Want to score some sympathy points from your friends and family? Just show them the poster that accompanies this issue, put on your longest hound-dog face and say, "This is what I have to put up with every day I go to work!"
Be careful, though, not to let them peruse the poster for too long. They might notice the fat, red arrows that represent some exciting new technologies being engineered in vendor laboratories and newspaper plants around the world. It is true that the modern newspaper operation is a beast--an extraordinarily complex snarl of people, machines and processes.
It is also true that new technologies promise to slash through much of the complexity by eliminating parts of individual machines or entire steps in the process.
These technologies are based on the adage that less is more, and many even include the word "less" in their monikers--shaftless, keyless, waterless, filmless and paperless, to name a few. Others can be thought of as "to" technologies--computer to plate, computer to press, press to pocket--while still others use (or abuse) the word "digital"--digital ads, digital photography, digital presses.
After the new technologies are generally adopted, some sacred cows of newspaper production will be eliminated forever. Sayonara, shafts and straps. Farewell, film.
For now, though, most of these techniques are still brand new to the industry--assuming they are even off the drawing board. So to complement our poster highlighting "less is more" technologies, TechNews faxed out an informal survey that was completed by 197 newspapers. It shows which new technologies are in use, which are being tested and which will be tried sometime down the line. We also interviewed leading experts in each technical area. The responses are sometimes surprising, sometimes expected, but in all cases a fascinating snapshot of advancing newspaper technology as we approach the 21st century.
Digital ads may arrive faster than their paper-based counterparts, but many operations people tear their hair out over glitches in the digital transmission process. They bemoan advertisers who don't supply the correct data, and they wait anxiously for a widely accepted standard to hit the industry.
"Digital ads are a bear," reports Steve Huddleston, assistant publisher of The Reporter in Vacaville, Calif. "We are still struggling to find a common 'language' in which to speak to each other. We need standardization--now."
Yet others say they are relieved to be less dependent on unreliable snail mail, erratic delivery services and late-night waits for the Federal Express pickup. Besides, certain products on the market allow some standardization today, since so many advertisers and papers have adopted them. "AP Adsend and Adobe Acrobat are the best ideas for ad distribution since the invention of velox paper," says Allan Six, operations director for The Modesto Bee in Modesto, Calif.
Of the newspapers surveyed by TechNews, 150 accept digital ads, 17 are testing the capability, and 23 plan to test it within 5 years. Only a handful say they have no plans to accept digital ads.
When ads are properly sent, little work is needed. One paper reports that output, markup and paste-up time is reduced by up to 85 percent when there are no snags in the sending process.
Yet ad acceptance is frequently a problem, with incompatible font and file data heading the list of concerns. Many newspapers report that digital-ad transmission systems create so many headaches they'd be better off building all those ads in-house from scratch. One operations manager says the day he answered the TechNews survey, his paper had given up on an advertiser's electronic ad submission and had to resort to "borrowing" the ad from another newspaper.
Adobe's portable document format is rapidly being adopted as a formatting standard, but there are still several complaints. Acrobat 2.1 does not contain all the information needed to transmit pre-press characteristics for color, overprint, screen frequency, screen angle and under-color removal. Acrobat 3.0, due in 1997, will contain all of that information.
Furthermore, Acrobat 2.1 does not allow structuring comments such as number of plates, colors used in the plates and so on. Acrobat 3.0 will arrive with a plug-in that creates an encapsulated PostScript document with structuring comments built in.
"While Acrobat actually doesn't make color separations, you will be able to create an EPS file that's separated very easily," says Gary Cosimini, business-development manager for Acrobat at Adobe.
Meanwhile, Adobe is pushing for agreement on Acrobat as a de facto digital-ad standard, making the code readily available to other software developers. "The next step for us is getting as many vendors and suppliers as we can to support the format," says Cosimini.
While some papers use digital cameras for front-page and feature shots, many more use them for mug shots, real-estate ads and auto ads, judging from responses to the TechNews survey. Eighty-nine newspapers say they use digital cameras in some capacity, 30 are testing them and 67 plan to test them within five years.
