The Digital Shift

As offset printing gives way to high-speed digital printing, your operators may need time to adjust and accept the changes.

By Erik Cagle

When Georgia Perimeter College installed an HP Indigo digital color press a year ago, a special training challenge lay ahead for Barbara Lindsay, assistant director of Printing Services. Among the offset press operators who needed to learn how to use the digital device was a 65-year-old man with limited computer experience.

"Other than surfing the Web, he was not a computer user," Lindsay relates. "But he was courageous enough and interested in learning a new technology. Plus, he thought it would be neat not to deal with chemicals anymore."

Lindsay's veteran operator skated through the four weeks of training with only typical learning speed bumps and a few lingering old habits. But her good fortune is the exception rather than the rule.

For many in-plants, getting new digital equipment is only one of the battles. Convincing employees, some with decades of offset experience, that these "Johnny come lately" machines are somehow good for them, is often the bigger struggle. Some of those employees never buy in and die out with their old offset job titles.

It falls on the shoulder of the in-plant manager to become part teacher, part coach, part cheerleader and a full support system.

Becoming Digitally Fluent

For David German, manager of the City and County of San Francisco's ReproMail department, big changes came four years ago with the acquisition of an HP Indigo digital color press. San Francisco is a labor-intensive town, German notes, and he needed to convince the workers' union that their forces needed to become fluent with this digital press.

"I spent a fair amount of time with the union, then the press operators, showing them what was going on in other printing operations, and how digital was taking over," German says, pointing out his offset machines can go a week or more without getting used. "We're essentially like a private sector business, and for us to compete with the private sector, we have to keep up with current technology. We can't keep running old duplicators. And the union agreed."

German and Indigo had to start from scratch with the offset workers, beginning with how to turn on the computer. One of the two did not catch on and moved to another department, and a new Indigo operator was hired.

"It was a long, hard road," German says.

Pre-training has been the key for BlueCross BlueShield of Michigan. When the first Xerox 4090 laser printer debuted, Pat O'Donnell, manager of Document Production Services, selected operators who had computer experience at home.

What buffered employee eagerness was the company's offering of online computer classes; virtually everyone in O'Donnell's shop has taken the courses. Two employees became Microsoft certified and are now working in the Information Services department. The classes paid dividends when the in-plant installed a Xerox iGen3 in August of 2003.

"It's been nothing but a positive for us," O'Donnell notes.

Long Learning Curve

At the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, the 13-employee in-plant recently installed an HP Indigo 3050. Since jobs can now be produced quicker, clients are waiting until the eleventh hour to submit work, pressuring a department that is still learning on the job.

"It has been extremely stressful, especially when the press goes down," remarks Don Harty, manager of Printing Services.

Harty's offset press operator is working the Indigo, but despite training and learning on the job, there are good days and bad days. He's been told the learning curve is roughly six months, and roughly two months into the trial by fire, Harty finds himself acting as a support system for the operator.

"We have days where everything just clicks and the confidence gets high," he says. "Then there's days when you realize Murphy was in the printing business and everything you touch goes wrong. What makes it more frustrating is when you have three, four, five of those days back to back to back.

"What I've tried to do is reinforce the fact that when we moved forward with this, I knew there was going to be a huge learning curve, and that when we run into these problems, they're not unexpected," he continues. "It's a learning process for him [the operator] to go through. If I tried to take the press away from him, he'd revolt. I think now he enjoys the challenge of learning and trying to solve these problems."

Retraining Boosts Enthusiasm

In Des Moines, the Principal Financial Group's move to digital culminated with the installation of five NexPress 2100 presses a few months ago. What buoyed employees' enthusiasm was the knowledge that no one would be laid off during the transition, says Mel Zischler, operations manager. That was critical as the shop phased out 12 of its 15 offset presses, leaving the digital/offset workload at 80/20.

Offset press employees were repositioned to either digital or to other aspects of the operation, according to Zischler, who plans to retire this month after 44 years on the job. Cross-training employees helped the transition.

"At first we had people dragging their feet a little bit," he says. "As they saw into the future the direction that printing for our company was going into, it was easier for them to buy into it. And when they saw that we weren't laying people off and were retraining them for different types of work, they were receptive to it. If we went down the road of laying people off, we would have found more resistance."

Training, cross-training, spiritual support and careful management of workers are all key factors in garnering the confidence and backing of employees who may shy away from the digital revolution.

At the heart of any change in work procedures is the relationship between the manager and his/her charges, says Mike Renn, assistant vice president, corporate operations and real estate for Mellon Financial, in Philadelphia.

Simply put, it's a matter of trust.

"To gain the trust from a cold start, it always helps to keep a good line of communication with your group," Renn says. "Get them excited about the possibilities of new technology and procedures. Don't forget to answer the question in the back of every staff member's head: What's in it for me?

"Some of the answers are simple. Digital technology can secure the future of the in-plant. Troublesome work that bottlenecks the offset load can be shifted to these new devices," Renn adds. "Also, this provides an excellent opportunity to gain new skills and clean hands. It stimulates the staff interest and the in-plant gains a motivated operator with a valuable printing background."