By Mark Rushton, Editor, Pulp & Paper International Magazine, RISI
BRUSSELS,
June 15, 2009
(Viewpoint) -
By Mark Rushton, Editor, Pulp & Paper International Magazine, RISI - May 2009
Roger Warwick is currently an independent consultant and field technician working with paper mills and paper merchants in Europe, and has developed somewhat of a reputation as a hardened expert in both the printing process and the papermaking process. Because of the respect he earned in his earlier day to day work, Warwick was affectionately known as "Dr No", due to his sympathetic, but matter of fact, "take no prisoners" style when dealing with compensation claims from printers in regard to paper and print problems, a highly active area particularly now in the current market downturn, when every ounce of profit or loss counts.
Warwick started his career in printing and worked for around 20 years at both large and small printing companies, working in production, and in the pressroom, including Garrod & Lofthouse, a company famous for taking the original brown LP record covers, and transforming them into multi-color sleeves. In fact one of the original covers the company produced was for The Beatles' Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The most significant one was the London Town album, which actually carries the printing color bars as its border!
After his spell in print, Warwick decided to go into the paper side of things, and worked for KNP (Royal Dutch Paper Mills), starting off in the sales department but rapidly moved to the technical department where he worked for 16 years through several changes to what is now Sappi. He then set up another technical department for Metsa Serla UK (now M-real) and was there until relatively recently firefighting and troubleshooting, and latterly mainly linked to sales of paper and board to publishing merchants.
During the last 25 years Warwick has travelled extensively, including Europe and North America, visiting not only printers, but many mills as well, keeping up with the changing face of technology in both areas. He is a member of the UK based Association of Print and Paper Technicians, an independent technical association.
PPI: What strikes you as being the major transformation over the years when it comes to technology in paper for printers?
Warwick: Well, for a start, the main point is that paper is of a much better quality than it was 20 years ago, in fact it has moved on in leaps and bounds.
Papermakers develop products mainly due to demand by the market, for instance the preference for a matt coated finish as opposed to very glossy - and they have generally been very quick to respond. But there are also other elements; printing has, and is going through the most enormous changes, firstly in the shape of multi color presses. Whilst four color presses had become the norm' 20 years ago, it is now not uncommon to have six, eight, and even twelve color presses, and this has meant that R&D in papermaking has really had to rise to the challenges. High speed web offset presses are also running much faster now than could have been imagined, and with the technology involved, paper has to be reliable. There is also the growing presence of the digital printing processes, which in a lot of cases, has meant a completely new approach to papers that have to be developed to handle the different method of getting an image on a sheet.
Another major challenge has been the increasing demand of shorter production times. Printers don't want to hang around waiting for a print job to dry before finishing, they want to get it out of the door and invoiced as quickly as possible. So producing paper - especially of the matt or silk variety - that dries almost instantly it hits the paper is what a printer is most interested in now.
Can you tell us what your day to day job as a field technician in the paper industry involves?
Trouble shooting in the field involves the basics really, identifying problems, and finding out why they have occurred in the first place, but most importantly ascertaining whether it is a printing problem, or a paper problem. From a mill perspective, paper is sold to the merchant, or direct to the printers and publishers. Technical problems then crop up, for instance back cylinder piling on perfectors, or picking off the surface onto the blanket, or a mottled image. There are a million and one things that can be a problem, but there are one or two hardcore ones which come up regularly, such as where paper has been exposed to localized atmospheric conditions, and result in doubling or creasing due to paper absorbing or discharging moisture.
As part of my job, I go to printers, and try to work with them to see if the problem can be solved. In some cases, if the truth be known, it may be that the printer is simply not following the right procedures, and sometimes the paper is at fault. There is no escaping the fact though, that if things are going wrong on a press, the paper is always the first thing a printer will blame, and it often represents a high proportion of the cost of a print job, sometimes as much as 60%. So it is a big cost factor.
Can you give us a real life example of a problem that has occurred?
