Linney Print

Linney Print currently has five B1 printing machines. Four of these are perfecting machines and one is a straight press. These five presses comprise of a new 10-colour XL 105, one 8-colour, one 4-colour, one 2-colour and one 5-colour straight press with coating unit.

The new 10-colour is at the cutting edge of press technology and includes Inpress control for enhanced colour control.

The principle of offset lithography is based upon the fact that oil and water don’t mix. The (vegetable) oil inks stick to the image area of the plate and are washed off the non–image areas. The ink is then transferred via a printing blanket to the paper.

This process needs to be carefully managed by our printers to ensure that the image produced matches the customer requirements as closely as possible.

Linney Group provides POS materials for a wealth of well-known high street names. Having forged close links with many digital print suppliers over the years, we also invested in an Inca Onset UV grand-format press and two Kongsberg i-cut machines which can cut, score, route, crease, drill and etch materials.

These machines, unique in the marketplace, work on a wide variety of materials including paper, foamboard and plastic, at up to 500m an hour – enabling us to give our clients flexibility and extremely fast turnaround times.

The Inca is run by a team drawn from various areas of our business; press, stitcher and guillotine. This ensures a solid knowledge of print processes, before training begins on the intricacies of digital work.

Our ability to colour match on reflective and transmissive materials, combined with the wide colour gamut of the press really makes the difference to your marketing materials.

The Inca, cutting tables and our know-how make for a powerhouse production capability for POS print and finish solutions for our clients.

Repro – the bit between the designer and the press – is often a forgotten part of the process, especially with the advent of digital artwork. It is, however, a critical part of the workflow, being both customer facing as well as the first stage in manufacturing.

Artwork that will not work in practice is spotted early on, either by a pre–flight check looking for images with too low a resolution, for example, or through operator experience, both reducing the cost of any errors. As well as feedback to the customer, information is shared with Project Managers and Scheduling, helping internal efficiency and continuous improvement.

A key attribute in the best repro operator is to be able to ‘expect the unexpected’ and then use their accumulated skills to solve the problem. Technology can offer a great deal when dealing with digital artwork, but so can the skills of the repro team and it is this combination that will be useful looking forward.

The future will involve more automation, improved online proofing and where the customer wants to, artwork submission into pre–defined templates outputting to plate and printing without proofs, but to agreed standards. It is very much a digital future, but one guided by the repro operator’s knowledge and deep understanding of the process.

We live for colour and colour lives here. Colour reproduction is a complex subject which everyone has their views on, inevitably this is a subjective one; and therein lies part of the problem.

A variety of approaches to colour management and proofing have been tried over the years, some better than others. Following fantastic, but unmatchable analogue Cromalins, the digital Iris was our first in–house solution – these proofs offered major advantages in efficiency and cost reduction, but opened up the whole colour calibration issue.

It was first thought that calibration to match our presses was the best approach, but the number of variables involved in each press makes this impossible. This is why we see the ISO standard for colour reproduction and process control (12647–2) as integral to our approach, whether producing proofs or on press.

Employing a standardised approach to controlling the Pre-Press processes ensures that what ends up on the printing plate is actually what the press minder needs to be able to achieve a perfect match to the Epson proof. Combined with rigorous and regular press maintenance, the variables will have been minimised as far as possible, making colour matching easy.

We’re very proud of the improvements in our colour reproduction, a result which has been made possible through the co–operation, understanding and open–minded approach between Pre-Press and press.

In our ever rapidly evolving world, the role of Pre-Press has also changed with the increasing demands put upon it. It mainly centres on the areas post proofing, but including imposition and plate production, the biggest change in the last 10 years has been the move from film to direct imaging of the printing plate.

Digital imposition is now the standard and, combined with computer–to–plate, these technologies have been directly responsible for much of the improvements in print quality over the last decade. To many it seems that these parts of the workflow are now static and without further change. However, they are crucial to supporting later parts of the production process.

It is the digital analysis of the imposition which provides the ink coverage data to each press, shortening make ready times. Barcodes added to the imposition in Pre-Press can help to distinguish sections of saddle stitched books, improving accuracy and security in Finishing.

New technology is still making an impact in image quality too – the latest platesetters will allow printed images of much greater detail, sharper print quality and more control over variables such as dot gain and therefore colour.

Our view of the future is one where the plates will provide, as standard, an image quality which pushes the press boundaries, while it and the imposed data also feed information useful to the rest of the manufacturing process, increasing accuracy and efficiency. Technology, used effectively, will help litho print confront the challenges from the digital world.

If you think typesetting is ‘just old–fashioned’, at Linney Print we strive to keep typesetting simple, but more importantly right up to date. Our forward thinking, combined with flexibility and the use of expert help throughout the Group, means we are able to find solutions and better ways of creating work whatever the customer’s needs.

