Editor’s note: In this issue of Newspapers & Technology, industry veteran and process improvement expert Scott Cornish begins a series of articles examining how newspapers can employ practical process improvement techniques to help them boost their operations’ effectiveness and efficiency.

“Know what’s weird? Day by day, nothing seems to change, but pretty soon... everything’s different.”

- Calvin, from Calvin and Hobbes
 

That quote is from one of my favorite comic strip characters and could just as easily describe a newspaper production operation.

The last few years have seen accelerated change in our business. From prepress through postpress, much of today’s newspaper production process is now automated via digital technology in one form or another.

Yet too often new technology is introduced, but the overall process to prepare and print newspapers remains the same.

While it may be true that new technology made the existing work process more efficient or delivered cost-savings, that’s not enough.

To paraphrase the late Peter Drucker, efficiency is doing things right but effectiveness is doing the right things. An efficient process that is running faster and cheaper is one thing but an effective process may in all likelihood require changes and/or improvements to “do the right things.”

Benefiting all

Take, for example, a newspaper that wants to address a particular concern of advertisers or readers. In the first case, let’s say a group of advertisers expresses a strong concern about reproduction quality. In another, the newspaper makes a commitment to home delivery readers that their papers will be on their doorstep by 6 a.m.

Both of these initiatives should improve effectiveness. The necessary changes clearly must benefit clients, consumers and other internal/external customers. In all likelihood, though, they would also help the newspaper operate more efficiently since process changes and improvements would be necessary.

In this and future articles we will cover process change and improvement tools and techniques at a practical level.

We’ll tap into such sources as the American Society for Quality, Six Sigma and other process optimization experts. Throughout, we will focus on the practical without turning the entire effort into a Manhattan Project that excessively complicates everything.

We will also take a top level or in some cases a non-traditional look at many assumptions we make in this industry.

To start with, let’s look at each of the three primary steps of newspaper production and note how each has different characteristics:

*Prepress - Prepress is an engineering function that produces manufacturing specifications. For example, a printing plate is a template that carries image placement, inking specifications and other instructions to the press. A proof is a prototype that shows estimated product performance for color, image placement and other metrics. A press imposition is a manufacturing plan to set up the press.

*Press - Press is a manufacturing function where sections - or a complete newspaper - are printed. Consumables converge at this point. Another way to look at it is that newsprint and ink are transformed into a product of intrinsic value to the readers (or consumers) and advertisers (or clients).

*Postpress - Postpress is an assembly or collating function where printed components are put together for consumers. This includes on-site printed products, along with multiple formats of inserts.

Each of these operations requires a specifically tailored process improvement effort. An approach that works in one area may or may not be appropriate in another.

Clients, consumers and customers

Nearly every article on quality and process improvement refers to the customer. Unfortunately, most use the term “customer” too loosely, at least from my perspective. I’m not being picky with semantics because as we get deeper into process improvement, the importance of this distinction will become apparent.

Here is what I mean:

A client is the advertiser that places an ROP ad or buys the insert. Ultimately, the client is the one paying for the service. A consumer, meantime, is the reader of the publication. While consumers pay for the service, their view of a newspaper comes from a different perspective. Customers are everybody else. They include ad agencies, distributors and vendors that supply the components required to produce the newspaper.

In the next article, I will discuss basic terminology and begin with a framework that can be used to implement process change and performance improvement.

Scott Cornish has more than 20 years’ experience in newspaper production and quality assurance at newspapers large and small. He can be reached via e-mail at scott@practicalprocessimprovement.com.