In these days of increasingly totalitarian machine automation that sidelines what is inferred to be slothful human interruption, it is a wonder that press minders have any confidence left at all. With every press iteration, there appears to be yet another element of the print process taken out of their hands by a machine that they are told can do the job better.
This is particularly the case when it comes to makeready. Once a press changeover was only as quick as its operator, yet as this area has become increasingly key to print businesses – with job flexibility, turnaround and uptime ever more essential – the machines have increasingly taken over.

The human factor
Interestingly, though, while in other areas of print the human element has succumbed to technology without a fight, the validity of technological dominance in this area is actually being questioned. The counter argument, that the technology is only as good as the person using it, is gaining momentum. When it comes to makeready, it seems, the humans are now fighting back.

The importance of makeready is certainly something that no one appears to be quibbling about.

"The impact of saving seconds makes a big difference," says Benson Group managing director Mark Kerridge. The £108m-turnover Benson Group produces around 20m cartons a month at its Bardon facility near Leicester, and Kerridge says the firm averages 3,000 makereadies a month across the group, which runs a battery of latest-generation presses from Komori and Heidelberg. Hence, anything that speeds up those multiple makereadies (or indeed slows them down) is important for the group’s overall performance.

It’s just as important at commercial print outfit ESP Colour. Indeed, such is the weight that the Swindon company puts on makeready speed as a defining driver of its business, that it has taken to setting records for its fine-tuned skill in this area. In December, Heidelberg lauded it for setting productivity records on its Heidelberg XL 105: ESP achieved an astonishing 498 makereadies in one, 168-hour week on the press, smashing its own previous record in the process and shaving 15 seconds off its average makeready time by minimising blanket wash time.

The reaction to this achievement somewhat predictably centred upon the machine itself, how technology was pushing print boundaries. ESP managing director Anthony Thirlby acknowledges that technology is certainly playing an important role.
"Shaving 35 seconds off every change adds up to two weeks ‘free’ press time over the course of a year for us. This is an example of where technology has allowed us to become more competitive," he says.

Efficiency drive
It’s a message that manufacturers themselves push as well, understandably. It is inconceivable that a new press model will be launched nowadays without considerable fanfare about its numerous enhancements for making makereadies as efficient as possible. Simultaneous plate-changing and blanket washing, automatic de-inking, automatic colour control and registration on-the-fly, intelligent press systems, ‘zero makeready’ – the list of features deployed to reduce downtime to the absolute minimum goes on and on, and the latest presses are bristling with technology.

Heidelberg sales director Jim Todd pinpoints the improvements from CIP3 to CIP4 as being one of the most significant advances. "It’s not just transferring CIP3 settings for the ink ducts, it’s CIP4 pre-setting the whole machine, the air settings, the sheet settings – all done automatically."

Yet despite all this technological wizardry, Thirlby believes that it is not the machine alone that can take the credit.

"You’ve got to start with the capabilities of the machine, and how to maximise that," he acknowledges. "But then you also have to play to people’s individual skill sets."

Indeed, it is almost too easy to believe the old and much-told story about the automated print factory of the future: ‘The factory of the future will have two employees: a man and a dog. The man’s job will be to feed the dog. The dog’s job will be to prevent the man from touching any of the automated equipment.’

The reality, according to many, is going to be far different. Performance, they say, is not just about the machine, it is about how you use it and treat it. You can have the fastest car in the world, but if you don’t have the right driver and the right tyres, fuel and fluid levels, it will never hit top speed.

Hence, Benson’s Kerridge talks of approaching efficiency improvements by looking at four key areas: assets, materials, processes and people.

"You need to apply yourself to achieving things in all of those categories: the appropriate specification of assets with appropriate features; the appropriate selection of materials, such as substrates and plates; and the best processes around the machine with everything in place," he explains.

When asked which element is most important, though, Kerridge is unequivocal: "It’s people who deliver the result on the asset. Ultimately, the thing that makes a difference is people."

ESP’s Thirlby, as suggested above, agrees. To make it on to ‘team ESP’, Thirlby’s press operators need to make sure they have the right ethos, he says. "It’s a frame of mind, having the internal drive to prove yourself daily," he explains.

This is a state of mind that is not enforced by printer owners frequently enough, according to M-Partners head of sales Gary Doman.

"I see people who have bought £2m presses and the only thing not addressed is the operator. You see some guys who still pull sheets out, even when the press has full inline facilities, or who run the press up slowly when there is no need to," he observes.

Bob Usher, managing director of Ryobi distributor Apex Digital Graphics says that he has experienced the same issues. Print bosses, he suggests, should be questioning what their press minders are doing during a print run.

"Could they be prepping paper or other tasks for the next job? Are the plates sitting in the hopper ready? If this is happening, you could have a relatively seamless session, whereas if someone comes from the old school, where it was a 45-minute makeready, and then the minder is sitting there reading a newspaper while the job is printing… then it’s easy not to think about the next job until the current one is finished."

Production base
When it comes to mission-critical personnel, it’s not just about the press operators, either. Komori sheetfed sales director Steve Turner highlights the importance of another role in the system.

"The production manager or director is probably the key in all of this, getting the right management of the whole workflow through the factory is the key to making a success of your shiny new press," he explains.
Indeed, there is little point obsessing about seconds saved here or there on makeready if the press ends up standing for half an hour while a set of plates is made, or the right paper found.

"You can potentially get from job to job in a matter of minutes but it does not necessarily mean that everyone who buys a new press gets full value from that automation," observes Turner. "You can have identical machines, in different factories, producing broadly similar work, and one will be taking twice as long to makeready. And that will be because people are not as well-managed and organised as they could be."
"The prime factor is the machine’s ability to get itself ready. The second is the operator’s, or the organisation’s, ability to get everything else ready, for example the materials for the next job," adds Todd.And materials, in the form of consumables, is another area that should be getting some of the praise for quick makereadies, says KBA executive sales director Chris Scully. Scrimping on consumables in general could be the equivalent of putting low-grade fuel into an F1 car, he explains. "Sometimes it’s neither man nor machine, it’s the consumables. If you have a high-performance press, you need to use high-performance consumables. That tends to become really, really important."
When it comes to makeready, then, it appears technology may be hogging the limelight undeservedly. Delve into makeready deeper than manufacturer automation boasts and you find countless stories, such as SMP Group (see boxout) where consumables, but more so people, are just as important to setting a speedy makeready pace. Yes, technology is breaking new ground in this area, but having the right person behind the wheel is still equally important to makeready or in some cases even more so.

Award-winning London-based POS and outdoor print specialist SMP Group won plaudits from KBA for the way in which it has maximised the potential throughput on its KBA Rapida 162a large-format press. Even though the 13-year-old press doesn’t have all the latest automation features, the company achieves  consistently high levels of productivity.

SMP Group director Peter Darwin says the firm has taken on board lean manufacturing processes and is constantly striving to improve its operations. "We’re actually prepared for how the jobs are going to be processed from the outset. It’s an evolving process. We’ve picked areas, refined them and then moved on to another. And then we go back and try to improve things all over again. It’s an evolving process.

"You’ve got to have the right people with the right processes around them. It goes hand in hand. Everything is optimised, we have the materials waiting by the machine, the job tickets are all correct, the plates are made and the proofs are ready.

"Everything is designed to make the whole process as easy as possible for the press minder, so they don’t have to wander off and check things. The processes are designed so the printer prints."