Harper details key processes to reduce make-ready

Truly understanding what factors cause long make ready times in a press operation, can mean the difference between a successful operation and one that cannot make margins. The lesson begins by learning what processes are being done internally and what processes are being done externally. Defining and isolating these processes gives the timeframe for our make-ready. The goal is to capture the time from last good product to first good product. 

It is important to understand the meaning behind these two terms. Overall, this period is the time from when the press stops, and the last good product of the current running job is printed to when the next job has the first good product on the rewind. When we say “first good product,” this is not simply in register and unvalidated color; it is in register, on color, and ready to start production. Otherwise, this time is when the press is not running and “earning its keep”, so to say. This period is known more generally as downtime.

Downtime can be broken into two categories: 1) Planned Downtime and 2) Unplanned Downtime. Similar practices to reducing make ready times can be applied to these downtimes but we will focus on the make ready time for the purpose of this article.

Every step being done by every individual working on the press when the press stops, and the last good product is complete, is an internal process. The external processes are the processes that are being done prior to the stop of the press. The goal is to reduce either the number of internal process steps by moving them to external processes and/or reduce the time taken to perform the internal process steps themselves. Several tools can be used to capture and measure these process steps such as spaghetti diagrams, video and time study, observation and time logging.  All work well and it is beneficial to use more than one in the analysis.

Spaghetti diagrams help show where the people on the press are moving. Understanding if a pressman is having to travel to the ink room or maintenance department at every make ready, is important in finding ways to eliminate the travel time and the need to travel as an internal process.  If tools are needed or ink isn’t staged for the next job, aren’t both items easily corrected to an external process or a reduction of time for the internal process? It also gives a good visual representation of how the make ready comes together.

A good make-ready has an order of operations. A spaghetti diagram shows how well the order of operations is followed. If an order of operations has not been established, this diagram will also give good insight on ways to improve and document an order of operations. This can be as simple as remove dr. blade assembly, drain inks and clean anilox rolls, progressing to removal of dies, etc.… to put some level of organization to the make-ready. For new employees or those who aren’t the best at organizing, these diagrams serve an essential benefit on their make-readies.

Video and time studies are typically the most accurate way to capture all the steps taken in a make ready. The video allows to pause and document time on any given task. It also allows to focus on one person at a time, if there are multiple people working on the make ready. Time must include any press helpers, even if not full time on the press. Account for all the time.

Once all the times are captured, it is easy to put into a graph to show the breakdown of how long each step took during the make ready, ultimately building to the total time taken. It will also show what the other members of the press crew or helpers contributed to the make ready effort. Typically, unless given specific tasks during a make ready, a press helper can be a hinderance on a make ready as they are engaging in off topic discussion or become a distraction for the operator. If the helper or crew member(s) are not familiar with the tasks needed to contribute to the reduction of make ready time, it is usually better to train those individuals offline rather than engage in continuous on-the-job training.

After all the documentation and graphs are gathered, it is usually easy to see what tasks could have been done prior to the press stopping; as well as see the tasks where the time could be reduced via engineering fixes, tool placement, or adjusted in a better order of operations.  As these are identified, time reduction employed and internal tasks moved to external, the make ready time naturally and precipitously decreases.

The next step is to level the load as much as possible if there are multiple people working on the press during make ready. This step is not needed if the operator is the only person working at the press. What this means is that the make ready time will be as long as the person taking the longest time to perform the tasks. The graph shows how the operator is taking on more tasks and takes longer to finish than the others at press. The idea is to move any tasks over to the other members of the press or press helper to reduce the total amount of time taken which naturally reduces the make-ready time. If an operator is working solo, you will want to “externalize” as many tasks as possible to minimize make-ready time.

An all-too-common internal process during make ready is color matching, but is there a way to externalize this process? Yes, there is. A key way to do this is to standardize your aniloxes and correlate those with proofing ink in the ink room. The best starting point for this is running banded rolls to see what cell per inch (CPI) and volume (BCM) give you the best solid ink density and provide the best dot reproduction. This can be done in both the process inks and the spot color anilox sets. Once completed on the process sets, a fingerprint and characterization should to be done to ensure prepress curves are updated with any changes. The next step to externalizing this, is to correlate in the ink room. This is simply done by running a color at press on the now standardized anilox, tweaking the color to specification and taking a wet sample back to the lab. This sample should be approved and on color at press. 

