Future Digital Multi-Media Platform

The next generation of information dessimination is rapidly approaching; but the framework is still under construction. The lines between newspaper operations and multi-media will be blurred as the local newspapers become the 24/7 news source for their local markets.

The consumer is becoming more digital savvy and expects custom content delivered when, where and how they want it. Consumers will utilize the newspaper customer database to create custom profiles; detailing their interests and and locations throughout the day. Visualize a multi-pane window - each pane is a different view of the world and contains specific content that is important to the customer at that time. For example, the 6am view has overnight news updates and traffic reports, where as the afternoon view has closing stock prices and school updates. Content can be taylored, highlighting baseball only during the season and advertising for specific pending purchases or ongoing consumer items, like the local grocery store specials.

The news media platform will be dynamic and a 24/7 streaming information source. Tayloring content and information as updates occur and into a morning print product to be delivered to the driveway, local home printer or epaper device.

Publishers and media companies need to think about building the centralized content database today - to store and retreave information dynamically as a product or individual profile queries the information.

Variable Data and Digital Printing

A buzz from DRUPA has been the new generation of digital web printing, it seems that it's not just for statement printing anymore. Digital web printing is branching out to commercial and newspaper applications and several OEM's are looking at the newspaper market to establish their niche.

Since the early 1900's, newspapers have been produced on high speed web presses that crank out thosands of the same product and have only gotten faster as the newspaper industry rolled into the 21st century. The newspaper industry's transition to color in the 1980's also redefined the industry and newspapers continue to add capacity or reconfigure equipment to deliver full-color advertising.

Technology today is adding a relatively new capability for digital web printing; variable content. Variable data printing isn't exactly new, but the expansion of the forms and statement printing platforms into digital web printing capabilities for newspapers and commercial printers is new.

The newspaper market is squarely in the cross-hairs of this new technology - which is a great thing. Advertisers might get excited again about newspapers if the industry can deliver 100% color capacity and variable data content and ads. Advertisers just might be interested in pin point accuracy of ads that match demographics of a neighborhood or an individual subscriber profile. Advertiser might be willing to pay higher ad rates to deliver ad content that they know will be realevant to the consumer.

Looking back 25 years, we easily realize the evolution that color brought to the newspaper markets. Today, digital web presses revealed at DRUPA is likely the next generation of technology that will deliver the next evolution of the newspaper to the consumer market.

Digital Media: Building a Multi-media Platform

The print newspaper is now only one of the media platforms to deliver content to consumers. Today, information is disseminated through print, Internet, RSS feeds, hand-held devices and a variety of other wireless devices.

NAA is working on a project to quickly build the digital media platform to deliver multi-media content to consumers - but significant changes are needed to make this integration a reality. For years, newspapers have operated on a single-product workflow. In the changing multi-media environment, there are several workflows and products to disseminate information - so the future media delivery platform will rely on a content database, with articles, photos and ads (all content) dynamically coded to be delivered through all delivery methods. Several suppliers and universities have created content based content management products and dissemination models that will deliver content from a centralized database.

Today, targeting the customer is based widely on demographics and social statistics for specific areas or age groups. But customer specific media content delivery, which is based on a specific consumer's interests and demographics, does not exist. The piece of the media delivery model that needs to built is the Customer Profile Database; where customers are invited to create interest profiles and register online for topic specific delivery of content. For example, if you are a SF Giants fan and want in-depth stories and analysis throughout the season; then that's the content that is sent to you. The customer chooses the topics, content sources and information delivery method.

The advantage to the newspaper/media company is the ability to deliver targeted ad content precisely to consumers based on their customer profile of interests. The customer profile will contain broad interests and activities; ie. do you own a dog or cat. If the consumer owns a dog, than specific ads for dog food or dog products will be sent to the consumer, not cat products. The accuracy and depth of the Customer Profile Database is endless - do they own a European or American car, the age of their kids, business interests and investments, outdoor activities, etc. Consumers can also specify the type or source for content - choosing only national news or only sports, or only specific news sources. The creation of multi-branded newspaper or digital media is coming. A customer might want their local home town news, USA Today sports and Wall Street Journal business news. The technology is evolving to deliver specific content - so newspaper/media companies will need to think about how to offer story or section specific content bundled with content from other sources.

So look at this as the first step to individualized content delivery, where you can tailor ads and interest specific content from multiple sources into a single individualized newspaper, web-page, or RSS feed.

Pressroom Performance Metrics

When you're talking about Pressroom or Inserting production - do you know how well your operation is performing? For many newspapers, Production's performance is evaluated only on delivering the newspaper on-time - also known as the press off-time, last truck out time or stop time. Independent of what you call it, making the newspaper delivery time will likely keep the Publisher satisfied until next year's budget cycle, but isn't a guarantee that the production process is efficient.

There are many times that the operation is not under deadline pressure or has a longer than necessary production window. If you're not careful, the production performance can shift into "cruise" to fill the production window, but this also reduces efficiency. Running the equipment at a slower than rated speed isn't giving the press a 'rest' or is any easier on the machinery - it's simply less efficient and increases production costs.

In today's newspaper industry environment, getting the most out of your operation is critical and tracking operating performance is essential to maximizing efficiency.

The basic benchmarks for any production operation is make-ready time, overall waste percentage, start-up waste count, running speed, and net speed. All of these variables can be measured and tracked to determine the efficiency of the pressroom.

