Steeve Roucaute has joined a very exclusive club. As chief technology officer of Precision Proco Group, Roucaute will be one of the very few people in the UK to hold this position at a printing company. There is more than a sprinkling of chief technology officers across the rest of the UK business landscape but not among printing businesses. He stands out like a working class teenager at Oxford University.
In the 21st century this is appalling in the full sense of the word: terrifying, as well as very bad. Printers have been rushing headlong towards technology from the first remote inking systems and plate scanners, through digital transfer of files, CTP, digital presses, press automation, web to print and shortly, true remote working robotics and perhaps lights out operation. Printers are already technology companies. But responsibility for technology is not considered worthy of a special responsibility. As technology moves away from helping reduce manual tasks into the realms of machine learning, artificial intelligence, robotics and everything else covered by the concept of Industry 4.0, printers need to understand what is going on. Technology needs to be understood at board level.
Instead the task of keeping abreast of the changing technology in use by customers and available to printers to exploit is shared among the prepress department, because that handles digital files, and estimating and scheduling, because this department runs the MIS and between the operations and production teams in charge of the presses and finishing departments. The managing director or CEO may take some responsibility, particularly if coming from an operations background. But there will rarely be an individual carrying the responsibility for keeping the business up to speed with current and future technology. And this is necessary. Print has always enjoyed looking back at its heritage. It needs to look forward to discover its future.
Time for print to join the 21st century
Steeve Roucaute has joined a very exclusive club. As chief technology officer of Precision Proco Group, Roucaute will be one of the very few people in the UK to hold this position at a printing company. There is more than a sprinkling of chief technology officers across the rest of the UK business landscape but not among printing businesses. He stands out like a working class teenager at Oxford University.
In the 21st century this is appalling in the full sense of the word: terrifying, as well as very bad. Printers have been rushing headlong towards technology from the first remote inking systems and plate scanners, through digital transfer of files, CTP, digital presses, press automation, web to print and shortly, true remote working robotics and perhaps lights out operation. Printers are already technology companies. But responsibility for technology is not considered worthy of a special responsibility. As technology moves away from helping reduce manual tasks into the realms of machine learning, artificial intelligence, robotics and everything else covered by the concept of Industry 4.0, printers need to understand what is going on. Technology needs to be understood at board level.
Instead the task of keeping abreast of the changing technology in use by customers and available to printers to exploit is shared among the prepress department, because that handles digital files, and estimating and scheduling, because this department runs the MIS and between the operations and production teams in charge of the presses and finishing departments. The managing director or CEO may take some responsibility, particularly if coming from an operations background. But there will rarely be an individual carrying the responsibility for keeping the business up to speed with current and future technology. And this is necessary. Print has always enjoyed looking back at its heritage. It needs to look forward to discover its future.
Gareth Ward
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