| Issue 7 What's the Problem with the Final Steps of Newspaper Production? |
 |
Automation
figures prominently during the beginning and middle stages of newspaper
production, as well as inserting pre-prints into sections. Then, in
the final stages, only a few hours before newspapers land on driveways
or get stacked at newsstands, there is an amazing change: Automation
simply vanishes!
Just before delivery, rooms with worktables fill with carriers and helpers who assemble, collate and package the final newspapers … by hand. It’s as if the hands of time move backwards in the newspaper industry just as the delivery deadline approaches each morning. What happened to process improvement and integration of new technology?Jams, Misfeeds & Unpredictability. As a publisher or a manufacturer, you know extensive automation exists for newspaper production and pre-prints inserting. You probably use some kind of automation everyday. But very little automation has successfully been adapted to the final, assembly stage of production. Why? In short, because the product is hard to handle. Think how tricky it can be to handle a generously filled, crispy taco. You need to grasp it just so – or risk losing all the good stuff inside. It’s the same with large, heavy, stuffed-to-the-gills newspapers In truth, the final preparation stage is when the product becomes toughest to handle. What’s more, the product is an unpredictable wild card in an attempt to manage a standardized manufacturing process. Insert-packed jackets affect the product’s shape and stability. The accumulated bulk and weight of multiple sections make it difficult for two human hands to control the very product. Thus, this is the point where automation faces its greatest challenge in achieving acceptable performance in the face of delivery deadline pressures. Automation has not met this material handling challenge for one fundamental reason: There has been no reliable way to feed large newspaper sections, especially those filled with inserts or pre-prints. When faced with the size and weight of many final newspapers, conventional hoppers frequently jam and experience misfeeds. There has not been a way to produce a reliable, consistent feed of newspaper sections. Ergonomic Issues Tasks involving repetitive, often rapid, hand motions for sustained time periods – such as gripping a stuffed newspaper section or folding a completed paper full of slippery inserts and stuffing it into a plastic bag – are typical of tasks that present ergonomic concerns. When these types of injuries occur in certain kinds of manual tasks, they cause workers much pain and suffering and can result in lost work time, worker’s comp claims, and even litigation. This is by no means an attempt to blame workers for these injuries! In fact, some of these tasks grew out of performance expectations that go far beyond the capability of the human anatomy. The correct response to ergonomic injuries is to eliminate the task causing them or to improve the process. BIG STUFF® Feeders can do both. You Say You Can't Start the Stream of
Single Papers? Now There are No More Obstacles There’s yet another problem BIG STUFF® addresses: reduced productivity. Stress, fatigue, and time pressures from trying to meet a tight delivery schedule can cause workers to slow down near the end of a collating, folding or bagging run. Deadlines are a time-honored part of the newspaper business. But as production nears completion and pressure to complete the work on time increases right along with fatigue, the likelihood of injury and errors in judgment that can cause loss of insert product also increases. Once again BIG STUFF® improves the process because this machine handles high-fatigue tasks. In summary, "vanishing automation" in the final stage of production has shown up as ergonomic issues, waste, threats to productivity, compromised delivery times, and all the associated costs. Where do we go from here? Stepper Inc.'s BIG STUFF®. For more information…
|