In the Pressroom,
Using Core Assets

Newspaper executives and consultants discussed ways to attract and retain employees, win commercial-printing business, and measure overall performance at press and materials sessions.

Across the country, newspapers are searching for ways to more effectively use their core assets—people, equipment and systems, explained Mark Kurtich, senior vice president of operations at the Los Angeles Times.

The industry increased its overall capital spending by 43 percent in the past year to more than $800 million, noted NAA Chairman Andrew Barnes.

"For a while," said Barnes, chairman and chief executive officer of the St. Petersburg Times, "it seemed every time I had to do this, I had to talk about why newspapers still matter.... I don’t think I have to make that argument any more."

But, he cautioned, problems lie ahead. One critical challenge, according to Barnes: assembling a diverse, talented workforce that reflects the interests, composition and concerns of the community.

That’s a particular problem in the pressroom, because many potential employees view newspapers as a low-tech industry. As more newspapers invest in such new technology as shaftless presses, the technical requirements of the job are changing significantly—and rapidly.

It’s up to newspapers to educate potential employees about the industry’s technological advances, said H. William Moore, president and CEO of George R. Hall Contracting, a printing-equipment remanufacturer.

"When they come in for an interview, we need to walk them through the whole process so they know it’s not low-tech," he said. "We need to show them what it takes to make a newspaper."

Shaftless technology has created a whole new ballgame in the competition for skilled workers, agreed James H. Norris, senior vice president of operations at Newsday in Melville, N.Y. "Our best shot is to provide a positive work environment, a contemporary work environment, and opportunities to advance—and to pay competitively so they can’t justify leaving," he said. "If you pay the right amount of money, you don’t have a problem filling the job."

Although there’s been a temporary hiatus in competition for talent from Internet companies, Norris expects dot-coms to regroup and come back as even tougher competitors.

"There is a significant gap in what people are paid in information technology in the newspaper industry and in other industries," said Scot Sherick, a facility and equipment consultant with designAlliance of New York City. "The pay needs to come in line."

In addition to pay, newspapers need to provide employees more opportunities to advance and grow. "Part of retaining people is retaining people’s minds," said Kurtich. "A lot of our people have checked out mentally. We need to reinvigorate people."

Newspapers should look to other industries for ideas, said Steve Derman, vice president of the newspaper group for The Austin Company of Cleveland. For instance, he said, the automobile industry has had much success with self-directed work teams, an approach newspapers could try in pressrooms and mailrooms.

Managers also need to develop their part-time staff. Often, when people are hired as part-time workers, not enough attention is paid to their skills, said Moore. "[Hiring] people at entry level and being aware of their skills is a place to look for new talent," he said.

Newsday has had success converting part-time workers from its collating and packaging departments into full-time employees, said Norris.

"People who come to work with us tend to like it and will find out about potential full-time openings," Norris said. The company even offers a pressroom-training program for people promoted from within.

As more newspapers consider capital investments, many are examining whether to take on commercial-printing work. "Gone are the days when the pressroom ran for three hours and sat idle for 21 hours," said Derman.

But what does it take for a newspaper operation to become a successful commercial-printing operation? "Companies that have been the most successful have looked at themselves as commercial printers—and one of their products happens to be a newspaper," said Sherick. When they purchase new presses, he said, they typically look for equipment geared toward commercial work.

Moore warned that moving to commercial printing might not work for every newspaper. "I’m not sure how far it can go before we reach a saturation level," he said. "It depends on the market and competition."

Labor costs are one consideration. "You need to check out the wage structure of the people you are competing with," said Moore. "Often, our labor costs are higher."

One critical problem, however, is actually determining costs and other performance variables. As managers try to measure such metrics, speakers urged them to think about what—and how—they are measuring.

"Most of our metrics come from the accounting department rather than manufacturing," said Chuck R. Blevins, president of Chuck Blevins & Associates in Vienna, Va.

Derman urged publishers to move toward standard measures of performance. "The more newspapers standardize, the more we’ll know how we’re doing," agreed Norris. In the meantime, it might make more sense for newspapers to measure against themselves from year to year, he said.