The picture quality of affordable digital cameras is still not sufficient to replace 35-millimeter-film cameras, according to survey responses. But those who use digital cameras rave about the cost and time savings. One paper reported that a digital camera reduced film expenditures by 75 percent and processing fees by 25 percent, while Steve Robertson, president of the Yukon News in Canada's Yukon Territory, says a Kodak digital camera that cost $1,000 Canadian "easily paid for itself in two months." One newspaper reports that using digital cameras shaved a full day off its deadline for auto advertising. Others say that digital cameras allow photographers to file late-breaking pictures, which otherwise would have waited until the next day for publication. Many newspapers can go from the shoot to the page in less than ten minutes.
Low-end digital cameras retail for under $1,000, while the high-end news cameras cost from $15,000 to $16,000. Marty Katz, a freelance photojournalist in Baltimore, Md., uses a low-end Kodak DC50 to take digital photographs for The New York Times and a notebook computer to review and transmit the photos. "Big papers are used to receiving poor-quality wire photos from all over the globe, from wars, on deadline," Katz says. "This setup produces pictures that are usable on deadline."
Digital cameras promise to evolve in years to come. Today, it's tough to snap a good picture and get a good image on the page, but it can be done. "Downloading and manipulating through to the finished product at the newsprint stage has taken a lot of work," says Tony Daranyi, publisher of the Telluride Daily Planet in Telluride, Colo.
No fewer than 104 survey respondents say they plan to test computer-to-plate systems in the next five years, yet only three have a system in production and only two have one in testing.
While there is much interest in CTP all throughout the newspaper industry, high cost is a barrier. Many newspapers are depreciating older equipment and can't justify the added expense. Besides, most newspapers aren't yet fully paginated and can't realize the full benefit of going direct to plate.
Proponents of CTP claim many advantages. Image quality is sharper. Plates are imaged quickly, often providing a time savings over film-based technology, and sometimes allowing the newsroom more time on deadline. Film-tension problems, a stumbling block with film imagers, are eliminated, as are the hassles involved with disposing chemicals.
The Lexington Herald-Leader in Lexington, Ky., runs 25-to-30 plates a day on a NewsJet from Cymbolic Sciences. "We have a lot more that we could be doing, but we want to take it slow," says Charlie King, night operations manager. The newspaper hopes to have 40 to 50 percent of all plates running on the CTP system in the near future.
The NewsJet takes about 7 minutes to image all four colors and about 50 seconds to image black and white, according to King. And the number of steps skipped, from shooting the page on the pager to handling steps in the plate room, should produce some manpower savings, King says.
As with other new technologies, CTP is not cheap. Most systems cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Another stumbling block is the cost of the plates themselves, according to Tom Croteau, NAA's director of newspaper services. CTP-ready metal plates are in the $3 to $4 range, compared to less than $1 for conventional aluminum plates.
Around for more than 20 years for commercial presses, computer to plate for newspapers is now feasible for a number of reasons: the volume of digital data at newspapers is increasing, there have been tremendous advances in the availability of suitable plates, prices have dropped considerably (from $500,000 for some to under $200,000 today), and run lengths have improved. "You have a convergence of technologies to make this happen on a widespread basis," says Robert Heath, executive vice president of Cymbolic Sciences.
Inexpensive workstations are leading the price drop in CTP. A powerful workstation that cost perhaps $100,000 a few years ago now goes for less than $10,000, Heath says.
Newspapers with older imagers should consider replacing one with a computer-to-plate unit and sending paginated output through that line, says NAA's Croteau. "The risk is relatively low, because there are several hybrid machines that can output either film or plate material. So you can buy it and try it, but do not have to commit to doing without film," he says.
To date, few U.S. newspaper plants have tried keyless inking systems, but the TechNews survey indicates that may change. Nine newspapers say they have keyless technology in production, four are testing it and 15 more plan to test it in the next five years.
The major benefit of eliminating ink keys is a reduction in manpower, since a good keyless system should maintain consistent ink density without fluctuations. Faster startups producing less waste are also possible.
The South Bend Tribune in South Bend, Ind., has been running totally keyless since June 23, 1994, and is reporting success. Other newspapers that are going keyless include The Miami Herald and The Washington Post.