For instance we currently produce a 1400+ page reference manual where text is taken from our client’s database and transferred into our templates; the text styles itself as it flows in, allowing a two–day turnaround. We created this way of working 10 years ago and it’s enabled our client to hit the market earlier and more efficiently.

Our role is to produce work that is high quality and on time. We always proof from PDF files; which we will eventually use to print, meaning no extra process once the customer has seen and passed their proofs – this is just one of the little things that make the difference.

Looking to the future, we will be creating more ways of producing work quicker, saving costs to the customer, and keeping ourselves at the forefront of today’s ‘old–fashioned’ technology.

There is little point in reaching this part of a journey through the marketing process if you can’t finish it well. As with all our processes we are very proud of our finishing areas.

These include folding, guillotining, saddle stitching, perfect binding & hand finishing. The finishing area takes the flat printed sheets from the presses and transforms them into the finished product. All these processes depend on skilled, knowledgeable and dedicated people who take care and pride in producing the finished article.

Whether the customer requires a tray liner, a stitched booklet or a PUR bound catalogue, all the operators and operations need to be able to work together to produce the best quality work on time, every time.

We encourage our people to train up on multiple disciplines and become as flexible as possible to ensure that we are able to meet whatever demands our customers and workload make. We are always actively looking at equipment developments so that we are ready to meet the demands of the future as well as the present.

This ensures that the quality and output of our finishing operations is always improving and with our operators’ involvement we are always looking for quicker and more efficient ways of working.

For the Linney Group, professional procurement sits at the heart of any truly successful business.

A robust procurement strategy can be the difference between profit and loss on day to day business activity, from materials management through to ongoing tender negotiations for new business. Procurement isn’t just about order placing, it touches all aspects of the business model. From sales to finance, logistics to production, design to quality, procurement plays its part in supporting all these disciplines. Coaching people on best practice procurement skills is an ongoing exercise that is both personally rewarding and very important in the continued development of a world-class organisation.

Procurement exists to provide a service and support to internal and external customers and we regularly give market intelligence through a strong network of global contacts to help to source, design and deliver solutions to a wide variety of situations. Using the right suppliers to obtain the right quality, on time and at a competitive price is the life blood of our success. All of this, coupled with the desire to generate true partnerships with our entire supplier base, creates a self–motivating environment that helps us to achieve the very best results possible.

This is all about making purchasing more efficient through good systems. It's automating the buying process right from the negotiation stage through to the purchase, delivery and payment. Selecting which suppliers to approach, placing the purchase order and subsequent reporting and spend analysis are all handled by a system.

Ultimately a good procurement tool will ensure you get the right products at the right price and quality, delivered on time. Automation of these jobs will reduce purchasing department overheads and speed up the manufacturing process.

Transparency and integration of systems shifts the traditional customer/supplier demarcation lines and enables closer co-operation, thus benefiting both parties. Simply buy better.

Project Management at Linney Group covers some widely differing roles from administration and estimating, through to key-account project management.

The one thing that all the disciplines within Project Management have in common is you the client. Acting as the link between you and Linney Group’s operations/studio and its supplier partners, Project Management support clients by helping solve problems and issues to best deliver accurate, timely, and innovative solutions.

When does it work best? When our clients allow us in and to better understand what their end goals are – from an item or product level, right through to what they’re trying to achieve as an organisation.

Project Management is ever–changing to keep in–line with the fast moving industry we work in, the rate of change in the past year alone has seen so many new ways and initiatives.

In a highly competitive market, Project Management is just one link, but a glue to all parts of the process chain, that can and often does make a difference. When a project is handled well, and the client knows they’ve had excellent customer service, they know they were right to choose Linney Group.

In order to ensure that all the items we produce are delivered to our customers on time and to specification we need to ensure that our processes are managed efficiently. Using a number of tools, techniques and using the skills of our people we can monitor, analyse and report effectively on all our processes.

Our Management Information System (MIS) ensures that the production process can be carefully planned and monitored to ensure that the work is produced at the right time by the right resource.

Our Key Performance Indicator (KPI) system figures, produced on a weekly basis, ensure that we can see how we are doing on a resource–by–resource basis and our resource aspirations ensure that we continually challenge and improve the ways in which we work.

The widespread use of 5S (sort, store, shine and service, standardise and stick–to–it) system ensures that our workplace is safe, clean and has the right things in the right place.The development of standards and co–ordinated working also develops from here.

What is a Workflow Management? Historically the business in which we work was and is very much fragmented into various "sections" and within each of these sections there are specialists who excel.

