Newspapers are looking for any edge when it comes to improving print quality and printability.

One option is Bowater Inc.’s Value Enhancement Team, which started in 2001. Jim Harrison, director of quality assurance and leader of the program, said the VET was created following customer feedback regarding the need to keep press workers up-to-date on new technology and help newspapers find more efficient procedures.

He said the VET audit gives pressroom management a fresh perspective of problems and confirms what issues they need to address.

“In most cases it’s not a surprise to them when we tell them what we find. It just verifies issues they already know,” Harrison said.

Harrison said VET has developed an audit program to help pressrooms identify opportunities to improve print quality, improve runability and reduce waste. It is offered as a complete package or segmented into individual components, to give newspapers a choice.

The VET program is free and available to Bowater clients. Newspapers interested in the VET audit typically need to schedule a visit two months in advance.

The VET also offers basic pressroom training in its paper and press seminar. Each component is divided into sub-components, such as paper properties, web defect identification, printing theory and quality control. Newspapers have the choice to customize the sessions depending on what areas they would like to explore.

Thus far the VET has visited the Chattanooga (Tenn.) Times Free Press, the Ft. Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram, the Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa., the Commercial Appeal in Memphis, Tenn., and most recently, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

St. Louis: Increasing rolls per break

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch first heard about the VET program at a quarterly meeting.

“When we had our meeting with Bowater we asked for their input about various runability issues we were experiencing,” said Blake Dickie, director of printing operations and plant manager at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “During the discussion with Bowater, they offered to bring in their Value Enhancement Team to evaluate our pressroom operations and make recommendations.”

Bowater conducted its audit at the Post-Dispatch’s (daily: 287,424; Sunday, 468,134) production center in Maryland Heights, Mo. The newspaper had many of the different production employees participate in the program.

“Participants included managers, pressmen, platemakers, maintenance personnel and employees handling newsprint,” he said.

Pressroom Manager Don Stroh said that there were a number of issues the newspaper needed to examine such as the need for a complete set of best practice procedures and various pressrun issues.

“Our rolls per break were at a very low level and we needed to see improvements,” he said.

The small meeting format was helpful for the managers who heard input from the pressroom’s more experienced employees. Stroh said that the pressmen were more than willing to voice their opinions and gave good recommendations.

“What surprised me was the enormous amount of participation from the employees who run the equipment day in and day out. There was great participation from all parties involved,” he said. “We created a project list with the core group, which included the VET and Post-Dispatch delegates. Some issues were lack of procedures and others were more complex.”

During the VET’s three-day visit, Bowater technicians monitored the Post-Dispatch’s production operations for 36 hours.

After the wrap-up meeting, the Post-Dispatch put the suggestions in motion by setting up missing procedures or best practices. This has helped increase its rolls per break from the start of the project. Bowater made technical recommendations on modifying the Post-Dispatch’s reelstands to decrease mechanical breaks.

“We are not where we want or need to be, but we are moving in the right direction,” Stroh said.

The Post-Dispatch’s follow-up meeting will be in September when the paper will assess progress.

Ft. Worth: Changing paster patterns

The Ft. Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram (Monday-Thursday, 218,975; Friday, 261,418, Saturday, 254,046; Sunday, 322,593) was also approached by Bowater to use the services of the VET.

The newspaper decided to bring in the enhancement team last July. Mark Blancas, director of press operations at the Star-Telegram, said the newspaper let team members walk through the pressroom and observe anything they wanted to look at.

“They printed out a report of their observations on how the Star-Telegram can improve in certain areas,” he said. “There were a lot of things that they suggested to us and it has helped immensely,” Blancas said.

The Star-Telegram changed its paster patterns technique after the VET noticed they weren’t made the same way. Bowater also suggested a different way for the newspaper to handle its paper from the warehouse to minimize tearing.

“The Value Enhancement Team can do several things. They can look at your operation and see what areas you may need to improve or give you suggestions,” Blancas said. “They also can give seminars and training with your people and help your people with trimming rolls, making up pasters and handling the paper.”

Bowater’s VET follow-up sessions are typically six or seven months after the audit. This gives the newspaper a baseline from where it started to note any improvements in printability or runability.

“We talk about any of the [actions] they implemented from our recommendations and compare the current runability figures to the figures from before the first visit,” Harrison said.

He explained that improvements are sometimes difficult to extrapolate into monetary value.

“Web breaks can have different costs depending on the pressroom,” Harrison said.