Yet some newspapers aren't convinced that they can trust keyless presses to replace manual ink adjustment, and some installations have had problems. The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., had the color portion of its keyless press retrofitted to conventional inking in 1992. "The color did not work because the design of the system was deficient," says Andy Harteveld, director of operations. "But we still use it for black ink, and it works fine."
Pre-press quality is paramount to the success of any keyless process, because once a job is on press, there is no chance for any color tweaking. "You have to baseline your press to determine what it's doing in terms of production and tailor your pre-press to fit it," says Croteau.
Keyless should evolve. Under research and development at KBA-Motter in York, Pa., is a waterless approach for high-speed newspaper applications that will eliminate the need for dampening, says Gary Owen, director of marketing and newspaper sales.
Goss Graphic Systems' keyless product, called ColorFlow, has the potential to incorporate single-fluid lithography, which will eliminate the need for a dampener because ink and water are combined. "This will be in the next generation of presses," says Marketing Director Barbara Gora.
Kenneth Fleming, president of the World Publishing Co. in Tulsa, Okla., was so impressed with the shaftless presses he saw in Europe that he ordered 74 print couples, making the Tulsa World the first American newspaper to dive into fully shaftless technology.
A separate drive motor controls each couple, and each motor can be independently controlled from the computer console. "I think this is a major breakthrough," Fleming says. "In my opinion, this whole setup should substantially reduce waste paper."
While newsprint-waste reduction is touted as a major advantage to shaftless, that's not all there is to it. Better control of the web means fewer web breaks and fewer unusable papers. And without metal line shafts, there is better access between press units.
Since ordering two presses this past summer, the Tulsa World has received calls from about 20 other newspapers asking for a tour when they are up and running. The first unit is due in Tulsa by the fall of 1997 and should be in operation in the first quarter of 1998.
While shaftless presses seem to be the talk of the industry right now, only 10 survey respondents say they have plans to try the technology in the next five years.
Nevertheless, all six major press manufacturers will have a fully shaftless product on the market within five years, according to Joe Ondras, vice president of North American sales for WIFAG Press Co., the only manufacturer with a fully shaftless product today.
In demonstrations, shaftless units have produced papers in perfect registration from start to finish, even after fast emergency stops.
"The inherent benefit is that it controls the webs better than any press I have seen," says the Tulsa World's Fleming. Not having to fight a drive shaft helps, as does the CPU that helps maintain web tension, eliminating fluttering, slack and backplay. Moreover, shaftless presses offer flexibility. "It's an ideal situation for a newspaper to add on additional units if they are shaftless, because it isn't at all necessary to align the shafts," says Frank Balentine, press manager for the NAA.
After converting to shaftless, the Tulsa World will need a different skill mix in maintenance, since repair and upkeep needs will be mostly electronic, not mechanical. Fleming expects the skills of electronic technicians will come more into play once the shaftless system is up and running.
One barrier to widespread acceptance of shaftless may be the price tag. The two WIFAG units ordered by the Tulsa World carry a combined price of about $35 million.
Meanwhile, computer-to-press applications are in very early research stages. "Computer to press is interesting, but there will be some advances in technology before it becomes a mainstream technology like computer to plate is today," says Heath of Cymbolic Sciences. "It will be an interesting thing at DRUPA 2000, but I doubt it will have much of an impact on the market before then."
All the big manufacturers are working to produce a digital press that will gain acceptance in the newspaper-printing world, but all of their concepts still seem to have limitations. "Digital presses have not evolved to the point where you can get the cost per piece and the consistency" needed for newspaper applications, says Gora. Goss, she adds, is planning to announce new digital technology for the newspaper industry in 1997.
Of newspapers that responded to the TechNews survey, 11 indicated a willingness to test digital presses. One such paper is the Times Record in Brunswick, Maine. "We don't have anything in line now," says associate publisher Doug Niven. "We are in the prior-to-investigative stage. I imagine within five years, we'll be testing something."
Digital presses should produce savings in plate, film, make-ready costs and paper waste. "Labor running the press should be about the same," says Pierre Castegnier, marketing vice president of Elcorsy Technology Inc. in Quebec, which is testing digital-press prototypes in Montreal and Tokyo.
