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The 5th FAGAT/2000 in Manila
Information Exchange Meeting

1.Work Exchange Forms and Expected Product Lines from the Japanase Viewpoint
2.Common Requirements in Passing and Receiving Orders of Printed Matters
3.Barriers against the Work Exchange between Asian Printing Companies
4.Production Practice and Technological Thought
5.Technological Environment and Technical Problems to Solve in the 21st Century

Today, our society is information-oriented and going toward the globalization. The IT (Information Technology) is now used to globally distribute goods & services. In the printing industry, we also have to do business from a global standpoint. However, there are many difficulties that the Asian printing industry encounters in running business.
First, Asian countries stand on different stages of economic development, and their industrial infrastructures are also in different states of improvement. Second, Asian countries use different languages, which raise difficulties in print production processes. There are many other problems in addition to the two typical ones. Some of these problems will be discussed hereinafter.

1.Work Exchange Forms and Expected Product Lines from the Japanese Viewpoint

1. Outsourcing of all the print production processes
   * Printed matters having a long term of delivery - textbooks, dictionaries, maps,catalogs, etc.
   * Labor-intensive printed matters - Playing cards, illustrated books, POP picture books, packages, etc.
   
2. Outsourcing of pre-press works
   * Burdensome works - trimming of pictures, housing layouts, etc.
   
3. Printed matters used locally by companies incorporated abroad
   * Manuals, ad printed matters, packages, etc.

2.Common Requirements in Passing and Receiving Orders of Printed Matters

1. The minimum requirements to be met in doing a commercial business of printed matters
   *The shortest term of delivery, best quality and lowest cost as possible
   The three items are the minimum requirements to be met in doing a commercial business of printed matters. If any of the requirements is not met, therefore, any business will not be successful.
   
2. The commercial business of printed matters does not consist of selling a volume of readymade commodities, but processing matters made to order. Therefore, it is the most important to establish a trust relationship between the person who passes orders and the person who receive them. It is imperative for the printing business to meet three requirements, the shortest term of delivery, the best quality and the lowest cost as possible. It is impossible to continue any business without such a trust relationship, because there is no standardized norm to meet these requirements.

3. Barriers against the Work Exchange between Asian Printing Companies

1. Telecommunication infrastructure
   The printing industry deals with a huge amount of data. However, any telecommunication infrastructure has not yet been established in the Asian printing industry. Especially, it is now impossible to transfer colored images even if their data are compressed. It is predicted that it will take at least 3 years in Japan and 10 years in the whole Asian region to establish an optical fiber system network connecting printing plants to each other.
2. Transportation
   The highest barrier is the required time of transportation for printed matters. In Asian countries, it takes at least one or two days to make a custom clearance of imported or exported products. So, it takes at least 2 to 3 weeks to transport a cargo of printed matters by sea between Southeast Asia and the Far East Asia, and 1 week to transport it within each of the areas. The transportation cost for air cargo is too high. Therefore, the printed items to be transported are extremely limited.
   
3. Paper
   Another high barrier is paper. Paper problems will be discussed hereinafter.
   a) A few types of paper- The following items of papers are generally used in the printing industry in the Japanese printing industry:
   * Middle-quality paper, wood free paper, A2-coated paper, A3-coated paper, thinly-coated paper, art paper, single side-coated paper, bleached craft paper, manila paper board, white paper board, etc.
   * Size - Standard sizes of series A and B, and expanded sizes of series A and B
   * Paper thickness
   * Machine and cross grain directions
   b) No permanent stock
   * Many printing companies make a rule never to contain their paper production cycles in their production schedules of printed matters except a large lots of order. They suppose that it would make little headway to take account of the paper production cycle for producing even a medium-sized lot of printed matters, because the term of delivery is too short to take accounts of the paper.
   c) Quality and sizes of products
   * The quality of products seems to be good, though there are problems that the number of product lines is small and that the processing accuracy of paper machines used is low (in right angle and size).
   d) The market prices in the other Asian countries are estimated on the same level as those in Japan, though they are discounted at least by 10%. Even in Japan, the prices depend on the quantity of purchases, and the price difference is at least 20% between large and smaller companies. In Southeast Asia, a few printed product lines are supplied, and their prices are too high, compared with those for general goods. It is necessary to make efforts in reducing the ratio of paper cost for the whole printing cost.
   e)Import tax
   * It is estimated that the import tax rate has recently been significantly reduced to about 10%. The complete liberalization should be made for imports, because the domestic productions are insufficient to satisfy the demands. Or otherwise, the Asian printing industry will have no higher competitiveness.

4. Working ability of employees and level of personnel management as observed in many companies
   In the other Asian countries, employees in printing companies are not inferior in working ability to those in Japan. However, their working discipline, productivity, consciousness of quality and technical level are surely inferior due to the lower level of personnel and technology management, but not to the working ability of workers.

   a) Loose working discipline and low productivity
   

   (1) No sense of responsibility - a lot of excuses
   (2) The completion of works is delayed to the utmost limit. The self-control is impossible.
   (3) No technical knowledge is exchanged between workers.
   (4) Workers give no notice or report to their boss.
   (5) It takes them a long time from clocking in to starting to work (because they take breakfast and read newspapers). They finish their works earlier than they must do, change their clothes and wait for clocking out.
   This loose working discipline leads to a lower productivity. The persons who areresponsible for these circumstances are not workers, but the CEOs who leave them as they are, without giving any education or training to the management staff including the chiefs of sections and higher posts. The management staff should not be desk-workers, but the field leaders who share with workers in all hardships.

   b) Consciousness of quality and technical level
   In many of the other Asian countries, the relatively low consciousness of quality observed among workers results in troubles such as the low accuracy of registers, irregular color tones and ink emulsification. In many cases, workers are not responsible for these troubles. Even if the responsibility for any trouble would be put on them, they could not help answering that it would have been inevitable. They do not have any knowledge of problems, though they do the best. It is difficult to maintain the quality of products on a high level, unless the equipment, technology management and technical education are maintained on a higher level than on the standard.
   If the equipment and the technology management are on a lower level, workers cannot have any consciousness of quality. The CEOs and other management staff should be responsible for maintaining the equipment and the technology management on a higher level. If the equipment and the technology management are on a lower level, there can be no work exchange.

