finishing equipment keep up with your press? Jobs standing around waiting to be finished is tantamount to piles of cash standing around not earning you interest.
MIS and JDF can play a big role in cutting downtime and taking unnecessary or repetitive tasks out of the picture. Both are relevant for everyone and are relatively easy to implement. So you can start with one or more JDF linked steps and work up at your own pace. One printer I know has saved 45 minutes a day for several members of his production team by saving job planning meeting times – JDF does the job for him. MIS is key and provides valuable data and costs to assist you to plan your business more efficiently. An MIS system will pay for itself very quickly and ensures that you don’t miss all those minor chargeable elements that are so often forgotten - or are recognised too late to recharge.
Finally – does your press actually meet your needs? How automatic is it and can it be improved? In response to the market’s quest for ever higher levels of automation and speed our new B2 Komori Lithrone LS29 offset press features the highest level of automation we have ever offered to the B2 market with the world’s fastest changeover: high-speed, six minute changeover from one job to the next. Look for a press that provides a lot of timesaving features as standard. Our Komori SPICA, for example, is very popular with the budget conscious B2 market because it features automation for plate-changing, cylinder cleaning and job pre-setting – all as standard.
B3/B2 printers probably have the most to gain by streamlining their businesses. Already experts in handling short run jobs, these companies are highly flexible, and have lower overheads, yet they need to remain lean and mean in order to fight off increasing competition from B1 printers.
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WORKSHOP 06 Komori’s Leeds showroom in September (26-28 September).
Are you feeling the pressure of being expected to increase productivity whilst reducing costs in order to remain competitive? The topic of survival is top of the agenda at Workshop 06 where several companies unite to show printers how to streamline their business by creating a situation where machinery is fully operated at all times of the day.
How to survive in this challenging commercial climate will be top of the agenda and delegates will receive advice on wise investment and how to reduce the cost of ownership. A wide range of pre-press, press and finishing equipment will demonstrate how different suppliers’ printing and finishing equipment can be integrated and the options available at every stage of the production process.
Organised by Friedheim, Komori, Muller Martini and Print Finance, and supported by Baldwin, Dupont, Fuji, Nordson, Paper Co, Screen, Technotrans, Tharstern Ltd and Weko, delegates will witness a fully integrated, live print production workflow from MIS all the way through to the finished product.
A B1 ten colour Komori Lithrone S1040 Perfector and five colour B2 Komori Lithrone S529 will be on display to demonstrate how different suppliers’ printing and finishing equipment can be integrated and the options available at every stage of the production process. Friedheim International will be demonstrating a selection of finishing equipment and Muller Martini will complete the bindery with its PrimaPlus with Stream Feeder for optimum efficiency. JDF pre-press technology will complete the workflow.
To reserve your place contact Fern Jones (T: 0113 279 9900/ E: fern_jones@komori.co.uk) providing name and address and preferred date
