June
 2004

“Trust the system.” That’s what my boss used to howl as he tried to drum the point that technology should be allowed to work its full course without human intervention.

That advice is as sound today as it was when he first offered it.

Let’s face it: The day electricians walked into News International’s Wapping, London, production plant 19 years ago to take over the publisher’s newspaper presses, printing ceased to be an art form requiring years of apprenticeship.

Those printers who believed they were the sole “masters of the trade” quickly found themselves redundant, almost overnight.

In the past two decades, newspaper rotary web offset presses have become giant computers. These machines embraced programmable logic controls, software and digital technology with such rapid frenzy that operators and technicians are racing to catch up.

Suspicious minds?

Yet instead of “trusting the system,” operators view technology with suspicion and as an invasion to their territorial mode of operation.

It didn’t help that some technologies were introduced too hastily. The result: more startup pains than users could bear.

Quality on SPH's The Straits Times rose after hands-off policies were instituted.
Photo: SPH

Out of frustration and sheer impatience with such technologies that did not meet expectations, some users resorted to bypassing those parts that didn’t perform as expected, thus forgoing the technology’s full potential.

My firm, Singapore Press Holdings, had its taste of technology in the mid-1990s, when it purchased four 10-unit Colorliner presses from Goss.

Compared to many in the United States who leapfrogged to offset from letterpress, our migration to Colorliners from our 1970s-vintage Metro double-wide machines was not as dramatic. Or so we thought.

Filled with technology

In fact, the Colorliners were filled with technology that was new to SPH. We were, for example, among the first to deploy Goss’ Meridian press control software and its proprietary smartmac app.

We were fascinated with the technology, which promised us the ability to manage our presses with a touch of a button on a remote control console.

As it turned out, we were overly optimistic and unprepared for the problems that followed.

Looking back, we now know that what SPH had purchased was technology that, in retrospect, was released prematurely. It took us more than two long years of struggle to get the infant technology on its feet.

The lesson we learned, difficult as it was, was valuable. We learned to accept that technology is not, and never will be, perfect at delivery.

Change and adapt

In adopting technology, we have to adapt and change our mindset, abandon old ways of working and educate ourselves to fully understand its capabilities and limitations. As Sun Tzu wrote in his “Art of War:” “Know thyself, know thy enemy and win every battle.”

We did that and we won technology to our side.



Singapore Press Holdings' main production facility.
Photo: SPH

We overcame the odds and our mistrust of the system and, over time, improved runnability. Today, our presses run at a constant speed of more than 72,000 copies per hour, without slowing down even for a splice.

Once runnability became less of an issue, we focused on quality.

Essentially, our quality was not what we expected from our high-tech presses. Our main complaints from advertisers: inconsistency in color reproduction. We had inconsistency from run to run and among presses printing the same product. The Colorliner’s digital inking technology provides a very accurate adjustment of the ink column ink values at a touch of a key, yet we didn’t see that control translate into high-quality printing that met our requirements.

Too easy?

Once we analyzed the problem, we realized that the ease which technology provided our operators actually impeded quality.

In trying to match output finely to a proof, human judgment sets in and trigger-happy printers can’t resist making decimal adjustments, even if those adjustments make only a marginal difference.

In other words, our printers were like drivers in cars equipped with automatic transmissions. Every time they came to a stop, no matter how short, they had to shift into neutral. They can’t resist doing something, however minor or unnecessary. And having almost 1,600 ink keys on each press control, those minor tweaks translated into a symphony of unwarranted movements that added nothing to quality other than wearing out expensive keypads.

In re-examining our press’ technology, we found productivity tools that, if we opted to exploit them, would totally eliminate ink key movement. If we could use the system to deliver the exact amount of ink to the plate, there would be no need for manual intervention.

Eliminate subjectivity

But to do that, we have to abolish the practice of subjectively matching to the proof. To make technology work for us, we have to print to density and not to proof.

Of the productivity tools I mentioned earlier, the Colorliner digital inker is highly accurate. We have both a page area reader (a scanner for page ink values) and a RIP ink zone interface that scans and reads precise ink coverage values for each column of each page. Linking the two is the press control system that translates the ink values from prepress into accurate delivery of ink via the digital ink packs to the ink trains.

The adage “garbage in garbage out” applies here. Although we did not exactly get garbage from our prepress system, the ink columns were not set to precisely synchronize the ink zones on the press inking system.

Correctly calibrating the ink zone in the prepress system is critical when providing the press control with the correct ink data. Moreover, correctly interpreting the ink zone is vital. Unfortunately, that’s not always recognized and understood.

Verify and calibrate

To verify and calibrate the ink zone, I introduced the diamond pattern, an inspiration from the ace of diamonds and its simple and symmetrical design.

The beauty and unique feature of the diamond is because of its geometric pattern. When divided into eight columns, the diamond pattern results in mathematically calculated ink coverage values that apply universally, independent of web width and cutoff sizes. Once the diamond pattern is constructed correctly on the imager or computer-to-plate system, it is easy to verify the calibration.

Once the ink zone is calibrated correctly on prepress, the battle is 80 percent won. What remains is to conduct tests to set the ink and water curves and to check and calibrate the inking train to ensure the delivery and transport of ink is correct and according to specifications.

Hands off

With the system fine-tuned, in 2000 we  strictly implemented our hands-off policy. We began to trust the system.

Knowing that old habits die hard, we monitored press operators very closely. If there were any manual ink key movements, we could track them through the press control system.

To build up the confidence of our printers and to allay their fears they would be accountable for quality lapses as a result of our hands-off policy, management promised that operators would be vindicated if any complaints arose about print quality. Management also accepted the fact that waste would increase, at least during the initial periods of implementation.

We also had to work with agencies and advertisers to convince them to accept print-to-print density results instead of matching to proof. We accredited a number of service bureaus and color separators that synchronized their color management systems to our digital inking foundation.

No complaints

Since the hands-off policy was instituted, we have not seen any increase in complaints. We ultimately eliminated proofs altogether as advertisers learned to accept alternative methods. We found that advertisers are more concerned with consistency.

The hands-off policy now ensures consistency across presslines and from run to run. It also allows our printers to concentrate on other operations, in the process helping us streamline start-up and reduce waste. Monitoring press operating specs is also easier since the hands-off policy flags defects in the system much more quickly.

For hands-off to be successful, both operators and managers have to commit to the policy. Both have to trust the system and both must have the willingness and determination to make it work and let it work its course.

It’s worked well for SPH and it should work for any other newspaper willing to keep their printers’ hands off those ink keys.

Anthony Cheng is vice president, production, Singapore Press Holdings. He can be contacted via e-mail at chengnm@sph.com.sg