4th Special Focus Symposium on Catallactics: Quantitative-Behavioural Modelling Of Human
Actions and Interactions on Markets.
Improvement the productivity and costs in graphic production system
Klaudio Pap1, PhD; Mario Barisic2, PhD; Ivica Pogarcic3, PhD candidate
1
University of Zagreb, Faculty of Graphic Art, Getaldiceva 2, HR-10000 Zagreb, Croatia; [email protected];
2
Vjesnik d.d., Slavonska avenija 4 HR-10000 Zagreb, Croatia; mario.barisic @vjesnik.hr;
3
Polytechnic of Rijeka Rijeka, Vukovarska 58, HR- 51000 Rijeka, Croatia; [email protected]
Keywords: graphic reproduction, modelling and simulation, digital workflows, XML,
relation database
Abstract
Publishing of results following many simulation experiments based on the created digital
workflows base, correlated research work, research in respect to machine utilization, subchain, chain and the complete workflow productivity. Improvement of the existing operations
and workflows on all levels of graphic reproduction. Detection of bottlenecks in production.
Results of measuring the productivity and costs and defining the areas where investment
returns will be the greatest. Defined methods in searching for the best work path, i.e. work
flow with possible use and hypothetic workflows or sub-chains for the best investment results.
1. Introduction
Improvement in productivity and costs in the graphic production system has become
an imperative today for all publishing houses. With the increase of different printing
technologies, as well as the overall knowledge development in carrying out printing
operations and more accessible financial means for purchasing the necessary equipment, there
is now severe competition in graphic reproduction jobs. The profit share in classical printing
jobs is continuously becoming smaller whereas greater profit is gained by specialized nonstandard jobs for which one has to possess advanced knowledge and specialized tools and
machines. Such non-standard jobs are not the subject of this paper because their productivity
problem is less apparent and for the time being implies fewer problems.
Printing jobs with less profit per production unit may be maintained only with large
printing runs being sold out. And now we have questions that many printing organizations
have not found answers to, or have not even made an effort to do so: “Can my printing
organization's printing capacity satisfy today's low market price and do I have the production
capacity to finish the job in the set term?” If printing organizations could find the answers to
these questions, they could react faster and be more secure in taking action to modernize and
change the manner of their business operations. They could begin searching for adequate
business partners in due time or begin reconstructing a complete plant in such a way as to
have some obsolescent parts of production necessary for the end product to be carried out by
outside partners in the outsourcing mode.
The most important issue is how one should learn about one's own position.
Developed manners of graphic production standardization have been carried out in previous
works [5] [6] that have been implemented in XML form. This has been a basis for developing
software systems for modeling and simulation with the code name WebPoskok, the authors of
which are Dr. Vilko Žiljak and Dr. Klaudio Pap from the Zagreb Faculty of Graphic Arts.
This system enables simulation experimenting with the most different graphic reproduction
workflows. It already contains the base with hundreds of printing process workflows on basis
of printing machine standards, graphic prepress operations and graphic postpress operations
[2] [3]. In this paper we have utilized the possibilities of this developed system and have
chosen the current problem taken from practice as an example of the manner for improving
the productivity and costs in the graphic production system.
2. Workflow in Graphic Production
The workflow in graphic production is most often determined by the page layout on
the printing sheet. The same number of pages, i.e. the book block volume may be planned for
the same printing unit in many different ways. The number of combinations for planning the
printing sheet increases even more if we have several printing units. The sheet area is the
factor that is of the greatest influence when planning, but depending on the postpress
operations, fiber direction in the sheet paper may also be significant, because it may decrease
the number of possibilities in the printing sheet layout planning. As soon as the sheet plan is
altered, it is necessary to make new phase modeling in the workflow, and this is often the case
for both the printing and postpress.
