C. Clint Bolte & Associates

This fourteenth annual gathering of sheetfed printers drew over 250 attendees to Chicago June 11-13 to hear leading case studies of print technologies and innovations. Jointly organized and planned by the National Association for Printing Leadership, the Printing Industries of America/Graphic Arts Technical Foundation and an advisory board of sheetfed printers, this conclave continues to benefit from new formats and techniques to get attendees involved while presenting stimulating content to help improve their profitability. Candid and pointed attendee round table discussions and the four different tracks of production, operations, supervisory excellence and leadership gave each participant the chance to get specific issues answered and take home actionable new ideas.

To have the same basic equipment and technology run by experienced operators might imply that the total amount of production time to produce an identical printed piece ought to be relatively close. Would 25% variation seem outlandish? How about three times the amount of time from most efficient to least? And even five times the range in spoilage? The 2006 sheetfed benchmarking study conducted by PIA/GATF with nearly 40 volunteer print producers showed a marked improvement over a similar comparison done in 1998 but still staggering variation across the spectrum of plant participants.

The participants' profiles were $10-50 million in sales with 50+ employees and mostly general commercial printers. Each was provided with a CD of the same image either as a PDF or InDesign (their choice) and a press sheet to match. Eighty percent chose PDFs. The 20% choosing the native files took the most amount of prepress time to file prep, RIP, trap, image and check plates.

The group averaged 110 minutes total in prepress to process the four over four poster imposed to 19" by 25" with the top guns taking about 70 minutes. The laggards took three hours. The 2006 prep throughput was a noticeable improvement over the 138-minute average of 1998 when most participants were handling film rather than CTP output.

There were four different press manufacturer models used though most were 40" and ranged in age from new to a decade old. Hence, automation varied considerably on the presses chosen by the plant participants. Make ready averaged 60 minutes, which was a 50% reduction from 1998. The best performer took 35 minutes while two plants were at 90 minutes.

Each plant was allowed to use any paper and their house inks. Press spoilage averaged 850 sheets for the 1,000-poster press run, which was a 30% improvement over 1998 spoilage average of 1,250. The best performers had both low times and low waste.

The total manufacturing time ranged from 120-300 minutes with an average of 180 minutes. Printers using perfector presses performed the best as would be expected. This was a 25+% improvement over 1998. Dr. Mark Bohan, who coordinated the PIA/GATF study, concluded that a third of the printers had waste issues while another third had prepress issues. Each participant was given a report showing his or her results against the average and the overall range of performance.