Productivity Central features ideas, advice, technical information and more. Although geared to the printing industry, many of the concepts would be beneficial for enhancing productivity at any manufacturing firm. Production efficiency and quality go hand in hand with safety and sustainability, all natural byproducts of a well trained and motivated workforce.
This site is devoted to improving the productivity, profitability, safety and sustainability of your business. I hope you find it informational and entertaining. Please bookmark the site and come back often.
Also, be sure to check out my companion blog at http://MarComCentral.blogspot.com/ for information, ideas and tools to improve your sales and marketing efforts.
Craig Compton, VP of Operations for PCMC features PCMCs L3 journey - Living Legacy of Leadership - Guiding Principles of Leadership and Lean Enterprise
Dean Re and Mick Karchinski from Meca & Technology Machine showcase anilox sleeve technology
Jean Jackson from Praxair Surface Technologies presents: Optimizing Anilox & Coater Rolls.Do you understand how anilox and coater roll are critical to consistent repeatable print and coatings along with improved productivity? Come to learn about the elements and procedures that make a difference and how anilox and coater roll technology is developing.
Mary Mekelburg from Mekelburg Consulting LLC will discuss LinkedIn for Business Development
David Lanska – will give an overview of FTA Wi$e1 member discount program.
The event includes a tour of PCMC’s Ashland Avenue facility.
Sponsors:
Refreshments provided courtesy of PCMC and Alden & Ott Inks.
Cost: $10 for FTA members / $20 for non-members / Complimentary for students with school ID.
(Proceeds from GLG events are donated to the FFTA scholarship fund).
Bring your resume and your questions!Join us on April 12, 2010, 6:30 PM at Gateway Community Church, 16 S. Main Street, Mayville, for an evening of networking, fun, and tips on marketing yourself.Did you know that recruiters, hiring managers and executives view candidates through a ‘branding’ lens?Learn to identify your personal ‘brand’ on paper (resume) and in person (clothes and body language); and how to enhance it to your advantage in today’s marketplace.
Kim Koch is the owner/founder of Matchless Image. Kim will talk to us about having a ‘7 Second Chance to give a First Impression’.She comes from a family with gifts in architectural, building and mechanical design background.Early on Kim had a love for drawing, painting and designing.She studied mechanical design; and applied this later in her career as a professional and technical recruiter for 14 years. Kim hired for many companies in Southeastern Wisconsin; including Harley-Davidson Motor Company for 5 years, hiring over 430 persons; Buell, and others. Kim has written and read hundreds of resumes in her career.
Kim has a variety of clients, both men and women, from all different walks of life.She has a passion to help people succeed in every area of life where a stellar image is essential.Kim is a member of the AICI, Association Image Consultants International, Chicago Chapter. Kim presents to diverse groups on the subjects of dress for success within your budget, resume and interviewing workshops. Venues include professional and academic, as well as association settings.
If you are in between jobs or feeling a pull toward work that you love, Gateway Community Church offers a ministry called Crossroads Career® Network to help you work through this transition. Network Meetings offer contacts, resources, ideas and encouragement so that you can find a job, change careers and discover your life purpose.
This event is free and open to all people interested in learning how to stand outfrom the crowd while seeking employment, a new career, or simply just curious.
(As published in the April Issue of Flexo magazine)
The focus of FTA Great Lakes Group (GLG) March meeting could be summed up in three words: quality, consistency and control. Held at Harper College in Palatine, IL, attendees were treated to a tour of school’s graphic arts facilities with refreshments courtesy of All Printing Resources, Graymills Corp. and DuPont Packaging Graphics, followed by an outstanding lineup of speakers.
Problem, Resolution Flexography has taken off as the primary printing process for packaging in the last five years due in large part to the ability of flexo to print on almost any substrate including some of the complex substrates currently used for packaging, according to Ian Hole, VP market development at EskoArtwork. He noted that numerous variables and limited tonal range compared to competing processes creates challenges for flexo. You only need one or two variables to go wrong to result in a color shift and loss of gray balance.
Highlight detail is the byproduct of the finest dots produced. 0-100 percent in dots is represented by 256 gray levels. With a minimum printing dot of 5 percent, what happens to detail in tonal range between 5 percent and 0? It gets squashed up into 5 percent, compacting the 12 gray levels supporting the 5 percent and resulting a flat image.
Another challenge stems from the fact that digital CTP produces dots comprised of groupings of square pixels. When errant pixels from adjacent dots join, the result is a tonal shift. Printing solids and tone on the same plate can present additional difficulties. Having to run them on separate plates is a costly admission that you can’t print the full tonal range on one plate.
Hole stated that a key to overcoming these challenges lay higher resolution plate imaging. CTP plates are typically made with a 2,500dpi resolution. Increasing the resolution to 4,000 dpi results in three times more pixels, which are 1/3 the size of conventional digital pixels. Smaller pixels produced from more digital information yield a rounder plate dot. This provides the opportunity to make highlight dots smaller because the smallest unit is 1/3 the size it used to be. If minimum dot was produced with 4 pixels, HD produces the same dot with 36 pixels. More data improves image quality, text and linework.
Whiter than White
Producing a proof that provides an accurate representation of the finished printed piece is an important component of the prepress workflow. Having the means to predict and proof spot colors, as well as produce prototypes, 3D mock-ups and short runs can be very beneficial. That was the message of Roy Bohnen, Epson’s product specialist.
White is typically produced on a proof with titanium-based pigments. But today’s inkjet proofing represents a breakthrough in clear organic resin technology, employing hollow resin particles to randomly scatter light, rather than directly reflect it. This process creates the illusion of white with low specific gravity particles that do not require agitation.
