For someone who has never been to the TAGA Annual Technical Conference, the thought of attending might seem a little daunting. Organized by PIA’s Technical Association of the Graphic Arts (TAGA) group, the conference provides the opportunity for members to learn about the latest industry advances and those of related fields, as well as brainstorm with other experts about solving problems and roadblocks in order to move our industry forward. Members come to the Annual Technical Conference from all over the world and from all facets of the graphic arts industry. To give you a better understanding about what you can expect at your first TAGA Annual Technical Conference, we spoke with Birgit Plautz, TAGA Board Member, Manager of Technical Services at GMG Americas, and longtime conference attendee.   PIA: Thanks for speaking with us Birgit. Can you tell us a little bit about what you do at GMG Americas? BP: Here at GMG Americas I oversee our support and service department as Manager of Technical Services. This means leading a great team of help desk and field engineers throughout the Americas. Typically I also support our sales team on trade shows, work with our customers and channel partners, and interface with the printing industry through various organizations, technical committees, and conferences. PIA: Sounds like you don’t have a problem staying busy! How did you first learn about the TAGA Annual Technical Conference? BP:  I met the former Managing Director, Dr. Mark Bohan, at the Color Management Conference in Phoenix in 2011. I was new in the role and in the country at that time, and this was my first conference in the United States. We ended up having a longer conversation about conferences in our industry, which is when he suggested I should participate at TAGA. PIA: So you’ve had other experiences with PIA conferences. That’s interesting. What was your first experience at the TAGA Annual Technical conference like? BP: That’s actually a quite funny story. I got a call on a Friday afternoon from my German colleague Juergen Seitz. He was supposed to speak at TAGA in Albuquerque last year. He said he couldn’t go, due to a strike at the airline, asking me to sub for him on Sunday. So, I got on a plane and learned the presentation a day before my speaking slot. Luckily I was familiar with the topic, so I just had to learn how to convey his intention. The best thing about it was that it got me to go to the conference, even though I usually like a little bit more lead time. It turned out that it was actually the most interesting conference I’ve been to so far—at least...

Companies adopting a Lean philosophy strive to remove or shorten time spent on activities that the customer doesn’t value. For example, although steps like estimating and makeready are thought of as necessary in the business, they are branded as non-value-added for the customer and targeted for reduction. The basic concept of the Lean philosophy focuses on the removal of the seven deadly wastes in manufacturing and business processes in order to reduce overall waste in the company. What are these deadly wastes, and how do they affect the productivity of a plant? Find the answers below. 1. Defects Often thought of as the most simple of the deadly wastes, defects can lead to many additional problems you didn’t know you had. When the quality of your work isn’t up to par with a customer’s expectations, it often leads to replacements or refunds. Because of this, defects lead to wasted manpower, resources, and costs. 2. Overproduction Although being prepared for any circumstances is a good thing, producing too much of a product too soon leads to wasted manpower and resources. Most of the time, managers end up throwing away these products or giving them away for free. When you overproduce, you waste time, resources, and costs. 3. Transportation Do you transport your resources from one location to another? This is another one of the deadly wastes where expenses could hide. It’s much better to have all of your materials at one location. When doing so, you don’t have to pay for extra manpower or equipment to move pieces. This process doesn’t add to the quality of your finished piece and extends lead time. 4. Waiting When you send an email with a question, how long does it normally take for the other person to respond—hours, weeks? This time spent waiting for information is time that you or your employees could be spending on creating a product or improving the quality on a finished piece. Companies committed to Lean manufacturing believe that by addressing this deadly waste, you help create a better flowing plant. 5. Inventory It’s impossible to create a product without an inventory. However, excessive inventory ties up costs in unused materials. Not to mention, you need somewhere to store the inventory, a way to package and keep it safe from damage, and you need to move it around. By only purchasing what you need at the time you need it, you save costs, space, and manpower. 6. Motion Think about the way your plant is designed. Are your employees walking around to retrieve materials or look for tools? Are they bending down to lift heavy equipment? These kinds of things relate to the deadly waste of motion. If...

Companies adopting a Lean philosophy strive to remove or shorten time spent on activities that the customer doesn’t value. For example, although steps like estimating and makeready are thought of as necessary in the business, they are branded as non-value-added for the customer and targeted for reduction. The basic concept of the Lean philosophy focuses on the removal of the seven deadly wastes in manufacturing and business processes in order to reduce overall waste in the company. What are these deadly wastes, and how do they affect the productivity of a plant? Find the answers below. 1. Defects Often thought of as the most simple of the deadly wastes, defects can lead to many additional problems you didn’t know you had. When the quality of your work isn’t up to par with a customer’s expectations, it often leads to replacements or refunds. Because of this, defects lead to wasted manpower, resources, and costs. 2. Overproduction Although being prepared for any circumstances is a good thing, producing too much of a product too soon leads to wasted manpower and resources. Most of the time, managers end up throwing away these products or giving them away for free. When you overproduce, you waste time, resources, and costs. 3. Transportation Do you transport your resources from one location to another? This is another one of the deadly wastes where expenses could hide. It’s much better to have all of your materials at one location. When doing so, you don’t have to pay for extra manpower or equipment to move pieces. This process doesn’t add to the quality of your finished piece and extends lead time. 4. Waiting When you send an email with a question, how long does it normally take for the other person to respond—hours, weeks? This time spent waiting for information is time that you or your employees could be spending on creating a product or improving the quality on a finished piece. Companies committed to Lean manufacturing believe that by addressing this deadly waste, you help create a better flowing plant. 5. Inventory It’s impossible to create a product without an inventory. However, excessive inventory ties up costs in unused materials. Not to mention, you need somewhere to store the inventory, a way to package and keep it safe from damage, and you need to move it around. By only purchasing what you need at the time you need it, you save costs, space, and manpower. 6. Motion Think about the way your plant is designed. Are your employees walking around to retrieve materials or look for tools? Are they bending down to lift heavy equipment? These kinds of things relate to the deadly waste of motion. If...