Castegnier estimates that Elcorsy units should be commercially available in a year and a half. The unit currently prints at 200 ft. per minute, or one meter per second--the equivalent of 38,000 tabloid pages per hour. "Our goal is to reach 600 feet per minute in the next two years," Castegnier says.
While a press for a typical small newspaper may run at 1,000 feet per minute, a lot of time is wasted because of make-ready and stopping, steps the digital press eliminates. "If my process is 200 feet per minute and I print all day with no stops, I am faster than a 600 feet-per-minute press that stops to change jobs," Castegnier says.
While direct transfer from a single-gripper conveyor into an inserter is not a new concept, it has gained attention recently from newspapers that are looking to reduce manpower and run inserts at press speeds. Of the newspapers that responded to the TechNews survey, six have press-to-pocket systems in production, three say they are testing the technology, and 23 say they planned to test it within five years.
GMA's press-to-pocket system works with newspapers of up to 144 broadsheet pages. The company has installed 60 systems in about 20 sites since the product was introduced in 1987. The largest users are The Boston Globe, with 18 units, and The Sun in Baltimore, with seven.
"We are inserting at press speeds without interrupting production," says Neil Jackson, assistant production director for The Boston Globe's Billerica, Mass., satellite plant. "It allows us to get the job done in the standard production window."
One new player in the market is Heidelberg Finishing Systems of Dayton, Ohio, which has installed systems at the Rocky Mountain News in Denver and the Asbury Park Press in Neptune, N.J.
"Rocky loves it, and Asbury's been doing very well with it," says Dean Carney, service manager for Heidelberg. The Rocky Mountain News found it more efficient to insert automatically because they run many large products that previously required a great deal of labor.
Indeed, the driving force behind the decision to buy automatic insertion equipment seems to be a desire to reduce manpower needs. Papers that have installed such systems have found that they can effectively automate the process by introducing jackets into the pockets directly, without the product going into a hopper. No longer are workers required to move bundles, jog products and feed hoppers.
But press-to-pocket solutions are not for every newspaper. The cost for the conveyor alone is over $100,000, and inserters can run in the $500,000 to $1 million range, according to the Globe's Jackson. "It's fairly significant capital investment you have to recoup. You have to run it fairly often to pay for that," he says.
The concept of eliminating consumables from the bundling process has sparked some interest in the newspaper community, with 33 TechNews survey respondents saying they would like to test some sort of strapless bundling system within the next five years.
One recent pioneer is the Los Angeles Times. In a joint project with Machine Design Services, the Times has implemented a means of loading newspapers into a plastic container with 42-inch-high walls.
Each container, or "cube," holds 12 stacks of papers, and for the Los Angeles Times plant in Orange County, that means 1,200 96-page papers. The cubes have floating floors that are lowered as they are filled with papers.
Infeed conveyors move the containers underneath a loading mechanism called a collector. Papers are indexed on the collector in four rows, with three bundles in each row. After the indexed papers are lowered onto the floating floor of the container, the floor is lowered to accept the next layer.
The cubes are nested two high and loaded in trucks. Using this concept, the Orange County plant gets 20 percent more product per truck than palletized systems, and about 60 percent more per truck than wheeled-cart systems.
"We are going to put 10 systems in their plant," says Greg Greenan, marketing manager for Machine Design Services, which manufactures the loading equipment. "We've already put the first two in, and we are building the remaining eight."
Machine Design hasn't set a price for the system, but it is available now, and at least seven other newspapers have requested layouts and videos from the Times.
Besides eliminating consumables such as strapping, bottom wrap, stretch wraps and slip sheets, the cube system reduces product damage and saves labor, says Dave Skilliter, group leader in packaging and distribution at the Times' Orange County plant. Only 1.5 workers are required to operate the current system, compared to 4.5 before, says Skilliter.
Many newspapers can identify with the Times' desire to knock out consumables. "I'm tired of seeing my blue strap all over the city," says Dennis Creamer, distribution manager for the News & Record in Greensboro, N.C.
Creamer says he is impressed with the corrugated-plastic-bucket system developed by The Washington Post. He is also interested in a system recently developed by GMA, which drops papers into nestable buckets.