Next, check it with the current proofing system in the ink room. If this sample does not match with what is in the ink room, the proofing system is not correlated, or you may have a difference in standards from the ink room and the press area.  Check and confirm. Contact your anilox supplier to request a correlation kit to identify what CPI and BCM matches what was ran at press. This can also be done to validate lot numbers of process colors as they come into the plant to ensure there is no hue variation in the pigments that can lead to chasing image reproduction at press. The goal of this correlation is to create a “pour and go” at press during make ready. This will allow for reproduction of jobs across multiple presses and reduce having a vast array of random CPI and BCM rolls in your inventory.

A cost savings benefit to this process is also a reduction in ink inventory. It is easy to identify if there is an issue with color matching at press.  You will find yourself having several kits of the same color in the ink inventory ranging from light to dark versions of a target color.

To support the correlation efforts, another internal process that is common is loss of anilox volume or anilox damage. Finding these problems while pulling up color is both frustrating and costly leading to increased make ready waste of ink, materials, time, and opportunity costs created by having to “shop” for an anilox that will work. Doing this also typically leads to re-matching inks at press, increasing make ready time even further. Ensuring anilox rolls are clean and in good condition should be an external process.

Anilox rolls should be cleaned, inspected and ready to go when needed once the last good product is complete. Regular anilox audits should be performed to track anilox condition and volume loss to predict failure to hit solid ink densities at press. Inspection is critical also to avoid print defects such as lines in print, dark spots from dings, patterns translated from the anilox or inconsistent color from image to image. Some of these defects are not always caught at sign-off; but found during the run, even after creating a rerun of the job or increasing unplanned downtime to correct the problem.

A large part of managing the anilox rolls is not only managing damage and wear but tagging and identification. Anilox rolls should be placed in an organized fashion either by cells per inch or volume and tagged where it is easily seen and verified when put back that the right roll is with the right tag. An instant time killer is grabbing an anilox tagged as one volume or CPI and realizing after the fact that it was tagged incorrectly. All these tasks should be external processes to the make-ready.

In comparison, the make-ready should flow like an Indy 500 or NASCAR pit stop. If watched carefully, each person on the pit crew has a very specific task or tasks to complete and the person who takes the longest during the pit stop determines the length of that pit stop. A key element to reducing make ready time is looking for areas to engineer out time.  In professional racing, steps have been taken to engineer out time such as single lugs, posts that drop and lift the car rather than using a jack, tear off windshield film to avoid washing… just to name a few. Examples of these at a press could be buckle-style lock downs rather than bolt down caps, matrix removal or trim removal systems, roll movers, or even press side enterprise systems to help reduce paperwork.

The most important part of reducing make-ready time is documentation, standardization, training and auditing. Like any process in the world, if not documented and standardized, it will not be followed and soon one will be finding all the work put into optimizing the make ready times lost. 

Training is to ensure all parties involved in the make ready understand and know the parts they play in the make ready and how critical are their roles. Tools such as checklists on whiteboards and checklists for external processes to ensure they are done prior to last good product coming off the press, work well so a job isn’t started without all its components at hand work. The most important of these tools is auditing. Processes are managed by verification, not trust that everyone is following the process.

Managers or supervisors should be auditing the process on a regular basis to ensure steps and efforts to improve are being followed as outlined and proven. Times should be tracked and documented to identify areas of inconsistency. Continuous improvement is always the goal, so it is important to always be open to ideas as they are presented. We all have heard someone say “well, my way is better”.

To that utterance, the response should be “test it”. A process should only change if a better way is found to perform the task and the new process should be tested and verified with no adverse effects. An adverse effect, for example, would be shortcutting a make ready step that could in turn increase unplanned downtime stops during the run. Once the new process is validated: standardize, document, and train all involved with that process.

These are just a few examples of how to reduce make ready times at press.  Every print shop will yield different findings in their own processes. The amount of time savings that can be found in any process is only limited to how deep we dig into that process. In some cases, there are high costs to presented solutions, so an evaluation of long-term savings will need to be done to validate investment in things such as engineered solutions like redesigns and added equipment. Begin with spaghetti diagrams to track movement, identify internal processes that could be readily shifted to external and study the time spent.  You and your operation will be well-rewarded in reduced waste and costs.