An Open Letter from James Cryer to the NPA Judges and the Printing Industry at large
The recent awards night was a brilliantly staged multi-media extravaganza, the general organisation of which is to be congratulated. There’s no doubt about its technical excellence, and about the venue, and its importance as a rainmaking get-together for the various industry tribal groupings who flock from all corners of the continent, much like the aborigines did each year in the Snowy Mountains to sup upon Bogong moths.
Why, then did I come away with a slight sensation of being somehow …unfulfilled? It certainly wasn’t the menu or the wines, which flowed copiously throughout the evening. It was more to do with the unrelenting focus on that most elusive quality…QUALITY, to the detriment of almost everything else. It was as though we, as an industry, are the proverbial dog chasing the wrong bus.
What is this single-minded obsession with quality trying to prove? It’s not as if as an industry we have a reputation for bad quality. The awards, or at least the winning entries, seemed to be saying: if you get out your magnifying-glass, densitometer and mass-photospectrometer, I can prove that my dot-gain is smaller than yours.
However, I was under the impression that with modern press-button technology so readily available throughout the industry, every printer worth his salt is perfectly capable of producing commercial quality work, to award-winning standards. To then try and pick a winner, with so many variables confusing the decision process, seems merely like an exercise in self-indulgence. To be honest, anyone can produce a winner these days if they devote enough time to fuss over the job.
We as an industry are keen to promote our craft-based origins, when it suits us. On the other hand, we’re very quick to acquire the latest computerised technology, which virtually takes the discretion (to print good or bad quality) out of the hands of the operator and into the brain of the machine. It’s also part of the new reality, as we learn how to run our businesses with fewer and fewer bodies. These bodies used to be called craftsmen who would justifiably be proud to have produced true quality work.
This body-shedding process, hastened by the imminent arrival of the new JDF work-flow process-controls, will ultimately lead to the lights-out factory – untainted by human intervention. What then will be our attitude to awards? My robot produces better quality than your robot?
Another complication in this fixated pursuit of quality is the creeping onset of digital print. It raises the hoary old cliché of threat or opportunity? to which we all reply, the latter. If that were the case, why are digital categories so under-represented in the awards program? Ironically, in our industry-wide quest for value-adding opportunities, the greatest opportunities exist not within offset, but within the digital realm where it is possible to offer so many more features and customised touches than it is in the traditional world of conventional print.
Why don’t we recognise this in the awards? Is there some unconscious resistance towards digital print, as somehow mickey mouse technology?
The sad point being: the print awards, in promoting an emphasis on quality, are not really promoting an issue that is of significance to the clientele of today. I’m not saying customers don’t demand quality, they simply expect it as part of the process.
To me, and it is a subjective thing, the current print awards are like trying to judge or buy a car by looking at it sitting on the showroom floor. This is the cosmetic – even superficial – aspect of our industry. Putting colour on paper in a pleasing manner. It’s not getting to the core of how our industry should be presenting itself to the media-savvy, print-buying world out there.
They want to know about innovation, cost-savings, storage and distribution facilities, remote-proofing, more finishing options being incorporated in-line, more personalisation options, quicker delivery - on-demand - of smaller and smaller quantities. These are the contemporary issues demanded by clients and confronting us as an industry. Not this quaint, outmoded concept of who can actually print a job in register!
There is a current awareness that certain segments of our industry are taking a battering from cheap imports – and it will get worse. What better venue to promote export initiatives (for example), than at the print awards? What better venue than to promote innovation?
I’m not saying we shouldn’t hold the function, and enjoy an event designed to showcase and promote our industry. I am suggesting we should change the menu slightly. Preferably not Bogong moths.
W. James Cryer
JDA PRINT RECRUITMENT
I hear you, James Cryer – Cicely Brown, British Printing Industries Federation (BPIF)
Not everyone agreed with James Cryer last week but his letter struck a resonance on the other side of the world.
Dear Patriick,
It was refreshing to read W. James Cryer's letter in the recent edition of Print21 Online. For the last five years the British Printing Industries Federation has been running its Excellence Awards and I am proud to say that the only print quality that is seriously considered is the course-work submitted for the Apprentice of the Year award.
With the strapline: "The only awards which tell [your] customers, suppliers, employees and investors that [you] run an excellent business" it stands out from the two, much larger (trade magazine supported) events which hand out 25+ awards, predominantly for printed products.
When judging companies entering the Excellence Awards, print quality is a given. If your quality is not great and you still have a healthy bottom line you're either successfully exploiting the 'pile it high, sell it cheap' business model - or you won't be around for long.
The BPIF's mission statement is 'to promote the competitiveness and profitability of the UK printing industry' and we do this through a wide range of products and services aimed at best practice in HR, health & safety, environment, training, and other business processes. The Excellence Awards are one way of recognising and rewarding the leading companies which others can look to as examples.