The example taken in this paper has the following parameters: review, stapled, 48
pages 4/4 on 70g paper, covers 4/4 on 150g paper, printing run from 25,000 to 200,000 with
steps of 25,000. The following production phases are necessary for this job: cover printing,
book block printing, cover cutting, cover bending, assembling and stapling, and band
packaging. These production phases may be carried out with the help of many different
contemporary machines. We shall assume that we have Lithoman and Polyman web offset
machines, an offset four-color unit for sheet printing, a PANZER line for wire binding and
hand packing. With such machinery there can be several different workflows for one and the
same job. It is generally known that a Lithoman machine is double in size as to format than
the Polyman one, that Lithoman is faster than Polyman, that the make ready for Lithoman is
much longer than for Polyman, and that the price per hour for make ready and production is
significantly more expensive for Lithoman in comparison to the Polyman machine. A
production engineer may not be sure at the beginning which workflow is the best because the
book block printing phase may be done on the Polyman machine alone or only on the
Lithoman machine, or there may even be hybrid use of both machines. It may be assumed that
the choice will depend on the set printing run and not only on the number of pages.
Three possible workflows have been modeled in this case and they have been stored in
the workflow base. Experimental simulation has been carried out for each workflow, taking
into account different printing run parameters, namely: 25,000, 50,000, 75,000, 100,000,
125,000, 1500,000, 175,000 and 200,000 copies. The workflow for the Polyman machine
only requires the printing of 3 sheets containing 16 pages each, the workflow for the
Lithoman machine only requires the printing of one sheet containing 32 pages and one sheet
with 16 pages, whereas the hybrid workflow requires 1 sheet with 32 pages printed on the
Lithoman machine and one sheet containing 16 pages on the Polyman machine.
3. Machine Utilisation
As preparation time for the machine is relatively long (up to 1 hour), it was interesting
to determine the machine utilization per the set printing run from the time when the job order
was handed over for the printing phase up to the moment the job was completed. There are
some parameters included in the make ready phase that actually occur after printing has
begun, such as roll changing, plate set exchange due to the determined plate durability, plate
changing because of a new sheet within the printing phase and the time necessary to wash the
machine.
The chart shows that utilization is best with the Polyman machine (Figure 1). At the
same time this is proof of this machine’s flexibility, especially for lower printing runs (from
25,000 to 125,000, 0.7 to 0.85), whereas utilization is too high for printing runs over 125,000,
and this would turn any stoppage or failure into a workflow production bottleneck. The
Lithoman in respect to larger printing runs the ratio of the make ready in respect to printing is
becoming more and more favorable. The hybrid phase in this respect has improved utilization
for printing run intervals exceeding 12,500.
Figure 1 Machine utilisation
4. Subchain productivity
Subchain productivity is shown in Figure 2. The printing phase time period was
measured from the moment graphic make ready was completed to the postpress phase. This
reflected that the subchain with the Lithoman machine was more favorable than the subchain
with the Polyman machine only when the printing run exceeded 165,000, wheras the hybrid
subchain was more favorable with runs exceeding 50,000. In practice this would mean that
the Polyman subchain should be used with runs up to 50,000 copies and the hybrid one with
the number of copies exceeding 50,000.
Figure 2 Subchain productivity - press
5. Workflow productivity
The productivity of the complete workflow that includes all the necessary phases for
the given job is shown in the time period execution graphic chart in respect to the set runs in
Figure 3. It shows that the workflow with the hybrid subchain is the most favorable one, but
the noticable improvement may be seen only when the printing run exceeds 100,000 copies.
The reasons for this are manifold. There is difference between each workflow in respect to the
other not only in respect to printing, but also in the graphic make ready part and in postpress.
The number of sheets is not the same, nor the number of cuttings, the type and number of
times the plates are bended, the roll width, technological additions and many other parameters
in the production workflow.
