Edwin Woods
Current Role: Manufacturing Site Director at Cyber Graphics in Memphis, TN
First Role: Press Helper at Bryce Corp. in Memphis, TN
Morrison: What was flexo like when you first came in to the industry? What challenges did you face?
Edwin Woods: Our biggest struggles on press were with color matching. We had viscosity meters but they weren’t very precise. If you had a long pressrun with a line color that the customer held near and dear to their heart, you could be in trouble.
The biggest challenge we faced at the time had a lot to do with training and development of the employees. Printing didn’t have a lot of standards at the time. Johnny showed you how to do the job, and you just did it like Johnny did. That created some good habits and some bad habits; so good training has always been a factor.
Morrison: What are the most notable changes you’ve seen across the flexo workflow? How have they impacted quality?
Woods: There was a period in our industry when suddenly we were focused on improving at every process. Anilox rollers became different and better. Presses became better and tighter and could run a higher quality at faster speeds. Ink improved and became more consistent. For some number of years, all of those pieces of the process were moving forward simultaneously.
Photopolymer was a drastic change, and some people had trouble getting used to it at first, but it paved the way for us to move into the digital world and the electronic world. That’s when things really improved and became a lot more consistent.
Moving from Cromalins to digital proofs was very challenging, because we were trying to move the industry from an art to a science. When I first went to our Searcy plant (with Bryce Corp.), we were running line work exclusively and wanted to start running screens and process work. I remember learning about printing to the numbers and how to read and use dot values.
There’s an art to being able to look at a proof and know intuitively why you were off—your magenta is off, your dot gain is off, etc. But now we were learning how to print to the numbers instead, and how that could help us with what we were trying to accomplish.
Going back to the early days of digital proofing and early profiling, we just did simple fingerprints of a press to get a curve. It became much more complicated with the introduction of standards to get a press profile. Instead of small pieces of information for basic color management decisions, you were capturing the essence of the press.
Even today there are still mistakes, but the level of sophistication and standards around our decisions today is much more precise and consistent than it was back then. Now our choices are driven by data and a wealth of information, more so than gut instinct and experience.
FTA definitely played a significant role in the history and dynamics of how flexography has evolved from the 1960s to where it is today. The Association had the ability to pull people in the industry together to move flexography forward, with competitors working in concert to raise the overall quality level.
Now, flexo is an outstanding process where you can predict with a high degree of consistency what the final result will be. Plus, we’ve added value with expanded gamut, which allows the customer to gang jobs, run longer and reduce their number. We’ve come a long way.
Morrison: How have things changed working in the modern era, with the adoption of standards and specifications?
Woods: Today we have high definition imaging and flat top dots making significant changes in the future of plate making. Flat top dots were a legitimate step change for our industry. It just made things better, especially for expanded gamut. Ink laydown is substantially improved, which was always a big challenge.
Now there are options and other pieces that can be put together to create the best printing solution for each job. It’s still in flux and it’s constantly developing.
Flat top is a significant positive change in what we do, and most printers would agree that it makes things better. Right now we’re in the middle of an innovation cycle, as we try to refine our strategies and make each part of the process better. We’re further optimizing flat top with plate texturing and different screening options—we’re chasing the smallest dot to create the optimal tonal range. We’re constantly improving and testing to try to find the simplest, most reliable formula to achieve the highest quality product.
Looking forward, I would have predicted that we’d be doing a lot more round, seamless media at this point. It eliminates mounting in the plants, which is a huge benefit to the printers, especially with tight registering jobs. I still contend that in the near future, this will be a major direction for the industry. It just simplifies the process, and addresses process challenges.
Morrison: How has the face of the industry changed in the last 40 years?
Woods: Some of our newer employees are coming in with completely different backgrounds and experiences than we did. Now there are printing and packaging focused college programs, which bring people in at a much higher level than they started at in the past.
People come in to prepress now with graphics knowledge and an edge in their education, already knowing programs like Adobe Illustrator. They can hit the ground running faster. But on the printing side, there’s still not a lot out there for formal training. FTA does offer training modules (Flexographic Image Reproduction Specifications & Tolerances) that let people sit down at a computer and simulate different press conditions and decision making.
Equipment has come a long way too. Back when I had to run a press, it was different from how it is today. Now, we joke it’s more like playing a videogame than running a piece of machinery, and it is compatible with those skill sets. Before it was kind of like a 1957 Chevy—with some basic maintenance experience, you could figure out the mechanics and diagnose the problem. Just park it under a shady tree and you could do your own routine maintenance.
Now, the technologies have advanced passed basic mechanic skills, so the presses have to be maintained in a more challenging way. The reward is the presses are amazing today. The printing technology has gone through the roof, and the presses are expected to do so much more now, too.
Before, the press manufacturers didn’t want to hear anything about their press engineering. Over the years, I really believe the engineers started listening to the press operators, because some of the features we requested started showing up.
That’s what the industry has done as a whole. It’s evolved and pushed itself to compete with rotogravure in quality. That always seems to be the thing we are chasing—how can we take a piece of that business? A 40 year career with a single company family is impressive to achieve in any industry, but I think the unique aspects of the printing industry and how it’s evolved in the last several decades made it possible. I may have started with the Bryce Corp. in 1975 as an 18 year old kid with no idea what I wanted to do, but I could not have possibly mapped out a more varied, challenging and rewarding career for myself if I tried.
I started on a press and worked hard, and a few years later I was running a press. Then, managing things as a press coordinator. I learned new skills in customer service and became an on site liaison for the customer. Now, as the manufacturing site director at Cyber Graphics, I understand this process from every angle, and I know what it takes for a plate to fail or to succeed.
I’ve worked my way through the entire workflow. I can’t imagine anything that would have held my interest like this industry has. It was always more than just a place to go to work.
I can’t imagine having done anything else for 40 years and been as content about it. I was fortunate to have chances to move around and grow in several roles. You get to see the industry grow and the company grow. We had designers challenging us to do things we didn’t think we could do, but looking back, those challenges made us push ourselves and improve flexography as a print method.
If you don’t move forward you become complacent, and in this industry, you can’t become complacent.
We had certain customers that really pushed us. They were hard to deal with, and their design teams were pushing us for more and more capabilities. They didn’t want to hear about the limitations of flexo. They wanted to hear how we were going to make it work. The big consumer goods groups became a voice in FTA and said, “Hey guys. This is what we’re expecting. We need you to deliver.”
That pushed flexo into being what it is today. A designer isn’t getting paid to be boxed in by the limitations of a print technology. They get paid to push new designs, new marketing plans. They didn’t let us say, “no.” So to keep doing business with these people, we had to grow.
A lot of dynamics have all evolved and come together over the years to keep pushing flexo forward, and the drive still exists today. Looking back on my career with Bryce Corp. and Cyber Graphics, I couldn’t have plotted a better path for my future. I was just lucky enough to land here.
We were recently talking about the future state of our organization and what the challenges are going to be for that group. But I’m not worried about the future. We’ve assembled a tremendous cast of characters to carry the torch, and I know that long after I retire, Cyber Graphics will continue on and be a force to reckon with. That’s a good feeling to have, after spending your life invested in a company.
Cyber Graphics was built from the bottom up with the idea that our people are our most important investment. What we’ve built here is not based on the newest technology in the industry or the latest equipment available. It’s built on a team of people that genuinely cares this company succeeds, who take real pride and ownership in the work we do.
The people will always be what make a company special. And that’s a pretty good place to spend more than 40 years.