Making the Transition to Semi-Commercial

Jim Wodicka—QuadTech Regional Manager, Europe

In these days of declining circulations in established newspaper markets, every printer is looking for ways to maximize press utilization. This means using the excess press capacity to print additional newspapers or do semi-commercial work. Jim Wodicka discusses the challenges and opportunities involved in making this transition.

TT—Do you see many newspaper printers going into the semi-commercial press arrangements?

JW—Many of the new press configurations we see today have elements that provide for semi-commercial production. These press arrangements can be similar to commercial presses in many ways. Use of heatset dryers, UV dryers and folders, or units at 90-degree angles to each other provide for a greater flexibility in production. With these additional elements come additional challenges in controlling the web to ensure quality production.

TT—So is this only feasible for new presses? What about existing newspaper presses?

JW—The challenge is fitting the job to the press. Most newspaper presses are not configured to do many different size forms in different deliveries. Reconfiguring an existing press is expensive and sometimes not even possible, due to current building constraints.

TT—What are the expectations from semi-commercial customers?

JW—Definitely higher quality. Depending on what is expected by the customer and their definition of higher quality, it could either mean additional controls, or changes to the press or other upstream process to obtain this higher level of quality. Today, we’re seeing that color control systems are becoming standard on press applications that would previously be considered semi-commercial. These requirements for better quality are forcing the newspaper and semi-commercial printers to invest in products that previously were seen only in the commercial printers’ pressroom. Of course we like to see more controls—and specifically QuadTech controls—but this is not always the case. Working with the printer and press manufacturer to come up with the best solution is always the best business practice.

TT—How do printers handle training of press operators to work to the higher quality requirements?

JW—If a newspaper printer has no experience with semi-commercial work, training is essential. Some of the press manufacturers don’t have experience in the commercial world, and are also in the process of learning the challenges. Some automated control providers can provide training. I think that QuadTech is uniquely positioned to help with that transition, because we have a wealth of experience in both commercial and newspaper environments. We understand the obstacles and requirements, and there isn’t much that we haven’t seen before.

Recently a U.S. newspaper printer configured their new press to do semi-commercial work. As they ran into issues with the semi-commercial production, we worked with them to identify issues, and provided suggestions on improvements. We also identified features in our products that could have assisted in the daily switch to semi-commercial production, but their press couldn’t utilize this particular feature. A variety of solutions were proposed. It turned out that making changes to the press design was the most desirable solution. So we can help both the press manufacturer and the printer to find solutions that will get them up and running.

TT—Is more automation required for this type of work?

JW—That depends on how automated your current processes and equipment are. In the newspaper industry there can be an extreme difference between the processes and automation equipment of a small market printer compared to that of a medium to large market printer. There is a high degree of automation available in the newspaper industry to manage tight deadlines, but that doesn’t necessarily give you the high quality semi-commercial customers are demanding. The decision for automation is a balance between quality control and the amount of personnel required to maintain the level of quality. Any time that you can add automation to control or guarantee the level of quality—that’s money well spent. Adding personnel to make sure the quality is achieved is not.

TT—Can newspaper printers afford not to make the transition to semi-commercial work?

JW—It appears the days of running a newspaper press eight hours a day, only to produce a morning edition, for example, are over. Maximizing the usage of your large capital investment is more and more a matter of survival. This either means consolidating multiple regional newspaper productions, or configuring the press to be flexible enough to produce multiple product configurations—such as semi-commercial work. With competition from other forms of media, we expect this trend will continue well into the future. We’re concentrating on developing and providing products to achieve the most efficient production—as well the highest quality—to allow the print industry to be economically competitive far into the future.