C. Clint Bolte & Associates

This 14th annual conference jointly sponsored by the industry's national trade associations, the Printing Industry of America/Graphic Arts Technical Association and the National Association for Printing Leadership, met June 13-15, 2004 in Chicago. Forty-eight suppliers, many of whom just returned from one of their most exciting and lucrative DRUPA trade shows in Düsseldorf, Germany, were sponsors to this growing North American conclave. The 330 attendees, slightly ahead of last year, heard several peer "how to" panel discussions, insightful projections of personnel skills needed in the future, and got to network with the leading practitioners on the continent.

Panelists discussed staffing the printing plant of the future. With digital workflows invariably originating well before the printing plant and manufacturing cycles being compressed to hours rather than days, essential production decisions are needed to be made as close to the client as possible. Hence, the evolving skills and responsibilities of the CSR become critical. Gerald Walsh, EFI Representative, surmised that tomorrow's CSR should be assigned a series of five responsibilities. (1) Job launch - reviewing specifications, preflighting, material acquisition, timeline review, key schedule, and release to production. (2) Remote communications - with client, sales person, and vendor via Internet, wireless, or cell phone. (3) Revenue enhancement - invoice review, alteration forewarning & tracking, additional services needed, reorder tracking for inventory line item. (4) Internal communications - production management, accounting, and purchasing. (5) Progress monitoring - remote proofing and early warning signals on value-add impact.

Tim Daisy, Creo's NGP Market Segment Manager, further suggested that the estimator, production planning, and scheduling function should also reside in the customer service arena. Today these are often three distinct positions existing in a static staff mode. The future dictates that these responsibilities be shared, perhaps in a customer service team mode, in order to be as flexible and dynamic as possible. This entire team must have access to the most current data in order to make both timely as well as profitable decisions. For example, if a client's urgent request to resequence work creates more complex wash-ups due to loss of economies of common ink sequences or multiple make-readies (pulling another job before completion) the CSR must have the information to tell the client so additional charges can be anticipated and agreed to.

Doug Schardt, Komori America's Product Manager, suggested that second pressmen will be expected to have more knowledge and assume more responsibilities in the effective running of the latest generation of sheetfed presses. Debate from the audience raised the point that the latest half size presses comprised of six or fewer units are designed to be run with a single operator, i.e., there won't be a second pressmen. Larger presses or half size presses with 8 or 10 units will have a second pressman. However, the higher skills required of both these operators might suggest that they both may be number one pressmen. This implies that there are few future jobs for the conventional number two pressman and therefore makes graduated training up to the future number one pressmen extremely difficult. The near term answer might be in the fact that a new sheetfed press will replace at least two if not three pre-1995 presses that do not have the current level of automation. If that many older presses are being retired, a whole series of number one pressmen will be available for the new machine, though perhaps not on the shift they might prefer.

Several panelists alluded to the increasing importance of computer skills for pressmen. Therefore, it takes little imagination to consider that future pressmen may come out of electronic prepress (EPP) ranks. Similarly, with the EPP journeymen becoming more knowledgeable of ink fountain presets and post press imposition requirements via JDF and CIP4 data there is little doubt that tomorrow's Production Managers and Vice Presidents of Manufacturing will most probably come out of the EPP ranks.

Keynoter Dr. Jeff Salz has made a life of adventure as a cultural anthropologist, explorer, and journalist. While sharing colorful slides from his worldwide expeditions, Dr. Salz examines adventure as a strategy for increasing personal effectiveness and turning each day into a "peak performance." His "six steps to the top" reminded the audience that adventure is a matter of attitude, not altitude. When change is chosen, life becomes an adventure.

In his afternoon small group session Dr. Salz had the participants going through a series of personal and two-person exercises that highlighted exciting experiences suggesting underlying personal values and priorities. For example in creating a personal vision each participant listed twelve end results that they would hope to have within two years. The first was then compared with the second and each subsequent item for choosing the most important. The second was then compared with the third item and so on until each wish was compared one on one with every other. A basic, clear vision of priorities evolves for each participant. These priorities should be followed in initiating both personal and professional change in the future.