The following post was submitted by Color 2015 sponsor, X-Rite Pantone.Author: Mark Gundlach, Solutions Architect, X-Rite Pantone PANTONE® Spot Colors have always been the best way to achieve brand colors, but they’re not always feasible or affordable. With the introduction of the EXTENDED GAMUT 7-color printing process, Pantone is giving printers and converters a way to determine how closely seven-color printing (CMYK+OGV) can achieve PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM® Colors.  Why Extended Gamut? By incorporating Orange, Green and Violet PANTONE XG Base Inks with the traditional Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black (CMYK) process colors in a 7-color printing process, you can achieve a much broader range of vibrant colors than traditional four-color process without the need to mix custom inks or wash up between press runs. The EXTENDED GAMUT Guide provides 1,729 seven-color simulations of PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM Colors printed on coated stock. Each color is matched with an in-line aqueous coating, created with a maximum of three Base Ink combinations, and is optimized to be viewed under D50 lighting (5000°). How does it work? The PANTONE EXTENDED GAMUT Guide can be used as a visual reference to determine when you can accurately reproduce a solid PANTONE Color using CMYK + PANTONE XG Orange, Green, and Violet (OGV) Inks. Each color is named with its corresponding PANTONE Number and an XGC suffix.   Select the desired PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM Color from a current PLUS SERIES FORMULA or Color Bridge Guide. Using the same page number in the EXTENDED GAMUT Guide, locate the corresponding PANTONE Color. You will see the closest 7-color process match and its screen tint percentages. Compare both guides side-by-side. Since the colors bleed off page edges, it’s easy to visually evaluate color differences. If the PANTONE Extended Gamut color is not a visually acceptable match, the color should remain specified as a solid. When the PANTONE Extended Gamut color appears adequate, print using those inks. The benefits of 7-color printing Demands in the industry have made it even more difficult to print packaging using CMYK alone. Although it’s the most economical printing process, it provides a very limited gamut of color, and even in the best conditions can only hit about half of the PantonePLUS colors. There’s just no comparison in color vibrancy between CMYK and spot color inks.  To hit special colors, many printers choose to add spot color inks to their CMYK process. Spots provide the best quality, but they’re also expensive, increase makeready time, contribute to large ink inventories, and are cumbersome for short runs.  And what happens to the extra ink you don’t use?  Above: Extended Gamut printing provides a larger palette of colors for reproduction than you can get from CMYK alone. In this...

The following post was submitted by Color 2015 sponsor, X-Rite Pantone.Author: Mark Gundlach, Solutions Architect, X-Rite Pantone PANTONE® Spot Colors have always been the best way to achieve brand colors, but they’re not always feasible or affordable. With the introduction of the EXTENDED GAMUT 7-color printing process, Pantone is giving printers and converters a way to determine how closely seven-color printing (CMYK+OGV) can achieve PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM® Colors.  Why Extended Gamut? By incorporating Orange, Green and Violet PANTONE XG Base Inks with the traditional Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black (CMYK) process colors in a 7-color printing process, you can achieve a much broader range of vibrant colors than traditional four-color process without the need to mix custom inks or wash up between press runs. The EXTENDED GAMUT Guide provides 1,729 seven-color simulations of PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM Colors printed on coated stock. Each color is matched with an in-line aqueous coating, created with a maximum of three Base Ink combinations, and is optimized to be viewed under D50 lighting (5000°). How does it work? The PANTONE EXTENDED GAMUT Guide can be used as a visual reference to determine when you can accurately reproduce a solid PANTONE Color using CMYK + PANTONE XG Orange, Green, and Violet (OGV) Inks. Each color is named with its corresponding PANTONE Number and an XGC suffix.   Select the desired PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM Color from a current PLUS SERIES FORMULA or Color Bridge Guide. Using the same page number in the EXTENDED GAMUT Guide, locate the corresponding PANTONE Color. You will see the closest 7-color process match and its screen tint percentages. Compare both guides side-by-side. Since the colors bleed off page edges, it’s easy to visually evaluate color differences. If the PANTONE Extended Gamut color is not a visually acceptable match, the color should remain specified as a solid. When the PANTONE Extended Gamut color appears adequate, print using those inks. The benefits of 7-color printing Demands in the industry have made it even more difficult to print packaging using CMYK alone. Although it’s the most economical printing process, it provides a very limited gamut of color, and even in the best conditions can only hit about half of the PantonePLUS colors. There’s just no comparison in color vibrancy between CMYK and spot color inks.  To hit special colors, many printers choose to add spot color inks to their CMYK process. Spots provide the best quality, but they’re also expensive, increase makeready time, contribute to large ink inventories, and are cumbersome for short runs.  And what happens to the extra ink you don’t use?  Above: Extended Gamut printing provides a larger palette of colors for reproduction than you can get from CMYK alone. In this...

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