Press Accessibility
Installing, trial testing and ramping up a press is not a simple task. There are many things to consider that may not be obvious to one who has never done it—foundation support, sleeve inventory, utility requirements and anilox selection are just a few.
Who is going to operate the press and peripheral workflows that affect production efficiencies? That’s a question that must be answered. At Poly Print Inc, we are fortunate to have installed our third printing press (along with multiple laminators, slitters, mounters, pouch machines and a regenerative thermal oxidizer or RTO). As such, we were prepared to onboard and ramp up very quickly when the press was installed.
Machine size and operation were very important considerations when reviewing presses—as they should be—and there are others. So many times, understanding the workflow from the operator’s and assistant’s perspectives are overlooked. Questions must be asked, specifically:
- Does the operator have everything needed at one station to operate the press once running, as well as to make adjustments, maintain and watch quality, and keep an eye on both the press area and its surroundings?
- Is the operator able to see both unwind and rewind turrets from their station to avoid running out of material or watching for good roll conformity at the rewind?
- Does the operator need to be running around the press, frantically trying to manage all these things?
Understanding operator and assistant workflows is paramount to maintaining a calm process, delivering quality product, and having the ability to quickly recognize and address issues as they arise on press. During our quest for a new press, we discovered manufacturer offerings differ vastly with respect to this concern. We found some presses to be large and possibly intimidating for operators and helpers, while some presses were so compact that working on issues required steady hands and a person the size of an elf.
“We opted for shaftless turrets at both the unwind and rewind. What we noticed here is that loading and unloading rolls is much faster and much safer.”
The press you choose should satisfy all your practical needs, from a maintenance and operator accessibility standpoint to the actual setup and operation. In our case, all 10 ink well stations are in one straight line next to each other, making it easy to view how much ink is left in a bucket. The press is well lit, making it easy to view any possible ink leakage or safety hazards and from the operator station. All the tools to set up, print, adjust and maintain production are at the operator’s fingertips.
Critical Interfaces
The internet has connected the world and makes it seem just a little bit smaller. Nowadays, most equipment comes with the option to allow for remote connections directly from the manufacturer right to the machine. We have seen this with most all the equipment we purchased, from presses to laminators, slitters, the RTO, pouch machines and so on.
New machinery, particularly the press, is so electronically advanced that it can be quite complex to figure out the root cause of maintenance-related issues when they come up. Most companies likely do not have someone on staff experienced enough to understand and fix all the issues that do come up. Having the ability to let the press manufacturer remote into the machine’s computer allows for faster diagnosis of issues and quicker resolution.
Matching color targets and maintaining color throughout the pressrun is the challenge with which all printers are tasked. There has been much advancement in offline tools to help measure color, density and dot gain, as well as tools to tell how far off from a color target you are and what to do to bring it back into acceptable range. While the tolerances continue to tighten for customers and brand owners, it is ever so important that the tools, prepress and planning are carefully chosen, maintained and monitored.
Press manufacturers have recognized and re-engineered the flow of ink to and from the chambers, the chamber assemblies themselves, and the viscosity controls. It is certainly worth mentioning that quality inspection systems now play a huge role in monitoring color and print quality during the pressrun. Some of the new quality control (QC) systems are quite advanced and offer 100 percent web inspection to alert operators when there is a printing defect or a color falls out of range.
Ultimately, the key to getting the most from any QC system is training, implementation and enforcement. There has been a tendency for operators to use these units for a camera system only to monitor print quality throughout the run. These systems are so much more advanced now and can offer much more than that. It is up to management to understand fully how these units work and of what they are capable. Maintaining quality and preventing poor print from getting to the customer have become much easier.