It has been a long time coming. Automation though is now here. It is real and it is available. And it will soon be essential for printers of all sizes.
It has been a long time coming. As we detail in these pages, some companies have embraced automated ways of moving digital files or physical reels of paper for some time. The vast majority of litho printers have some measure of automation in place through automatic or assisted plate changing technology, arguably the first step towards automation of the industry. However, the first implementations were derided as hugely expensive and unaffordable.
Today it is unaffordable for a printer not to operate a plate changing mechanism and few would even think of buying a press without this technology. It is doubtful that many press minders would be able to lock up a plate with allen keys and move it into register by hand. Whether many will want what Heidelberg calls Plate to Unit, a robotic means of moving plates from the platesetter and dropping these into position with no physical handling whatsoever, is debatable. Of course, the technology is too expensive and unaffordable for the majority of printers. We have been here before. It is a question of time.
Automation is about replacing human endeavour with machinery, machinery that does not need a toilet break, lunch break and is not going to be absent through illness. If the cost is less than employing people, the technology must win out. Today the cost of people is rising sharply and not only because of the wages paid. If you cannot recruit shopfloor staff, the cost of not deploying automation is sky high and potentially crippling to a business. The threshold where investment makes more sense than recruitment will be different for different companies and in different sectors of the industry.
It must arrive first in online printing, those Heidelbergs and equivalent from Koenig & Bauer are in large online trade printers, then to books and magazines where there is substantial standardisation and a high throughput. Commodity or industrialised production demands automation because of the high throughputs. This can mean requiring staff to lift and load several tonnes of paper a day. This might have been acceptable in Victorian times down to the 1970s and 1980s. Today’s teenagers faced with a choice of employment will not accept this type of job.
Many businesses have also suffered from resignations and retirements from the Covid period and even now are suffering absences from lingering infections. The BPIF’s latest Printing Outlook survey remarks that many printers have an unwanted productivity gap. Where robots have eased the physical burden, employers have found that their staff go home and instead of flopping in front of the television through exhaustion, take up evening activities and hobbies. Wellbeing improves.
The productivity gap problem is going to grow unless either recruitment or training of the right personnel increases, which is unlikely to happen quickly. Mergers will provide the opportunity to optimise the output levels of staff, but this is not solving a long term issue. Alternatively, printers must think of filling the labour gap with automation.
This is one of the factors that means that the time for automaton is coming. Though it is not the only factor. Technology is falling in cost, the current shortage of microprocessor not withstanding. This is a function of Moore’s Law, dictating how fast computing power is increasing as well as improvements to technologies like CCD cameras, to servo motors and to other sensors which provide the feedback loops needed for automation.
Advancing technology has also reduced the cost of industrial robots, and thus increased their popularity, aided by increasing ease of use. In 1999 world market for industrial robots was 79,000, rising fivefold to 422,000 by 2018. The population in the printing industry is somewhat less.
Nevertheless there are robots in use to load pallets, to move paper around a guillotine, loading large format inkjet printers, or for pick and pack applications. There are some automated guided vehicles in operation in larger print sites to move reels or paper or work in progress. More are coming and printers of all sizes should be thinking about how and where they can be deployed within a business and making adjustments where necessary. It will not be long before robots are moving work between press and bindery, for example, or from bindery to warehouse.
The continuing rise in short runs is another factor to make this inevitable, because it will simply not be feasible to employ people to push pallet trucks from one part of the factory to another. An alternative is a track system or conveyors of some kind. These can be less expensive than AGVs, though less convenient and better suited to small batches of finished products than pallets stacked with printed sheets heading to the folding area.
And it is the growth of short runs that becomes another factor driving the uptake of automation. It is simply not practical to do without automation if production runs take less and less time. The level of automation that Saxoprint has makes it possible to be competitive on a run of just 50 copies printed litho, the company says. Automation narrows the opportunity for digital printing, though digital presses, thanks to different feed bins, are better suited to autonomous printing than litho.
Regardless of the chosen printing technology, automation is needed on folding, cutting and binding systems to cope with a huge rise in small production batches. Without automation the investment levels in machines and people to operate them to cope with this volume of jobs are just unthinkable. Machines need to have the capacity to make adjustments on the fly.