4.Production Practice and Technological Thought

In the other Asian countries, the majority of producing equipment and materials is imported so that the ratio of material to production cost is probably high. As a result, the prices for printed matters are relatively high, compared with those for general goods, and prevent the printing industry from further developing. To reduce the costs for printing equipment, materials and paper, the management is obliged to go beyond the limit in saving money even by neglecting the technical rules.

1. Press rollers, blankets, paper grippers, etc. are not replaced till they can be no more used. Thus, the maintenance cost for equipment is reduced to the extremely low level.
2. To reduce the costs for films, corrections are made by patching films or strips up, if possible. Even in the far future, therefore, it is probably impossible to introduce the printing technology of the next generation.
3. To save the costs for PS (pre-sensitized plate) materials, one printing plate is used both for color proofing and printing purposes. This practice makes the quality control impossible, and consequently any correction process at a higher cost.
4. The types and sizes of printing paper is quite short fall as the main printing material. The size of paper must be selected by nature depending on the projected size of printed matters. In practice, however, the size of printed matters is often selected depending on that of paper. As a result, many copies of book are often produced in different sizes, and in many cases the machine and cross grain directions cannot be freely selected.

5. Technological Environment and Technical Problems to Solve in the 21st Century

Even in the 21st century, it is expected that 70 to 80% of the total sales will be accomplished by the conventional business of 'printing on paper' in the printing industry, while 20 to 30% are realized by e-business. The e-business will include:
1) The compilation of Internet web-sites;
2) The preparation and management of customer lists, and the classification and storage of data;
3) The sorting of personal lists and the postal service of printed matters;
4) The POD (print on demand) production and postal service of documents sent on the Internet
On the other hand, the conventional business of 'printing on paper' will be entirely linked with the IT (Information Technology).

* Technological Environment of Printing Industry in the 21st Century

1. At least 80% of the text and graphic design data used to produce printed matters will be supplied to printing companies via electronic media (including the Internet).
2. Printing companies will do mainly the following types of business in the 21st century:
1) Checking by the pre-freight work of data supplied and correcting ;
2) Compiling, processing and color-proofing the printing data, and managing databases;
3) Producing, processing, fulfilling and distributing printed matters; and Providing e-business-related services such as graphic designing, planning, POD, web-site business, consulting, etc.
3. Imaging work for printing will be done by a filmless system such as CTP or digital imaging setter. Therefore, it will be imperative to create the perfect printing data arranged for the plate size.
4. In the 21st century, different types of workflow will be integrated, and a standard format will be established for the integrated workflow.
CIP3 used for the workflow of production process and PJTF used for the management of business will be integrated into JDF (Job Definition Format).
* CIP3 (Collaboration for Integration of Pre-press, Press and Post-press)
This job information includes all the production data used in the processes, and facilitates the automation and linkage of processes.
* PJTF (Portable Job Ticket Format)
This job information includes all the data on order slips. The necessary information will be entered at the web site of each process.
The analysis of the information such as production specifications, material procurement, progress and costs will provide all the business information such as profit and loss data, orders and purchases by department, person and customer.

* Problems to Solve

1. Term of delivery - It is expected that the term of delivery will be shorter and shorter for all the product lines except the specific items (such as textbooks, dictionaries, maps, etc.). The main problem for exports is a too long time of transportation. However, it will be probably impossible to solve this problem only by reducing the transportation costs. In case of domestic distribution, a shorter term of delivery may be realized by rationalizing the production system and strengthening the management system. A severer discipline of observing the delivery term also should be established in the printing industry.
2. Costs - In the printing industries of most Asian countries, the material cost generally accounts for a high percentage of the total production cost, because the majority of equipment and materials (such as ink, PS plates and paper) is imported. It will be necessary for them to take measures for reducing costs, for example, abolish the import tax. Or otherwise, the burden of the personnel costs may prevent the Asian printing industry from further developing. If the maintenance and checking of equipment and materials are omitted to alleviate the burden of costs for them, or if the techniques and systems are changed to save materials, this may result in an adverse effect or higher costs.
3. Quality - The corporate discipline should be severer to strengthen the consciousness of quality. To maintain the quality of products, the equipment and technologies also should be maintained on a higher level than on the standard.
4. Response to changes - The printing business in the 21st century should be considered as a services sector rather than as a manufacturing sector. This business will provide a variety of services such as designing, planning, consulting, pre-press, production and distribution. Most of these services will be linked with computers, and rapidly changing. Once a printing company fails to respond to any change, it will have to struggle much harder in order to catch up with the change than if it may respond to it successfully. To respond well to any change, it is imperative for printing companies to give a thorough computer education and training to their employees, especially their management staff.

2000/11/16 00:00:00