An example of one problem we came across was from a publisher. In this case, the publisher was very keen on high gloss color, and particularly required dense, shiny black pages. This means of course heavy ink coverage, but a lot of papers can't cope with more than about 280% of ink coverage, so you have to reduce the density of the colors in order to allow the paper to print in a smooth, and even fashion. This particular publisher however, insisted on over 300% coverage, which was much like ladling ink onto every page, and of course this leads to various problems of marking and also some creasing. It became a case of having to tell the publisher that the paper they had chosen would not give the result they wanted, ie, this is not the paper for the job. The fact is, there is simply no point in selling something to a customer that is not going to work.
Another quite common example is to get a call from a printer telling us that the paper we have supplied will not run through the press. On our visit, we discover that the paper has come out of a warehouse, in cold conditions in winter months, and it is only 70 g/m² in weight. Of course it won't run, feed, or print because the paper is too cold. We then have to educate the printer that paper needs time to acclimatize; in fact a one meter stack of SRA2 can take as long as 36 hours to acclimatize. Our cardinal rules are; bring the paper into the press room, release the bands, and let the paper warm up, but keep it covered at all times.
Why have you earned the title Dr No?
The title came about as I developed a reputation for not giving in to printers' demands for just settling claims when things go wrong. With the experience in both the printing and paper trade, you know that shortcuts are taken when trying to meet tight deadlines on certain jobs, and if, as a result of this the job has gone wrong, there is no justifiable reason for someone else to pay for it. How is it that there is no time to do it properly first time, but there's always time for a reprint?
One of the important qualities to have in this job is the one of diplomacy, and no one, especially a customer, likes to be told they are wrong, however, there are times when arguments have ensued, and I have been asked to leave the premises, or some legal action has developed because invoices haven't been paid due to disputed claim settlements. So one of the most the import aspects of the job is for the printer to keep proof of all delivery details, adequate evidence, and all quality control documents, so that if you do have a case, it could amount to a lot of money when the claim is not for just the paper, but all the labor and materials used in a print job as well.
But mostly good relationships do ensue, and even when a "no" is given, it sometimes transpires that the same printer will contact me for advice at a later point, as they value the accrued knowledge of a technician in the field but above all your honesty.
What advice would you give to papermakers when trying to keep complaints down to a minimum?
Good housekeeping is essential. We in this industry all know that every mill at some stage goes through bad periods. And the measurement is how many complaints per 100 or 1000 tonnes and that should be less than half a percent. I have seen situations where it has been up to 6 or 7%, and that is when it becomes frightening.
But if the housekeeping is right, this means; no size variation on both reels and sheets, bad packaging, or packaging that comes unstuck, reels or pallets of paper contaminated from transportation, or consistently troublesome paper making issues. All of these things simply should not happen, and it is something that papermakers must always take very seriously indeed, because if a printer needs an excuse for complaint, all these elements give them one.
Any other areas papermakers could be working on to make things run more smoothly in the future?
Communication. By this, I do not just mean from supplier to customer, where it is extremely important to make sure that the substrate specified is the right one for the process, more between papermaker, ink maker and press manufacturers, like Heidelberg, Man Roland and the digital press manufacturers such as HP Indigo, Kodak and Canon. Constant dialogue between them and the paper maker, could avoid or minimize associated problems before it gets to the customer's presses.
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I want papers for my presses that have superior features such as great runnability or exceptional drying properties. Our absolute favorite at the moment is Tempo from Sappi - a silk paper with great drying that behaves like a gloss when binding - no ink rub or scuffing.
When considering paper merchants however, we have a very clear list of priorities, overall performance is always down to the level of service before specifics such as paper. Naturally, if specified we are forced to buy from a particular source. It is important for both inside and outside sales people to be knowledgeable and helpful and always respond to request for information first.
A company culture that focuses firmly on the customer and this attitude always makes us consider them ahead of others, in our case, our current favorite is Robert Horne in the UK.
As always with suppliers once a strong impression or perception is in place it tends to stay and it requires a major input to correct so getting it right first time is worth the effort. |
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