Presses with closed loop colour and density systems can already do this. It is much rarer in finishing where small adjustments are still human decisions. That will change.
The argument has always been that the relative cost of fitting automation technology to finishing equipment is disproportionate. It seems, however, that there is more to it: the feedback loops are not fast enough to track and make adjustments. For now the operator is smarter and has to be trusted. For now.
The relative cost argument is looking a little frayed as technology becomes more accessible and robot arms shrink in size and grow in functionality. What is problematic is that attitudes towards finishing equipment remain locked in the past. Where much of this equipment belongs. That way of thinking will need to change.
The next factor that is going to deliver automation is in the digital delivery of files with communication of intent between different pieces of technology, what has been called the islands of automation. For almost 25 years this has been the Job Definition Format. For almost as long it has been criticised for being too expensive (a commercial choice by technology providers) too restrictive (in many ways a commercial choice) and too slow. Feedback from JDF implementations, and there are many, has been used to inform development of a new more flexible format called XJDF; what Cip4 says will have the same impact as the transition from PostScript to PDF.
This appears to be able to deliver the modern fluid approach to the challenges that printers face today. Its success will depend on rapid implementation across the industry and support for the open communications that will unleash the opportunities.
However, XJDF is no longer the only game in town. Different approaches for direct API to API connectivity are emerging. This will work in many places though leaving open the question of what happens when one piece of technology is replaced and how the printer copes with this kind of development. Other MIS led means of enabling automation are also here or in the offing. The tide has turned, print is becoming an automated industry.
Not every company will go the whole way. Some will use their artisanal skills to market the high skill, high quality, value add led approach with high service levels. This is all well and good, but to provide the platform for this value added concept, automation is still necessary to deliver the consistent platform that is the foundation on which quality is built.
Because of the industry’s understanding of digital prepress workflows, because of the automation that is standard on litho and digital presses, printers have already tasted automation to some extent. Now these companies need to dive deeper into what is possible through automation.
Automation is accelerating towards print. It is time to be prepared
It has been a long time coming. Automation though is now here. It is real and it is available. And it will soon be essential for printers of all sizes.
It has been a long time coming. As we detail in these pages, some companies have embraced automated ways of moving digital files or physical reels of paper for some time. The vast majority of litho printers have some measure of automation in place through automatic or assisted plate changing technology, arguably the first step towards automation of the industry. However, the first implementations were derided as hugely expensive and unaffordable.
Today it is unaffordable for a printer not to operate a plate changing mechanism and few would even think of buying a press without this technology. It is doubtful that many press minders would be able to lock up a plate with allen keys and move it into register by hand. Whether many will want what Heidelberg calls Plate to Unit, a robotic means of moving plates from the platesetter and dropping these into position with no physical handling whatsoever, is debatable. Of course, the technology is too expensive and unaffordable for the majority of printers. We have been here before. It is a question of time.
Automation is about replacing human endeavour with machinery, machinery that does not need a toilet break, lunch break and is not going to be absent through illness. If the cost is less than employing people, the technology must win out. Today the cost of people is rising sharply and not only because of the wages paid. If you cannot recruit shopfloor staff, the cost of not deploying automation is sky high and potentially crippling to a business. The threshold where investment makes more sense than recruitment will be different for different companies and in different sectors of the industry.
It must arrive first in online printing, those Heidelbergs and equivalent from Koenig & Bauer are in large online trade printers, then to books and magazines where there is substantial standardisation and a high throughput. Commodity or industrialised production demands automation because of the high throughputs. This can mean requiring staff to lift and load several tonnes of paper a day. This might have been acceptable in Victorian times down to the 1970s and 1980s. Today’s teenagers faced with a choice of employment will not accept this type of job.
Many businesses have also suffered from resignations and retirements from the Covid period and even now are suffering absences from lingering infections. The BPIF’s latest Printing Outlook survey remarks that many printers have an unwanted productivity gap. Where robots have eased the physical burden, employers have found that their staff go home and instead of flopping in front of the television through exhaustion, take up evening activities and hobbies. Wellbeing improves.
