Tuesday, February 19, 2008

You Can't Fix Something You Don't Understand


The February issue of Newspapers and Technology published an article by Frank Bourlon, which reads like he’s writing from the Los Angeles Times Olympic Pressroom. Mr. Bourlon has over thirty-five years experience in the printing trade, which makes his stories a must read for pressmen around the globe. I'm certain my colleagues will relate to this story completely.

"Sometimes press operators are blamed because they aren’t able to set ink on the press or because the press is not being maintained well enough.

The press operator may blame it on management because management doesn’t want to spend the money needed to keep the press maintained.

Wherever the blame lies is immaterial. What is important is that if the press isn’t being maintained properly, then the newspaper’s ability to sell advertising can be severely compromised, especially in a competitive market.

Managers have to understand the problems that might be affecting their production departments. Sometimes the manager need only ask the right questions in order to understand why print quality problems occur.

I know this sounds simplistic, but in many situations in which I’ve been involved, some print and production managers may not necessarily understand how their operation works.

These managers may have been promoted from other areas of the newspaper, and heading production is not something for which they’ve necessarily been trained. While these people may have done an outstanding job in their former positions, they might not have a grasp for production. Bottom line? The production department suffers as a result.

You can’t fix something you don’t understand."

To read the entire story click here

Newspapers & Technology is a free magazine which will keep the printer updated with new trends in our industry.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hay Ed I think you meant to say

YOU CAN'T FIX SOMETHING THAT ISN'T BROKE AND

YOU CAN'T OPERATE SOMETHING YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND

Anonymous said...

The Times has found innovative ways to eliminate maintenance on presses. And, we are highly proficient at operating presses that we don't fully understand. But above all, we in production are excellent at producing BS reasons for not doing our jobs as well as we can. Forget about quality printing because the key to profits is cheap labor. You aren't cheap labor. We deserve Sam Zell for our sins. The party is over and the foul-mouthed Beelzebub and his minion army of lawyers are here to lay waste to our goofy dream world.