Figure 3 Workflow productivity
Besides recording the workflow duration, Figure 4 also shows the graphic table of costs per
unit of production for each workflow separately on basis of different printing run production
quantities. It is only here that one can fully see how a badly chosen worklflow may effect a
printing house's business operations. One could easily make the wrong conclusion on basis of
the graphic chart that the best choice would be workflow 1 with the Polyman machine, and
this would be a trap if we did not study the former graphic charts and previous analysis. If
there is not satisfactory productivity within the given term, there may be great financial
penalties that shatter the lower graphic chart completely. This is why it is necessary for a set
printing run to first see the productivity of unit workflows from the base, and then see the
most favorable price. This needs to be further corrected also with the set additional reduction
of terms linked with production planning inside the printing works in respect to earlier fixed
jobs that may be contracted even for a whole year ahead (daily newspapers, weeklies, and
monthly issues). It is also interesting to conclude how the unit price for workflow 1 is very
slightly lowered for printing runs over 100,000, whereas one can see how there is potential
energy for the remaining two workflows for even larger printing runs.
Figure 4 Workflow costs
5. Conclusion
Workflow analysis in this paper makes way for better possibilities as to improvement
in productivity and costs in the graphic production system. If it is determined on basis of
analyzing one workflow productivity in comparison to another one that there is improvement,
then the usually applied workflow that has not gone through analysis in respect to printing run
intervals may be altered.
For those workflows where there is potential energy for larger printing runs
researchers can perform additional analysis in order to correct the production standards or to
reorganize the plants, automation of certain phases or they may even try outsourcing certain
production phases. The term potential energy of a workflow means that its productivity or
unit price have not been saturated during the printing run increase.
There is possibility for production bottlenecks where the slow and fast production
operations collide and after determining machine utilization in the production chain
workflows should be changed depending on the printing runs and type of product. The
existence of workflow databases and the possibility of modeling and their experimental
simulation makes analysis and proper application shown in this paper faster and simpler.
Workflows may be hypothetical. The workflow shown with the printing hybrid subchain was
hypothetical because it would have been too expensive to measure its productivity and price
in practice. This paper also sets the methods of searching for the best workflow. The
production time and the price may be set for any workflow for any printing run.
6. Reference
1. V. Žiljak, V. Šimovic, K. Pap:"Simulation of Stohastic System of Printing Procedures",The
International Conference on Modeling and Simulating of Complex System, ICMSCS 2002,
Chengdu, Sichuan, China
2. V. Žiljak, K. Pap, D. Agić, I. Žiljak:"Modelling and Simulation of Integration of Web
system, Digital and Conventional Printing", 29th International Research Conference of
IARIGAI, Lake of Lucerne, Switzerland, 2002
3. V. Žiljak, K. Pap, V. Šimovic:"The Simulation of Integrated Convencional and Digital
Enterpreneurship System Models with The Financial Patameters ", 15th International
Conference on Systems Research, Informatics and Cybernetics- INTERSYMP - best paper
award, Baden-Baden, Germany, 2003, ISBN 953-99326-0-2
4. Žiljak,Vilko; Pap,Klaudio;Nježić,Zoran;Žiljak,Ivana:ÓPrinting process simulation based
on data for standards taken from actual productionÓ, The 31st International Research
Conference of IARIGAI,Copenhagen,Danska, 2004.
5. Žiljak, Vilko; Šimovic, Vladimir; Pap, Klaudio: ENTREPRENEURSHIP MODEL:
PRINTING PROCESSES SIMULATION WITH TIMES AND PRICES IN THE BASE FOR
NORMATIVE PROVISIONS,Announcing InterSympŐ2004Baden-Baden,16th International
Conference on Systems Research, Informatics and Cybernetics,Baden-Baden , Njemacka,
2004
6. Žiljak, Vilko; Šimovic, Vladimir; Pap, Klaudio: ORGANIZING DIGITAL NORMATIVE
PROVISIONS AS THE BASE FOR SIMULATION OF THE POST-PRESS,5th EUROSIM
Congress on Modelling and Simulation, Paris,2004