The productivity gap problem is going to grow unless either recruitment or training of the right personnel increases, which is unlikely to happen quickly. Mergers will provide the opportunity to optimise the output levels of staff, but this is not solving a long term issue. Alternatively, printers must think of filling the labour gap with automation.
This is one of the factors that means that the time for automaton is coming. Though it is not the only factor. Technology is falling in cost, the current shortage of microprocessor not withstanding. This is a function of Moore’s Law, dictating how fast computing power is increasing as well as improvements to technologies like CCD cameras, to servo motors and to other sensors which provide the feedback loops needed for automation.
Advancing technology has also reduced the cost of industrial robots, and thus increased their popularity, aided by increasing ease of use. In 1999 world market for industrial robots was 79,000, rising fivefold to 422,000 by 2018. The population in the printing industry is somewhat less.
Nevertheless there are robots in use to load pallets, to move paper around a guillotine, loading large format inkjet printers, or for pick and pack applications. There are some automated guided vehicles in operation in larger print sites to move reels or paper or work in progress. More are coming and printers of all sizes should be thinking about how and where they can be deployed within a business and making adjustments where necessary. It will not be long before robots are moving work between press and bindery, for example, or from bindery to warehouse.
The continuing rise in short runs is another factor to make this inevitable, because it will simply not be feasible to employ people to push pallet trucks from one part of the factory to another. An alternative is a track system or conveyors of some kind. These can be less expensive than AGVs, though less convenient and better suited to small batches of finished products than pallets stacked with printed sheets heading to the folding area.
And it is the growth of short runs that becomes another factor driving the uptake of automation. It is simply not practical to do without automation if production runs take less and less time. The level of automation that Saxoprint has makes it possible to be competitive on a run of just 50 copies printed litho, the company says. Automation narrows the opportunity for digital printing, though digital presses, thanks to different feed bins, are better suited to autonomous printing than litho.
Regardless of the chosen printing technology, automation is needed on folding, cutting and binding systems to cope with a huge rise in small production batches. Without automation the investment levels in machines and people to operate them to cope with this volume of jobs are just unthinkable. Machines need to have the capacity to make adjustments on the fly.
Presses with closed loop colour and density systems can already do this. It is much rarer in finishing where small adjustments are still human decisions. That will change.
The argument has always been that the relative cost of fitting automation technology to finishing equipment is disproportionate. It seems, however, that there is more to it: the feedback loops are not fast enough to track and make adjustments. For now the operator is smarter and has to be trusted. For now.
The relative cost argument is looking a little frayed as technology becomes more accessible and robot arms shrink in size and grow in functionality. What is problematic is that attitudes towards finishing equipment remain locked in the past. Where much of this equipment belongs. That way of thinking will need to change.
The next factor that is going to deliver automation is in the digital delivery of files with communication of intent between different pieces of technology, what has been called the islands of automation. For almost 25 years this has been the Job Definition Format. For almost as long it has been criticised for being too expensive (a commercial choice by technology providers) too restrictive (in many ways a commercial choice) and too slow. Feedback from JDF implementations, and there are many, has been used to inform development of a new more flexible format called XJDF; what Cip4 says will have the same impact as the transition from PostScript to PDF.
This appears to be able to deliver the modern fluid approach to the challenges that printers face today. Its success will depend on rapid implementation across the industry and support for the open communications that will unleash the opportunities.
However, XJDF is no longer the only game in town. Different approaches for direct API to API connectivity are emerging. This will work in many places though leaving open the question of what happens when one piece of technology is replaced and how the printer copes with this kind of development. Other MIS led means of enabling automation are also here or in the offing. The tide has turned, print is becoming an automated industry.
Not every company will go the whole way. Some will use their artisanal skills to market the high skill, high quality, value add led approach with high service levels. This is all well and good, but to provide the platform for this value added concept, automation is still necessary to deliver the consistent platform that is the foundation on which quality is built.
Because of the industry’s understanding of digital prepress workflows, because of the automation that is standard on litho and digital presses, printers have already tasted automation to some extent. Now these companies need to dive deeper into what is possible through automation.
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