These new white inks provide amazing density with a single hit, producing greater opacity than conventional proofing systems. This system, however, is also able to multi-hit the white for even greater opacity. Bohnen cautioned that this process is designed specifically for film and foil applications.
FIRST on Deck
It is not uncommon for a printing operation to run multiple inks on multiple substrates with multiple press platforms. For Prairie State Graphics (PSG), rapid growth led to a mishmash of narrow and mid web press models running solvent- and water-based inks. Dan Doherty, VP of manufacturing for PSG explained that, with little documentation in place, control of so many variables can be a nightmare making consistency and repeatability a challenge at best and an illusion at worst. With color matched on the first pull at an estimated 50 percent, PSG sought out a means of improving the repeatability, predictability, consistency and profitability of their process.
At an FTA FIRST 4.0 on the Go Workshop, PSG management was introduced to FIRST (Flexographic Image Reproduction Standards and Tolerances). FIRST provided a roadmap to process control. Over the course of the following year, as PSG sought to implement FIRST, their team recognized that process control is not a destination, but a journey.
Doherty warned that any one change in the process will affect something else downstream, so it is important to use a systematic approach. Although a daunting task, PSG fingerprinted its entire anilox inventory of more than 300 rolls, holding all other variables constant. This gave operators a practical understanding of what to expect from each roll. If a job needed a little stronger color on the 800lpi rolls, the fingerprint results would point to specific rolls that tended to print heavier, saving significant time in makeready. PSG purchased matched sets of anilox rolls for each press, which made cross-platform setups much more predictable. As a result, PSG has seen a 30 percent improvement in “first pull” color match.
Going Gray
To understand what G7 is, began Richard Black, director of digital solutions for All Printing Resources, one must first know what it is not:
·G7 is not a replacement for process control.
·G7 is not a replacement for fingerprinting.
·G7 is not a replacement for press characterization.
·G7 is not a replacement for color management.
With that established, Black then launched into an entertaining and informative presentation. The “G” stands for gray values. “7” refers to the seven primary color values defined by ISO standard 12647-2, CMYK primary colors in CIEL*A*B/ch and RGB secondary or overprint colors.
In essence, G7 is a new CMYK calibration methodology developed to support GRACoL7 specifications (General Requirements and Applications of Commercial Offset Lithography). Although the standard was established for offset lithography, it is also applicable to any CMYK based imaging process such as wide format inkjet, gravure or flexo. Because we look at color subjectively, G7 defines a target for all processes to run to.
G7 is referred to in FIRST as NNC (near neutral calibration) and uses colorimetry to specify the white point of the substrate and color of the inks. It defines the printing condition based on gray balance and tone reproduction. Black professed that G7 it is only as good as your current process and process control. Without the implementation of FIRST 4.0 guidelines, G7 is just another procedure.
Socialize
With the explosion of social media, it is important to understand the various components of online networking and how to incorporate them into your overall marketing and product development strategy, declared Mary Mekelburgof Mekelburg Consulting LLC. Whether your objective is networking, building community, information exchange, providing customer service, prospecting, selling, product differentiation through branding, fundraising or looking for candidates to fill open positions, social media belongs in your marketing arsenal. Twitter is one of the many weapons you can employ.
Some might question the usefulness of Twitter as a sales tool, however, many companies benefit from targeted promotions and coupons posted by way of tweets. Dell Outlet generated $1 million in online sales in 2008 by posting e-commerce links to Twitter.
Twitter is a beneficial tool that provides a platform for prospecting and lead generation. Once you’ve created a profile, search for specific companies, individuals or organizations and follow their tweets. This can yield valuable insight into what issues your potential customers are having (and tweeting about). An e-version of the Yellow Pages, called Twellow, can be used to identify potential customers, collaborators or product development partners from academics and thought leaders.
March Meeting Wrap-up In addition to the fine technical content, Jerry Maynard of Propheteer International won a copy of FIRST 4.0 donated by FTA. Additional door prizes included two copies of The Flexo Environment, a gift certificate for a two hour LinkedIn consultation from Mekelburg Consulting LLC, and two autographed copies of Common Sense Flexography provided by PIA.
GLG thanks Kelly Taylor, Harper College staff and students who assisted with photography, catering, poster creation and mailings; as well as our meeting sponsors. We appreciate the time and work put in by our speakers for this and each Great Lakes Group event. We would also like to specifically recognize student Teegan Fiedler for designing the outstanding poster and post card used to promote the event.
About FTA Great Lakes Group FTA Great Lakes Group (GLG) is a local user’s group initiated by the FTA Supplier Leadership Council. The GLG meets roughly every other month at host locations including schools, print shops, and supplier manufacturing facilities. The GLG region extends from Chicago, IL to Green Bay, WI. Each program includes a technical and networking exchange, a Social Media segment; with refreshments provided courtesy of meeting sponsors. At each meeting we highlight a variety of FTA programs, services and resources related to the meeting agenda. The GLG fee ($10 for FTA members / $20 for non-members) goes to the FFTA Scholarship Fund. To date, the GLG has raised more than $700.
Upcoming meeting information is posted on LinkedIn. Search for FTA, then FTA Great Lakes subgroup. Details can be found in the Discussion or Events tab. We invite you to attend, present, host or sponsor an upcoming meeting. Send an email to david.lanska@yahoo.com.
The next GLG meeting will take place at PCMC headquarters in Green Bay, WI on May 18. The agenda includes servo press and sleeve technologies, sleeve care, handling and selection, and social media marketing.
About the author:David Lanska, MBA, is the president of D.J. Lanska & Associates, chairman of FTA Great Lakes and author of Common Sense Flexography. He is currently seeking a technical sales / marketing position within the flexographic community and can be reached at david.lanska@yahoo.com