We are constantly looking to innovate and more recently introduced "the Best Use of Digital Print" (only returns to the customer are really considered!), Turnaround Award and Marketing Award. You are welcome to have a look at the entry forms on http://www.britishprint.com/ under 'Industry', Excellence Awards. We would welcome your feedback!
I receive the Print21 emails regularly and think they're great! It's quite incredible how identical the issues are between the UK and Australia despite the distance. It all makes for good reading.
Thank you!
Cicely
Further reply from Cicely Brown, British Print Industry Federation (BPIF) to JDA in response to Print 21 Article re National Print Awards
Dear James,
Many thanks for your letter
The BPIF/UK print sector has also learned from your Print21 competitiveness study and the actions that are being taking in Australia which can help us implement our own industry plan. Indeed one of the consultants involved in the Australian project was a main presenter at the launch of Vision in Print about a year ago (ViP is an industry organisation, supported by the DTI which aims to improve productivity in the sector.).
We also keep in touch with PIA (Printing Industries of America) which has recently merged with the US Graphic Arts Technical Foundation and has a very informative website, www.gain.net.
However as you mention, it is 'on the ground' that the real change needs to happen and the BPIF is continually striving to engage members in all its activities. We are lucky now that through various BPIF-led projects we are now putting the tools in place to make a significant improvement to the competitiveness of the industry. We now have to work very hard to deliver those improvements onto the bottom line of member companies. Not an easy task but we're doing our best!
Training is a huge debate .... however I believe that we may be seeing some of the consequences of a reluctance to train coming through in pay packets and the ability to recruit. I'm about to write a press release about it and will ensure Print 21 Online receives a copy.
I do like the bogong moth analogy - my biggest concern is that the print companies are not the aborigines, but the moths!
Please do keep in touch - and visit the BPIF website, www.britishprint.com if you're interested in finding out more about us.
Best wishes,
Cicely Brown
Dear Sir,
It’s tough being a messenger!
My article on the Print Awards (8th April, Print21 online) certainly evoked a response – indicative that, hopefully, our industry is emerging into maturity from its 400 years of unchallenged dominance (as a communication medium) – and is finally able to tackle uncomfortable issues openly and candidly.
And this need to address new and confronting issues will only get stronger. It does not behove us to stick our heads in the sand and go into denial (and I don’t mean the Egyptian river) about the reality that: after 400-odd years the ground rules are changing: that is, conventional print is losing its supremacy in the world of communication.
“Quality” – so dearly cherished as the Holy Grail to which we’ve all paid our dues – has been a useful expression of our collective talents for many years. What Rod may be confusing however is the pursuit of quality, with the quest for “excellence”.
In this modern, complex, multi-dimensional world, companies have to excel on a variety of fronts to succeed – not just one. Sadly, to prove my point, let us consider the fate of several prolific “award-winning” companies (according to Rod’s quality-driven criteria) of recent years. Let us focus on three of the greatest icons, representing the pinnacle of quality-award winners – Pot Still Press, RT Kelly and Websdales.
Where are they now? Consigned to the dustbin of history. Although, according to Rod’s criteria (and a cursory glance around their former foyers), they should have been the most successful, robust and indestructible of companies – “bullet-proofed” by Rod’s mantle of quality.
Cynics are now saying that the most “successful” companies (and I could name a few) don’t care about winning National Print Awards … they’re too busy delivering “commercially acceptable” quality jobs (not necessarily award-winning) on time, and at a fair market rate, to worry about awards. Their “awards” are “winning customer satisfaction”.
My point here is that quality – that most elusive object of our desires – is a relative thing that exists in the mind of the beholder. Whereas the Awards, by their very nature, promote quality as some absolute goal, to be obtained at any cost.
As I mentioned in my original comments, anyone can win an award if they hot-house a job.
I have no fundamental quarrel with Rod however, in that we are all seeking to promote our industry in its quest for survival. And nobody should interpret my remarks as anti-quality.
My purpose in airing these thoughts was to invite discussion on options available to us. To me, “excellence” requires achievements in a number of areas – including benefits to customers, to employees, to suppliers and to the environment. It may include such things as things as technical innovation, developing in-house training schemes (a badly needed area), employee profit-sharing arrangements, use of the internet in building customer rapport, export success, etc, etc. Digital printing should also get more recognition.
The fertile minds of the judges, I’m sure, could easily develop a new template-for-success, and if in doubt they could always turn to the Brits, who went through this painful reality-check 5 years ago.
As for the Bogong moth (infusa agrotis), I invite Rod to come cross-country skiing with me so as to inspect these little beauties at close quarters.
Food for thought?
W. James Cryer May, 2004 |
