Repairs, Paint and Pride
Appearances are sometimes more important than we might imagine, as the DailyJournal in Franklin, Ind., recently discovered.
January and February are notoriously slow months in the advertisingdepartments of most publications. This decline in advertising sales createssmaller printed products for newspapers and fewer commercial jobs for commercialprinters, and thus less work in production departments.
Still, staffing has to be kept in place, for the most part, in order forproduction departments to meet the challenges of increased work as the year goeson. This leaves managers with a real problem concerning how to get the most outof their staffs during these slow times.
Like many printers, the Daily Journal uses such down time for "deepmaintenance" of its Goss Community press, to supplement the daily andweekly maintenance work carried out the rest of the year. After all, maintenanceis not a pure expense, but a real money saver when handled properly.
This year, however, Joe Saba, production manager, added a new twist to the "deepmaintenance" program--a twist that he believes will have a payback both inmaintenance and printing quality.
The program began when Saba asked his crew to replace a broken operator-sidecover on the press. When the bill for the new cover came in, he was shocked atthe price but was amazed at how good the new cover looked on the old press. Hethen decided to have all the remaining covers repaired and painted.
Once the covers were all repaired and painted with an oil-base paint mixedto match the original "Goss blue," the metal press steps looked dingy,so Saba told the crew to paint them. This made the rest of the press look oldand dirty by comparison to the freshly painted covers and steps. The solutionwas to have the crew clean and paint the entire press and two folders, front toback.
The entire job took three weeks, with the pressmen doing the painting indown times between printing jobs. When it was finished, however, the 20-year-oldpress looked almost brand new.
The "payback," for the company, however, began immediately in theform of enthusiastic press workers. Having a shiny press with a fresh coat ofpaint that they put on themselves seemed to fill the workers with pride. Saba nolonger had to remind the press workers to wipe the ink off press surfaces.
Quality consciousness in the pressroom was improved, according to Saba. Histheory is that when the press appearance says "quality," it is easierto get pressroom personnel to think quality and monitor quality. So far it'sworking. More quality means fewer mistakes and better profit margins. That makeseveryone smile--from company owners on down.