The 2016 Premier Print Awards deadline is coming up fast! This June, expert judges from all segments of the print industry will come together to meticulously examine entries from across the globe. You’re not going to want to miss the opportunity to have your best pieces judged—all for a chance at receiving the coveted Benny statue. If you’re still on the fence about submitting your pieces to the “Oscars of the Industry,” we’re here to help make your decision easier. Michael Klyn, the 2016 Premier Print Awards chairman and decades-long veteran of the graphic communication industry, knows a thing or two about what goes on during this intense competition. Check out our video series where we got his two cents on some of the biggest trends seen throughout the Premier Print Awards.  The 2016 Premier Print Awards Using a PPA Win for Synergy with Your Clients Digital Printing in the Premier Print Awards Synergy Between Designers and Printers in PPA Pieces Adding Extra Information with your PPA Pieces The deadline for this year’s round of entries is on May 25. Enter your pieces today at awards.printing.org. For questions regarding this year’s entry process, contact Mike Packard at...

The entry period for the PIA InterTech Technology Awards is currently underway. Graphic communication suppliers and vendors from all over the world are fighting for their chance to have their innovation named as one of the top technologies to impact our industry. With all the tough competition out there, we thought it would be helpful for you to get some advice from someone who knows what it really takes to wow the judges—one of the InterTech Technology Award judges themselves. Check out the conversation below and get the inside scoop on what the judges are really looking for in an InterTech Technology Award recipient.   PIA: Why did you agree to take part in the PIA InterTech Technology Award judging process? InterTech Judge: Firstly because I was asked, but after having judged it for a few years now, it is a great way of seeing all the latest technology and how they apply to the market. The judging panel is made up from the great and the good of the industry and it is a great opportunity to share opinions and thoughts on the relevance of an entry and how we feel it will impact on our industry in coming years. Our industry has been hugely innovative and it is great that there is an award that highlights the best of the best. PIA: What is the judging process like for you? InterTech Judge: It is extremely pressured – we have a lot of entries to go through and sometimes there is much heated debate. The chair is always very organized and the process is pretty efficient. On several occasions I have been persuaded by other judges to change my opinion on a technology entry. PIA: What kind of technologies are you expecting for this year’s round of entries? InterTech Judge: I am sure inkjet will find its way into the entries. But the great thing with InterTech is that there are always wild card entries that come from nowhere. Software is becoming a much bigger aspect to the judging and I expect that this year will be no different. PIA: What kinds of things should an entry include in order to stand out among the rest? InterTech Judge: As judges, we are very experienced individuals from the industry and so the last thing we want to see is “cut and paste” from the marketing literature. This tells us nothing. We want to know the following: Why you entered this into the InterTech awards and what specifically about the entry is unique, special, or different. We don’t want every other aspect of the product or 400 words on the history of the company. Keep it short – remember as judges...

The entry period for the PIA InterTech Technology Awards is currently underway. Graphic communication suppliers and vendors from all over the world are fighting for their chance to have their innovation named as one of the top technologies to impact our industry. With all the tough competition out there, we thought it would be helpful for you to get some advice from someone who knows what it really takes to wow the judges—one of the InterTech Technology Award judges themselves. Check out the conversation below and get the inside scoop on what the judges are really looking for in an InterTech Technology Award recipient.   PIA: Why did you agree to take part in the PIA InterTech Technology Award judging process? InterTech Judge: Firstly because I was asked, but after having judged it for a few years now, it is a great way of seeing all the latest technology and how they apply to the market. The judging panel is made up from the great and the good of the industry and it is a great opportunity to share opinions and thoughts on the relevance of an entry and how we feel it will impact on our industry in coming years. Our industry has been hugely innovative and it is great that there is an award that highlights the best of the best. PIA: What is the judging process like for you? InterTech Judge: It is extremely pressured – we have a lot of entries to go through and sometimes there is much heated debate. The chair is always very organized and the process is pretty efficient. On several occasions I have been persuaded by other judges to change my opinion on a technology entry. PIA: What kind of technologies are you expecting for this year’s round of entries? InterTech Judge: I am sure inkjet will find its way into the entries. But the great thing with InterTech is that there are always wild card entries that come from nowhere. Software is becoming a much bigger aspect to the judging and I expect that this year will be no different. PIA: What kinds of things should an entry include in order to stand out among the rest? InterTech Judge: As judges, we are very experienced individuals from the industry and so the last thing we want to see is “cut and paste” from the marketing literature. This tells us nothing. We want to know the following: Why you entered this into the InterTech awards and what specifically about the entry is unique, special, or different. We don’t want every other aspect of the product or 400 words on the history of the company. Keep it short – remember as judges...

