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Are you really saving money?

Printers can only be as good as the equipment allows them to be!

Employers are looking for high quality with minimum waste & maximum up-time. With that in mind you would expect they would load the dice in their operators favor by supplying them with the best equipment & materials to achieve it.

Unfortunately quite the contrary is more common, many short sighted employers are cutting the cost of consumables (including paper quality) to save a buck or two. I am a devout believer in you get what you pay for & have too much experience of these cost cutting measures backfiring.

It is far more common when cutting costs in one area to increase them in another,

i.e.

Paper Quality -

• Increased blanket washes = more waste & blanket wash consumables
• Increased web breaks = loss of production & additional waste on restart
• Lower print quality = Harder color control & additional start-up waste.

Ink & Chemicals -

Every printer knows less is best so reducing the quality/ pigment in the ink is not a good move. If the printing process requires more ink to attain the densities you need more water to combat the increase in ink with the end result being.

• More consumption of ink & water
• More fount used
• Smaller print window = Additional make-ready waste
• Picking & piling = Lower Quality & more blanket washes

Blankets -

This is usually the first area to take a hit, unfortunately it is one of the most critical areas of any offset machine, once a suitable blanket is found it should not be messed with. This is not the airline industry where you can save millions by cutting a bag of peanuts messing with a working presses set-up will cost you thousands!

Blankets control not only the transfer of the dot to the paper but also on web presses they control the tension. Mess with a running presses blankets at your peril. Replace a negative feed blanket with a positive or visa verse &  you will be fighting cut-off issues that will cause delays far outweighing any potential savings.

Conclusion -

Everyone from upper management to the Press crew want a running producing machine. Operators like nothing better than letting the machine run, however cutting costs in the wrong areas only makes this harder & harder to achieve.

If your machines are not producing or your make-ready times & waste are too high taking a closer look at why may well  reveal the truth?