“The next generation should carry forward the legacy of print media by reducing pain points through technological advancements,” said RD Bhatnagar, CTO of DB Corp. Ltd., at the recently concluded WAN-IFRA 2019 annual conference in Gurugram.
What do efficiency and excellence mean for a newspaper organization? What are the options available to optimise resources from a management point of view?
Talking about savings, Bhatnagar said that his team has come up with several ideas to make use of obsolete machines. The in-house team reengineered the folders and increased the speed to 36,000 CPH from 30,000 CPH. Seventeen such converted folders are currently in operation. The team also managed to reduce 560/546 mm cutoff folders to 533 mm, saving on raw material expenditure. The conversion of discarded 3C units to 4-Hi towers was efficient and successful and enable them to offer more color pages to the readers.
These initiatives have not only helped DB Corp cut down huge investments in new machines and brought financial benefits, but also boosted the confidence of the engineering team.
Efficiency of the workflow process
The availability of real-time data to all the stakeholders in the workflow increases process efficiency.
All 59 branches of DB Corp employ a single dashboard, wherein managers, supervisors and team lead enter real-time data available to everyone within the organization.
For instance, under maintenance, a region-wise list of machines is available. Here, the managers can check the status of the machines and the different maintenance activities carried out on any day from the yearly data. Analysing problems is made easy by combining the frequency of the occurrence.
Bhatnagar talked about the challenges in maintaining a consistent color quality across branches owing to different breeds of machines in every center.
“We have developed a tool, powered by Google’s Vision API that captures the grey bar and uploads on the portal. This results in a score indicating quality consistency,” he said.
The company adjusted profiles and analysed data from press and color gamuts to optimize ink consumption. “The beauty of this system is that it gives a unique profile for every press. This results in an almost 18% saving on ink,” said Bhatnagar.
Reel Management System (RMS)
A Reel Management System (RMS) system is based on QR codes, which carry more information than a bar code system. A mobile device with a 3G connection is enough to read and monitor an RMS operation. So far, DB Corp’s seven of the largest printing centres have implemented this system.
IT-enabled workflow
DB Corp’s production workflow makes it possible to track the delay and release of pages and act immediately. IT systems help in monitoring the logistics of newsprint, from circulation to administration to finance. Weightage in Key Responsibility Areas (KRA) in achieving the KPIs is given for editors as well to monitor performances.
The workflow system for editors, which is device agnostic, works on cloud services, capable of being operated from across the world.
“Voice to text Google Translation is accurate and works well for editors to publish a story in regional newspapers,” Bhatnagar said.
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