So what is the bottom line? The good news is that new technologies are coming that will someday help to streamline the production process and reduce at least some of its frustrating complexity. The bad news is that most of these technologies are still relatively immature--prices are high, standards are lacking and sometimes the technologies themselves are lacking.
The possibilities are endless, but the probabilities are more clearly defined. As NAA's Croteau puts it, "Technology no longer limits what we can do--but business sense does."
Andrew Bowser is a writer on technology and industrial applications. E-mail, andyb@comm.net; phone, (504) 897-4026.
Carl Bahn, GMA/Muller Martini, P.O. Box 31, West Boylston, Mass. 01583. E-mail, cbahn@IBM.net; phone, (508) 835-3317; fax, (508) 835-3527.
Frank Balentine, NAA, 11600 Sunrise Valley Drive, Reston, Va. 20191. E-mail, balef@naa.org; phone, (703) 648-1217; fax, (703) 648-1333.
Dean Carney, Heidelberg Finishing Systems, 4900 Webster St., Dayton, Ohio 45414, (513) 278-2651; fax, (513) 274-5719.
Pierre Castegnier, Elcorsy Technology Inc., 4405 Terrier Blvd., St. Laurent, Quebec H4R2A4, (514) 337-6573; fax (514) 337-0042.
Gary Cosimini, Adobe Systems Inc., 520 Madison Ave., 35th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10022. E-mail, gcosimin@adobe.com; phone, (212) 832-6230; fax, (212) 832-6010.
Dennis Creamer, News & Record, P.O. Box 2048, 200 E. Market St., Greensboro, N.C. 27420, (910) 373-7000; fax, (910) 373-5958.
Tony Daranyi, Telluride Daily Planet, P.O. Box 2315, Telluride, Colo. 81435. E-mail, TDplanet@aol.com; phone, (970) 728-9788; fax, (970) 728-9793.
Kenneth Fleming, Tulsa World, P.O. Box 770, Tulsa, Okla. 79102, (918) 581-8300; fax, (918) 584-8966.
Barbara Gora, Goss Graphics Systems Inc., 700 Oakmont Lane, Westmont, Ill. 60559, (708) 850-5600; fax, (630) 850-6042.
Greg Greenan, Machine Design Systems Inc., 3535 Larimer St., Denver, Colo. 80205., (303) 294-0275; fax, (303) 294-0634.
Andy Harteveld, The Star-Ledger, 1 Star-Ledger Plaza, Newark, N.J. 07102, (201) 877-4141; fax, (201) 624-1857.
Robert Heath, Cymbolic Sciences, P.O. Box 4147, Blaine, Wash. 98231-4147, (360) 332-4054; fax, (360) 332-8032.
Steve Huddleston, The Reporter, 916 Cotting Lane, Vacaville, Calif. 95688. E-mail, newsroom@thereporter.com; phone, (707) 448-6401; fax, (707) 447-8411.
Neil Jackson, The Boston Globe, P.O. Box 2378, Boston, Mass. 02107-2378, (508) 670-3601; fax, (508) 670-3675.
Marty Katz, freelance photographer. E-mail, bbgpix@aol.com.
Charlie King, Lexington Herald-Leader, 100 Midland Ave., Lexington, Ky. 40508-1999, (606) 231-3100.
Joe Ondras, WIFAG Press Co., 640 Gumby Road, Maretta, Ga. 30067, (770) 850-8511; fax, (770) 850-8550.
Gary Owen, KBA-Motter Corp., P.O. Box 1562, York, Pa. 17405, (717) 755-1071; fax, (717) 755-2327.
Steve Robertson, Yukon News, 211 Wood St., Whitehorse, Yukon Territory Y1A2E4. E-mail, steverob@yknet.yk.ca; phone, (403) 667-6285; fax (403) 668-3755.
Joe Runde, Kodak Professional, 343 State St., Rochester, N.Y. 14650, (716) 724-2364.
Allan Six, The Modesto Bee, P.O. Box 3928, 1325 H St., Modesto, Calif. 95352, (209) 578-2000; fax, (209) 238-4567.
Dave Skilliter, Los Angeles Times, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626, (714) 966-5901; fax, (714) 966-7853.
©1997 Newspaper Association of America. All rights reserved.