April results -- press issues to consider

Press issues related to late starts and web breaks contributed to a drop in April's score -- 91.72 vs. 92.23 for March.

Press starts for the month scored 88.18 (a significant drop from the March score of 92.90). Some of the later starts were due to commercial print work (specifically the Portland Phoenix and Weekly Sentinel) that ran long. Other late starts were due to Herald pages getting plated later than normal. We'll have to dig into why.

Late starts and longer press runs because of web breaks or other mechanical issues had a direct impact on run-time and finish scores in Post-Press, two categories that also went down in April.

Post-Press run time score was 98.39 in March but dropped to 92.97 in April. Post-Press finish score dropped from 100 in March to 93.61.

Longer runs were due to a variety of mechanical issues, such as folder jams. But one issue that stands out from the run data is a higher than usual frequency of web breaks particularly on Tower 4 during April. A web break means down time, and the down time can get particularly lengthy if a web break on Tower 4 also led to web breaks on other towers, which was sometimes the case. It's something that Plate/Press Manager Alan Laskey and his crew will have to review and resolve.

If the press is down, then it isn't feeding product to the inserter, which makes for longer mailroom runs.

On the plus side, April saw improvements in scores for plate calibration, graybar, color registration, photo quality, and ad quality.

To see the complete scorecard, please click on the April results to the right.

Paul Briand

March grade an A-

The overall quality grade for March was 91.53, about three quarters of a point behind February’s grade. This would amount to about an A- on the report card.

There were a few down turns from the previous month – photo quality, run time and finish time.

No one item was responsible for the change in photos – fuzzy, over-enlarged, poor toning … it as all over the map, but Don continues to work on the editorial side to address the quality issues. As for post-press run times and finish times, the two bad nights were due to press issues having an effect on post-press. If the press isn’t running, it can’t feed product to the mailroom. On the night of March 13 it was an array of web breaks and on March 23 it was a problem with a sensor in the folder.

There were improved scores in several areas – plate calibration, registration, press defects, ad quality and insertion accuracy. Plate calibration scores improved a lot over March, this despite an overhaul of Line 1 late in the month that messed up calibrations for a couple of days. There was also a significant improvement in graybar scores, which means that overall the color inking improved as it was evenly set to the proper measurements.

The full scoreboard for March is available on the rail to the right.