Prepress Technology March 2000
Prepress
Perspective
Bolanson "Tony" Adeshina
Imaging and Quality Assurance Manager
The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer
17 years, 9 with The Plain Dealer
What was your first job in the newspaper business?
My career in newspapers began at the age of six, when my dad often took me to visit the family newspaper. My first job was as a scanner operator at the Palm Beach Newspapers.
What do you like most about your job?
The challenges, the opportunities to grow professionally and the rapid change in the evolving world of newspaper technology.
I enjoy implementing new technology and procedures to reduce waste, increase production, maximize efficiency and improve quality. Also, working for an organization that is committed to excellence in the services it performs for readers and advertisers.
What do you like least?
Employees' slow acceptance of cultural and operational changes to new technology.
What was The Plain Dealer's most recent purchase or installation?
We had three major installations in the past few months. These include the ProImage NewsWay system to plan jobs, manage workflow and transmit pages via T1 lines from the front end systems to the remote site printing facility.
We also purchased Autologic 3850 imagesetters to replace an aging system and the Autologic APS 3850 CTP Wide to streamline operations. These will improve quality, plate processing and press start-up time and enable circulation to deliver the newspaper to the customers as early as possible.
The products have the best capabilities to integrate with our existing hardware and software, thus improving our job planning, production management, workflow automation, flexibility and quality.
What is the biggest challenge The Plain Dealer is facing in production?
Meeting and exceeding the needs of our internal customers. Continuous improvement of our quality and productivity. We are creating a flexible operation environment that gives editorial and advertising the latest copy deadlines possible before press start. To improve our productivity, we are designing innovative strategies that establish measurements and goals for continuous improvement of the quality and productivity of all production efforts. Most of all, exploring new technologies to streamline operations.
What trend are you keeping your eye on?
We're keeping an eye on the economics of computer-to-plate. Imaging directly to plate will eliminate a step in the reproduction process and potentially improve quality. We are also watching emerging technology that will improve productivity and quality.
Trick of the Trade -- Is there a tip or trick that you like to share with our readers?
Newspaper transition from a manual craft to a digital science depends heavily on cultural changes necessary to educate customers and train the workforces.