The following post was submitted by 2016 Continuous Improvment Conference sponsor, Heidelberg.   Striving for the most efficient workflow to drive productivity and profitability is one of the underlying goals of many of today’s printing companies. Often, the focus is on being more productive with less by increasing production speeds and reducing makereadies while also reducing touch points throughout the workflow. There are many tools and techniques that can be used to drive these goals, from procedural/operational changes to new equipment/software acquisitions. The decision on what works best will depend on each individual production facility, the customer base, the verticals addressed and the business philosophy of the company. However, common principles can be applied to every company and optimized to the facility. Business growth can be equally as important as equipment optimization, depending on the particular company. Too many times the focus is on efficiency in the press room, while neglecting to increase sales, concentrate on the product mix, and optimize business practices prior to production. Focusing only on equipment will certainly improve efficiency, but without a corresponding change in business practices, full benefits will not be achieved. Prior to any optimization process it is essential to understand your current state, as this provides the benchmark for any improvements that are gained. It is also important to prioritize the areas of focus. Ask yourself the following question: “Can you analyze your current performance?” In many cases, there is no hard data to back up opinions of how your current equipment is performing and where the opportunities exist to gain additional time. There is often the option to evaluate the equipment itself through existing management systems or third-party data-collection solutions. There are four main areas that should be considered when optimizing equipment. Neglecting any of them can have a significant effect on the achievable impact:  1.     Materials and information arriving at the equipment: Often ignored, this needs to be both accurate and timely; problems in either case will lead to lost production and reduced efficiency. To ensure maximum efficiency, significant time savings and a reduction in errors, jobs entered into a management information system (MIS), need to be passed, along with the prepress data, through to the press. Delivery and scheduling press materials is another area to optimize, so operators are not waiting or transporting materials when they should be carrying out the makeready. In one facility, a reduction from 40 minutes to 10 minutes was achieved on a wide-format printer by primarily considering transportation issues.  2.     Equipment set-up and makeready: This applies to all manufacturing processes including offset, digital, and flexographic printing, as well as postpress activities. First, you need to understand your starting point through benchmarking....

The following post was submitted by 2016 Continuous Improvment Conference sponsor, Heidelberg.   Striving for the most efficient workflow to drive productivity and profitability is one of the underlying goals of many of today’s printing companies. Often, the focus is on being more productive with less by increasing production speeds and reducing makereadies while also reducing touch points throughout the workflow. There are many tools and techniques that can be used to drive these goals, from procedural/operational changes to new equipment/software acquisitions. The decision on what works best will depend on each individual production facility, the customer base, the verticals addressed and the business philosophy of the company. However, common principles can be applied to every company and optimized to the facility. Business growth can be equally as important as equipment optimization, depending on the particular company. Too many times the focus is on efficiency in the press room, while neglecting to increase sales, concentrate on the product mix, and optimize business practices prior to production. Focusing only on equipment will certainly improve efficiency, but without a corresponding change in business practices, full benefits will not be achieved. Prior to any optimization process it is essential to understand your current state, as this provides the benchmark for any improvements that are gained. It is also important to prioritize the areas of focus. Ask yourself the following question: “Can you analyze your current performance?” In many cases, there is no hard data to back up opinions of how your current equipment is performing and where the opportunities exist to gain additional time. There is often the option to evaluate the equipment itself through existing management systems or third-party data-collection solutions. There are four main areas that should be considered when optimizing equipment. Neglecting any of them can have a significant effect on the achievable impact:  1.     Materials and information arriving at the equipment: Often ignored, this needs to be both accurate and timely; problems in either case will lead to lost production and reduced efficiency. To ensure maximum efficiency, significant time savings and a reduction in errors, jobs entered into a management information system (MIS), need to be passed, along with the prepress data, through to the press. Delivery and scheduling press materials is another area to optimize, so operators are not waiting or transporting materials when they should be carrying out the makeready. In one facility, a reduction from 40 minutes to 10 minutes was achieved on a wide-format printer by primarily considering transportation issues.  2.     Equipment set-up and makeready: This applies to all manufacturing processes including offset, digital, and flexographic printing, as well as postpress activities. First, you need to understand your starting point through benchmarking....

The following blog post was submitted by 2016 Continuous Improvement Conference sponosor, Heidelberg. What is OEE?  When optimizing your production, Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) provides a valuable independent measure of how well a piece of equipment performs over time. It also helps gauge the impact of changes to workflow and production methods. There are several ways to define this, but for the purposes of this blog, I have used the definition we use (at Heidelberg) of OEE as: OEE = Speed Index × Quality Index × Time Index Where: Quality Index = Total of all good products                              Total of all printed products  Speed Index = Average equipment speed                            Maximum equipment speed  Speed Index = Total production time                       Total available time A typical OEE chart from the printing industry is shown in Figure 1 below. This figure illustrates the relationship between OEE and run length, with different equipment/facility combinations shown on the chart. Since there is typically a larger percentage of time spent on makeready, OEE will change as the run length reduces. There are many other factors that can move this value such as equipment type, configuration, controls, job make-up, and production efficiency. Understanding where the equipment is currently, versus where it can be, is critical to improving overall productivity. (The actual result will vary dependent on the industry.) There are many steps that can be completed to achieve optimal equipment performance. Many of these changes are cultural and need to be embraced by management and recognized by all employees in the company.   Training. Some operators do not fully utilize all of the available controls on the equipment, and many have never had formal training. Data has shown that operators need active training with hands-on situations, including the opportunity to get involved with training others. Additionally, a well-managed and repeatable color workflow will minimize any color changes that need to be adjusted on press. Finally, lean manufacturing tools can garner efficiencies, from 5S to value-stream mapping and Kaizen events. In all of these, the objective is first to evaluate what the current state is and then to evaluate where the biggest impacts can be made. It also helps to obtain “buy in” from staff, who will personally see the benefit from these changes. On one implementation of 5S on a press, an operator objected, stating it was “just to make the press look nice!” Three weeks later, with an average of more than 10 minutes saved per makeready, the same operator was asking if 5S could be rolled out across the facility.   Obtaining the best OEE To fully optimize your equipment and obtain the best OEE, a maintenance program should be the cornerstone of...