A key evaluation point in a high performance pressroom is core waste - how much paper is on the core after a paster. Obviously core breaks and running off the core is not acceptable, but so is having 1" of newsprint on the core. The reel and paster adjustments should be fine-tuned to have approx. 1/4" of newsprint remaining on the core; otherwise it's like leaving dollar bills wrapped on every core.

Another important evaluation of your pressroom is start-up waste; the number of papers it takes to get a sellable copy off the press. If that number is 500 or 2500; start-up waste should be a continuous improvement initiative. The first question is to ask why was the first copy acceptable and the previous copy wasn't. Having the press-crew evaluate the last bad copy will enlighten them, and management, to issues and opportunities for improvement. Was the last bad copy rejected because of ink density - then investment in ink levelers or CIP4 ink presets might be easy ROI, or was the problem registration - then finding the root cause of the variation and upgrading reel stands or nips/trolleys might bring color into register faster and reduce start-up waste.

Not all jobs are created equal. If it's the press configuration or the number/size of inserts running in the packaging center; all jobs should have a difficulty factor. This is job specific performance targets based on history. If you're running all full-rolls on press, without angle bars or other special web moves, that the press should be able to run faster than if you have 1/4 rolls and angle-bars moving the web. So to maximize efficiency, establish performance targets for specific types of jobs.

So even if the newspaper is delivered on-time; the challenge in today's newspaper market is to establish detailed production performance metrics to find additional efficiency and reduce costs.

LEAN & Six-Sigma Tools for Newspapers

Today, the newspaper industry is looking for anything and everything to improve efficiency and reduce costs to survive. Unfortunately, the typical approach is cutting staff and quality of goods; not looking at improving processes within the newspaper. The multi-media transition for the newspaper industry is begging for process improvements to lead the industry change. The answer is outside the traditional newspaper operation - there are two very important quality tools that can optimize the transition and reduce costs: LEAN and Six-Sigma

What are they?
LEAN: Root out waste so you can accelerate production.
Six-Sigma: Near-perfection is possible . . . so aim for it.

LEAN focuses on speed and efficiency, reducing cycle time, and focus on customer needs to define product value. To achieve such acceleration, LEAN finds waste and plans how to eliminate it. I.e., define optimal manufacturing processes to minimize production time and implements changes to improve efficiency. Waste is defined as non-value-added work, and there are eight types: wasted human talent, defects, sitting inventory, overproduction, waiting time, motion, transportation and waste processing—the time required to handle the consequences of the types of waste. LEAN uses specific tools to analyze process flow and delay times for each activity along the way. The results amassed provide a means of quantifying and eliminating the costs woven into the business complexities.
Downside: LEAN will not bring a process under statistical control.

Six-Sigma is all about manufacturing accuracy through a data-driven, problem-solving method to eliminate product defects identified by customers in ways that are sustainable. It involves a comprehensive set of quality-improvement tools, within a framework or set of rules and guidelines that has already shown itself to be effective at problem solving. Six-Sigma has been used to stabilize manufacturing operations by eliminating defects, produce products with higher reliability, and get new products to market faster. Applying Six-Sigma methodology is a complex process, one that requires internal changes in infrastructure to create an environment for obtaining results that are sustainable over time. The well-known Six-Sigma production standard is for no more than 3.4 defects per million product units. It’s a high target, and companies that apply Six-Sigma techniques correctly are meeting it routinely.
Downside: By itself, Six-Sigma cannot effect dramatic improvements in process speed or reduce invested capital.

United, the two tools quantify and eliminate the cost of complexity. Combining the two methodologies, LEAN Six-Sigma Manufacturing sets up interactions that reinforce each other. Percentage gains in Return on Investment Capital (ROIC) come much faster if LEAN and Six-Sigma are implemented together. “Just speed” or “just quality” will not produce the balanced results that enable an organization to ratchet up quality to a level defined by customers within a set time period. Industry leaders, such as Toyota and Motorola, have used LEAN Six-Sigma tools successfully to focus on customer needs and propel them to leadership positions in their respective industries. At the core, LEAN Six-Sigma is a data-based structure for making reality based decisions and eliminating waste out of the processes required to deliver news to the reader.

LEAN Six-Sigma Manufacturing Within the Industry
Many trends in the industry embody LEAN Six-Sigma Manufacturing principles, whether intentionally or not:

LEAN
1. Outsource functions for efficiency, cost reduction and better customer service.
2. Reduce the geographic area where papers are distributed, thereby reducing circulation, newsprint and transportation expenses, and allowing more targeted focus on the stated needs of core audiences.
3. Using common operational systems and data bases to optimize communication between departments.

SIX-SIGMA
1. Participate in the International Color Quality Club program and qualify for the SNAP Certificate to tighten and test printing competencies.
2. Participate in the ABC Insert Verification Process, as the audit program already has demonstrated that the industry is nearing 98-percent accuracy, indicating careful control of insertion processes.
3. Use production run data to track production efficiency and identify sources of downtime.
4. Determine the organization’s carbon footprint.

LEAN + SIX-SIGMA
1. Employ ink presets so that both ink and time are saved, newsprint waste is reduced, and product quality rises.
2. Use ICC profiles and GCR in your photo editing process to optimize quality and consistency of color photos.

All these suggestions will ultimately make your operation more efficient and cost effective, but more importantly it will refocus your management team and staff to look for answers and improvements beyond just cost cutting.