Below is a very brief overview of just some of these key specialists

• Brand Owners
• Brand Managers
• Marketing Agencies
• Design Agencies
• Photographers
• Printers
• Print Managers

As a Brand Owner or a Brand Manager, you are very much in the hands of these individual sectors when it comes to "Quality, Consistency, Cost, Service and Delivery. It is very difficult if not impossible to get the right mixture of these skill sets in one place and manage and audit them cost effectively and efficiently.

A workflow can usually be described using flow diagramming techniques, showing directed flows between processing steps. Single processing steps or components of a workflow can basically be defined by three parameters:

1. Input
2. Transformation
3. Output

Workflow management is about understanding digital files and their use in the production processes, the way in which these files are communicated, the way in which these files are re–purposed and in many respects what these files will achieve in different print tangible states or non–tangible uses i.e. Web use (displayed on the Internet).

By utilising a number of software and hardware Internet solutions Brand Owners can now take holistic ownership of the printed/non–printed collateral they produce, workflow management and workflow implementation across a number of different suppliers can be audited remotely and key approval and costing decisions are virtual. One major winning factor for brands is visibility and the ability to watch the process evolve organically.

However workflow management is not an "out of the box" solution and relies quite heavily on the requirements and expectations of the client and reality of what can be achieved, when workflows are implemented across different sectors there is inevitably a cultural barrier to break through as the usual rules of process, management, costing, reporting, delivery are sometimes quite different.

Let’s face it, the process of getting from A to B is getting complex, files flying everywhere, assets in every draw, control has gone out of the window. That’s why we are into ‘digital asset management’ (DAM) here at Linney Print. So what is it?

Really it consists of tasks and decisions surrounding ingesting, annotating, cataloguing, storage and retrieval of digital assets, like digital photographs, animations, videos and music, in fact anything digital. Built from clever computer software and/or hardware systems our solution will sort out that mess and let you get on with what you are best at.

In technical terms DAM also refers to the protocol for downloading, renaming, backing up, rating, grouping, archiving, optimising, maintaining, thinning, and exporting files. "There are two primary types of DAM software: browsers and cataloguing software. A browser reads information from a file but does not store it separately. Cataloguing software stores information in its own separate file however, the software and the catalogue document it makes are distinct from the assets themselves."

If you are not employing DAM be aware, we see an ever–increasing number of businesses and organisations that are adopting DAM as a business strategy because managing image, video and other media assets presents unique challenges and requires solutions designed specifically to streamline the acquisition, storage and retrieval of digital media. Effective implementation of a DAM system will reduce the time and cost of content production, maximise the return on investment (ROI) from media assets, bring new products and services to market faster and streamline brand compliance and consistency.

The following broad categories of digital asset management systems may be distinguished:

• Brand asset management systems, with a focus on facilitation of content re–use within large organisations.
• Library asset management systems, with a focus on storage and retrieval of large amounts of infrequently changing media assets, for example in video or photo archiving.
• Production asset management systems, with a focus on storage, organisation and revision control of frequently changing digital assets, for example in digital media production.
• Digital supply chain services, pushing digital content out to digital retailers (e.g. music, videos and games).

About time we all got organised.

The ability for clients internal and external to approve images and artwork is normally with "calibrated" monitors…but why?

A typical printer uses CMYK inks but the images we create and edit in PhotoShop can be either RGB or CMYK. Our monitors are designed to display RGB. We know that prints we look at are reflective and the output from the monitor emissive. We also know that the colour gamut and dynamic range of printed material is vastly different to that of a typical computer monitor. So given these mismatches between the printer and monitor, a good visual match between the two devices is actually quite difficult to achieve. However, using the 'magic' of colour management we can use a monitor to provide an accurate preview or "Soft Proof", reflecting exactly how the image will really print. Once we have an accurate preview we can usually fine–tune the RGB/CMYK image to match the capabilities of the printer. Result.

As the Linney Print business grows and we manage different types of print i.e. screen print, digital print, web print we need to recognise the requirements and the capabilities of these processes, specifically when we present "contract proofs", these are accurate representations of how your final print will be produced and we are contractually obliged to meet them.

Our current ISO trading standard is multifaceted in what we have to achieve to comply; part of this compliance is our "proofing standard" which is currently set to ISO 39. This proofing standard covers what we produce on our internal press machines, but as reflected above we now manage numerous types of print that are produced on numerous types of substrate, so moving forward a single ISO standard cannot and will not correctly represent all printed collateral, either printed or managed by ourselves.

The solution therefore without going to the expense and complicated logistics of conventional proofing, is to adopt a more "virtual approach" to viewing printed materials and if we adopt and in turn educate you, our clients, to this new approach we all stand together to see significant savings in "time" and "money" which are very valuable commodities.