We want to take a more formal approach to monitoring and tackling absenteeism. I’ve heard about the Bradford Points System. Can you tell me more about it?
Paul Dowling, HR director, MSO Cleland
The Bradford Points scheme has been around since the 1980s. It was first introduced in the car industry through work done by Bradford University as a way of illustrating how disruptive frequent, short-term absence could be, relative to occasional longer spells of absence. Bradford scores are a way of identifying individuals with serious absence and patterns of absence worthy of further investigation. It helps highlight causes for concern. It is often one of the first steps in an attendance procedure.
Once employees understand the scheme, they generally see it as a fair one. This is because it is designed to protect the genuine longer-term sick employee, but capture the short-term absentee who often does not turn up and thus has an immediate detrimental effect on the production plan, colleagues and, most importantly, customers.
The scheme must be linked to the firm’s disciplinary procedure so that employees who regularly fail to attend work for whatever reason will be taken through the disciplinary procedure. What is important is to set the trigger points so that when employees reach a trigger point, they know they will be seen and may be dealt with under the disciplinary procedure.
Communicating the Bradford Points scheme to all employees is critical to its success. Be prepared to be patient and go the extra mile to explain the detail. There is plenty of evidence that absence is reduced as a result of implementing the scheme, unless of course your absence level is very low to start with. Even if it is, the scheme will add clarity for all employees of what the company policy is.
The Bradford factor method
Y x Y x D = Bradford Points score
One absence of 10 days is 10 points (1 x 1 x 10)
Five absences of two days each is 250 points (5 x 5 x 10)
10 absences of one day each is 1,000 points (10 x 10 x 10)
Example triggers:
50 points = review meeting
150 points = verbal warning
250 points = first written warning
350 points = second written warning
450 points = third and final warning
600 points = dismissal
I want to print lenticular images on a five-unit large-format offset press. Have you got any tips for starting out, particularly for the pre-press staff?
Ivor Dixon, managing director, Positive Focus
Most lenticular work printed litho is now printed directly onto the lens. While this is a relatively specialist process, it is not particularly difficult if you observe some basic rules.
On the pre-press side, you need to have software that allows you to match up the images you are using in the job. These would be multiple images if you are producing true 3D, flip, morph or motion effects, or possibly a single image for a pseudo 3D effect. Then you create the interlace file from them. The interlace is a series of strips of the various images, printed in sequence behind the lens elements. There are a number of relatively cheap software products for this. The more complex task is getting the interlace into a production-ready state. Producer 3D, from HumanEyes, is a true workflow solution. It includes Creator 3D to produce the interlace file and produce an effective and efficient industrial-strength production system. If you are familiar with Photoshop, you should be able to quickly achieve a level of proficiency in creating the images.
You need to accurately match the interlace to the actual pitch of the lens (there is slight variation in manufacture, so a nominal 40lpi lens could be from 38-42lpi in practice) which requires a calibration process on each batch of lens material. Any discrepancy will produce a ghost image and reduce the effectiveness of the result. Similarly, the alignment of interlace to lens on the press is absolutely critical.
In the press room, your press needs to be in tip-top mechanical condition. Colour-to-colour register is critical, as is print-to-material registration. Blankets should all be the same and have a relatively high shore hardness, packings should be uniform and in good condition. Above all, the printer should be fully committed to achieving a high-quality result in what is a demanding print discipline.
Also, I wouldn’t want to try lenticular on a VLF press without UV curing, as some smaller-format printers do. Quality lens material from a reputable manufacturer is an essential ingredient.
I’m grateful to Bob Marriott of DPLenticular for his comments on production. Its website (www.dplenticular.com) is a treasure-trove of information on lens technology and the actual production process.
A fellow printer reckons he took £300,000 of work via his website last year and said search engine optimisation was crucial. What’s this about and how can I get a piece of the action?
Peter Lancaster, managing director, W2P
Your website is your shop window to the world so it’s vital to put some time and effort into it or potential customers will either not find you, or just walk on by.
Search engines such as Google use a sophisticated piece of software to crawl through your website to understand what it’s all about in order to rank it.
Google’s intelligent ‘robot’ is looking for relevant keywords and phrases that describe your product or service so that it can rank your site against other similar sites. Unlike human visitors, Google does not appreciate the beautiful design, as it only understands text. The challenge, therefore, is to create a design that looks good, sells your company, navigates easily and reads well.
What keywords would a potential customer use if they were going to find your site? Probably things like ‘digital printing’, ‘poster printing’, ‘flyers’ and the like. These terms must, therefore, be the central theme of your copy writing (even a whole page per term). Google is not interested in words or sentiments like ‘quality’, ‘service’ or ‘plant list’.
Meta tags are vital words embedded in the HTML code of your site. Go to www.w2p.co.uk, which appears first in Google and Yahoo! etc for the search term ‘W2P’ and on the first results page in Yahoo! and MSN etc for the term ‘web to print’. Look at the underlined page title and description in Google. This was derived from the following metatags: 
Ideally, you should try to get other relevant websites to carry a ‘hyperlink’ to your site, thereby proving relevancy. Other useful techniques include blogs, news feeds, press releases and video clips. Avoid the use of ‘Flash’ only sites and text as a graphic: the robots can’t see through them.
It may take some time and experimentation to rise up the rankings. ‘Pay-per-click’ campaigns let you reach number one. Although you pay each time anyone clicks, it is often well worth it.
