Print production coordinators administer the work flow from prepress to bindery.
Printing businesses have three production areas: prepress, press and post press. Coordinating work flow, employees and scheduling is the print production coordinator's job. Although in some large printing businesses the print production coordinator is only responsible for press operations, most print shops with less than 25 employees have a print production supervisor to coordinate all the print shop's production. The prepress department delivers plates, the press area produces quality printing and post press finishes each order.
Press Work Flow
Work flow is a combination of scheduling and queuing work so no part of the shop is ever idle or overworked. Working overtime to meet deadlines means reduced profits. With printing, unlike some other businesses, not every job is treated on a first-come, first-served basis. If three jobs are ready to run and all are on the same size paper but two jobs with earlier completion dates have different size requirements, it's the print production coordinator's responsibility to determine in what order the jobs run for maximum efficiency. Spending time "changing over" a press from one paper size to another is valuable time lost. It's also the print production manager's job to know what's being done in the prepress department and in what order work is produced. Again, reducing and eliminating idle time on machines is the most important consideration with work flow. When presses run, the shop makes money. When they do not, it costs money.
Post Press (Bindery) Work Flow
Work must also flow efficiently and productively through post press. Scheduling jobs for the cutter, the folder and the collator/stitcher (for making books) must be done so one area of post press is not idle waiting for another to complete a process.
Employee Morale
The print production coordinator above all else manages the people doing the work. In all work environments there are personalities, egos, issues and attributes. It's the print production coordinator's job to identify these characteristics in employees and use them to increase productivity and maintain worker morale.
Managing Employees
The stress of maintaining quality print production and meeting delivery deadlines can lead to short tempers and disgruntled tradesmen trying to do their job. And having a vital employee leave in the middle of a rush job under deadline is just the sort of worst-case scenario print production managers should strive to avoid.
When production is slowed or behind schedule and the press is not meeting expectations is when the print production coordinator must manage employees effectively to get prepress, press and bindery back on track.
Scheduling
The combination of work flow and employee productivity will determine scheduling and scheduling priorities. The print production coordinator knows the print shop, the equipment and the people. Experience will tell how long it takes to produce 100,000 envelopes or 500 business cards. Maximizing the amount of time to do work in a day also maximizes the profits coming into the printing facility.
Tags: print production, production coordinator, print production coordinator, post press, print production