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Re: Re: Wake up lets get the wages we deserve! |
| Name: |
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S Tressed |
| Date Posted: |
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Sep 8, 07 - 12:58 AM |
| Email: |
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stressed@Safe-mail.net |
| Message: |
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Wow I had forgotten about the NGA Press Vs SOGAT Finishing wars
A shame coz I have found in the last few companies that that relationship has improved between press & bindery with mutual respect on both sides
(finshing asking if maybe a job can be gripped and S/Lay a certain way if possible & ensuring that that this stacked is used for m/r or to make up the qty and not for any files)
A well finished article can look like a fantastic piece of art even if the print was sub-standard, however a perfect sheet can look awful if it is finished badly
However the lithographic days are numbered much like letterpress was when litho started to become the mainstream. Digital printing is advancing at an alarming pace and quality is very rapidly improving along with the speed
I'm not talking about simple crude inkjet heads fitted to folders or other feeders, nor the better Scitex heads for use on personalised work
Agfa & Xerox-iGen are rapidly evolving and the sort of work they can do in full colour with every single sheet completely different to to the previous sheet and the quality on a variety of materials is beyond amazing and impossible to do under litho unless you had a stack of plates for short run jobs
I'm not a noob either, I ran small offset for a few years GTO, R30, Thompson presses so I know a little bit about Litho - admit on the smaller scale but I wasn't fortunate enough to have auto plate, blanket wash devices along with pile turners
(though pile-turners aren't need for small offset you wanna manually flip over 100k B1 art to load a folder coz printers used another side/lay)
Trust me the digital press of say 2yrs ago did look like pictures taken with really cheap low res cameras and printed on an old PC printer. But the stuff now being used is much much better and seriously rivals litho as an option to be considered
Because of this advance in print quality certain jobs are going elsewhere
100 x 4col 16pg booklets can be produced by digital or instant print shops for example.
The whole industry is going through a change like it did when litho first became King.
People can do most things themselves at home on their pc for their small business, so instant print shops have had to change to go for other kinds of work even the medium size Litho runs
Mediuim size Litho printers have also noticed they may have to go after the much bigger run work and cut prices to compete with Larger Printers who compete sometimes with web pressses
Because of all this competition for a decreasing amount of work most companies have then gone for multi colour presses and/or perfecting presses as well as going from B2 to B1 format so they can increase production & compete with other larger printers
Now the funny thing is that will the press-minder get a decent increase when he goes from say a 2 col MOZP to a B1 SpeedMaster - of course he won't. He have a No2 assisting him though normally many companies prefer to allow a No2 for the perfecting 4+4 8 colour SM presses
(The MD will say you don't need a No2 coz you got auto plate, auto blanket etc.... though you may find a No2 may be assisting on 2 presses and not just the one like a few years back)
The printer of say 1980 will be very different of say 2010 no longer running a SRA3/2 basic press but expected to run a B1 multicolour or even perfecting press at around 10,000 to 13,000 on their own
Luckily, the bindery will remain pretty much unchanged by the digital revolution. Guillotines will still be much the same in 20yrs time, folders will still be required though some basic folding may be done in-line on the new digital presses, Stitching will most surely be still running on Muller or Heidelburg lines so I think Finising will still remain unchanged for quite a while yet
unlike Litho pressminders :p
End of the day I think it is common knowledge that ask any printer to go & help out in the bindery and they would $hit themselves trying to say some aruguement, when they know it means they would have to do some some real graft of humping work about |
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