But the most important measurement remains whether the paper gets out on time, argued one audience member, Chris Baker of Omicron, a consulting firm in Bellevue, Wash. "A lot of people measure every variable, and it’s a challenge to understand what they mean," he said. "It’s more important to understand why the paper is late and how we get on time."  

Retrofit Redux

Marrying new press technology with old can yield sizable cost savings, better print quality and more efficient operations.

Retrofitting approaches range from digital-inking systems to replacing press fountains and reel-tensioner pasters that reduce web breaks to adding shaftless units to shaft-driven presses and the new four-by-one printing concept.

A digital-inker upgrade at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch replaced manual settings, pictured above, with precise, touch-screen controls, below.

Papers in St. Louis and Colorado Springs went through extensive retrofitting projects to bring their pressrooms up to snuff. At the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, explained Production Director David Givens, adding digital inkers to one of six 30-year-old Goss Metro Offsets not only improved inking control and quality, but also turned the press—nicknamed the Toad—from a place to avoid into a haven for press operators who enjoyed running it in its refurbished condition.

In 1995, the publisher told Givens that for financial reasons, he wanted the presses installed in 1970 updated to run another 25 years. "We got the message," he said. "It was time to engage in a rebuild."

The Metro Offsets were "sturdy," so retaining them was not troubling. The 18-month project involved replacing worn gears and shafts, reworking all folders, installing new plate lockups, putting in spray-bar dampening, and adding digital pasters. Givens found, however, that results would have been even better had a press-control system been included, as ink delivery remained a problem. The Toad proved the point, because it did get a digital-ink injector—with superior results.

"They meter the ink in precise increments," he said. "No more crank, crank, crank and hope you made the right adjustments."

The $10 million press upgrade, plus another $2 million spent on web-width reductions, was the most cost-efficient way to improve reliability and reproduction, Givens said. The alternative? Buy new presses—for $98 million.

"Adding new technology and digital inkers is a great example of how you can achieve improved press performance," he said.

Conditions in the pressroom at The Gazette in Colorado Springs were deplorable when an upgrade project was ordered there, said Production Director Phil Mauk. His undertaking focused on a severe paster problem, causing newsprint waste to soar to 13 percent as the antiquated pasters and reels—designed for letterpress decades before, but operating with much younger offset presses—simply shook, rattled, and failed to work right.

MAN Roland Inc. of Westmont, Ill., conducted a press audit in 1997, finding some components so badly worn that they had more than an inch of play—something not compatible with good color registration. Paster brushes had weak bristles, belt-drive clutches were all worn, and paster blades were dull and missing teeth.

The Gazette tapped MAN Roland to provide a complete update, taking one reel down for a four-week period in order to install digital reel-tensioner pasters and electronic press controls throughout.

Now, Mauk says, the presses hold registration during paster cycles, paster misses are down to less than two per 100, and newsprint waste has been more than halved to 6 percent. The major task ahead, he said, is sticking to a stringent program of preventive maintenance.

The shaftless-drive technology now found on virtually all new presses can be spliced onto an existing press, explained Jim Hulman, senior account executive of Rexroth Indramat of Hoffman Estates, Ill.

The only major limitation is that such hybrids are not equipped to handle registration-critical junctures. They are, however, ideal for adding units in a money-saving way, he said, and can reduce the length of color web leads.

Coupling shaftless units to an existing press relies on a mechanical encoder attached to its shaft. Computer software interprets the shaft’s rotation, synchronizing the shaftless units’ motors.

For publishers looking to replace units, the emerging four-plates-across-by-one-plate-around approach may be a good choice, said Alan Flaherty, principal with ComPlan Inc. of Cincinnati. "All you really need to know about a four-by-one press," he said, "is that it can do anything a four-by-two press can do except run collect."

A four-by-one is four pages wide, like presses long used by major metros and medium-sized papers, but its plate cylinder holds only one plate around, not two as on older presses. The downside? No more collect runs. The upside? Significant material savings, as fewer plates are needed, plus greater flexibility in configuring press runs—the A section can be larger than any other, for example, to accommodate more ads. In addition, the page count can go up in increments of two, not four.

Two press makers have growing installed bases in the four-by-one market, with others taking serious looks at creating their own offerings, he said. The shaftless technology is no longer cutting-edge, either, which means "I think we can count on them behaving pretty well," Flaherty said.