Founding day of Printing Technologists Forum

Chennai based Printing Technologists Forum conducted a seminar, celebrating its Founding Day and organised a technical lecture. A one day seminar was conducted with the theme “Proper Practice = Pressroom Profitability.” The underlining theme was cutting down the waste and saving the hidden costs resulting in cost effectiveness, leading to profitability. The presentations were bilingual, in Tamil and English, to enable the many number of press operators taking part to understand easily.

P Chellappan, president, Printing Technologist Forum, stressed on cost reduction and gave an overall idea on seminar content and about the speakers. While, Sharan Kapoor, ED, Kapoor Imaging, gave an introduction about his company, the products they deal in (trade, distribution and manufacture). They also undertake machine installations, AMC, plate standardization, dot calibration, process calibration, workflow management with ICC profile. They also do Pressroom Audits to recommend appropriate pressroom blended fountain solutions, proper machine practices. Elaborating on that, S Giridharan CEO, Kapoor Imaging, explained the basics of plate making, fountain solutions and their importance in offset printing.

VS Narayanan, general manager, Dinamalar, gave a demonstration through visuals about various problems faced by web offset press operators: what care should be taken, what right practices should be followed, how the reels should be handled, what difficulties he faced while installing the machines and how they were solved. He laid stress on going through the machine manual thoroughly and following the instructions given therein. “Most of the problems occur by the operators not following the practices recommended by the manufacturers,” he said.

Besides, K Vipinendran, associate professor – printing, Anna University, gave an impressive presentation on Quality. He explained the working of Quality Circles. Such an activity does not require any investment. The workforce/operators are divided into small groups of teams. They meet periodically and discuss problems with possible solutions in a brainstorming session. With the help of a facilitator, given a role by the Management, the solutions are put into action. This way, one can say “Quality is free,” he mentioned.

Dr B Kumar, assistant professor – printing, Anna University, made a presentation on “Pressroom Practices in Sheetfed Press.” He gave an idea about the mechanism of machines, its inter-relationships, what practices should be followed at every stage cutting the wastage. “Make ready time could be shortened, start up wastage could be reduced, less number of sheets wasted on the run – all leading to saving in costs, resulting in more profits,” he said. Then, a Hanna Meter Demo was given by Sree Hari Reddy, RSM, Hanna Meter while Jug Test was explained by Sadiq Pasha.