Postpress Quality Management

Abstract Post-printing is an important procedure for obtaining the final form and performance of printed products. The quality management of post-press processing should start from the aspects of pre-press production, site management, and production scheduling, and effectively improve the quality of products processed after printing.

Keywords postpress; quality management; site management; production scheduling

Post-printing is the combined binding or surface finishing of printed printed sheets. It is a necessary procedure for the printed products to obtain the final form and performance, and is also an important means to improve product quality and added value.

At present, the prepress and printing technology and the quality management level of enterprises have all been greatly improved. The printing quality is basically stable, and the quality gap is mainly product quality. The core issues are in post-press processing. Some books have fine prints, but the binding quality is not stable. The quality is good and the appearance is smooth, strong and beautiful. Poor glue quality, uneven spine, unsmooth text, exposed nails, and even loose pages: packaging and decorating printed matter The quality of post-press processing is more problematic. Post-press processing plays a decisive role in the final quality and effect of the product. It will make the product enjoy extraordinary artistic effects, will enhance product revelation, play a role in guiding customers, and become an important means for product value-added and promotion.

Post-press processing determines the final appearance of printed products. The scope and content involved are very extensive. Including both the molding and processing of printed products, such as finished cutting, folding, book affixing, matching book cores, staples, bag covers, folded seals, plus seals, etc., as well as combination of crepe, overlay, and die-cut indentation , sticky boxes, etc.; also include polishing, local UV, film, embossing, refractive, bronzing and other landscaping decorative processing. As a printing post-processing process, it occupies a large area, labor-intensive, equipment automation is not high, production efficiency is low, and the construction period is long.

The reasons that affect the quality of postpress processing are complicated. Some enterprises pay insufficient attention to post-press processing, lack of investment, weak management, and low quality of employees. Post-press processing is often a bottleneck in the quality of printed products. With the demand of the market, people put forward higher requirements for the postpress printing. Strengthening the quality management of postpress processing is the key to ensuring the quality of postpress processing.

2 Quality Management starts from prepress

Printing is a systematic project. Print is a multi-process collaborative product. Although the printing quality is good, if it does not meet the process requirements of the subsequent processes, it will not be able to complete the production smoothly and there will be quality problems. in · Production. People often attach great importance to the quality of printing, but they neglected the quality of postpress processing. They did not make overall plans for the production process. There was a lack of communication between processes. Processes before and after the process could not cooperate with each other, especially some urgent items. Go to the order and start blindly. Change the production process. The desire to speed is not achieved, resulting in product quality defects, resulting in waste of manpower, material resources and various resources.

Therefore, the quality management of the post-press processing must first attach importance to prepress, and the product must be planned and designed before the production. It is necessary to fully consider the process requirements of the subsequent processes so as to make the operation of subsequent processes more convenient, improve the efficiency, and reduce errors. Such as hot stamping, die-cutting products, how to arrange, how to arrange printing mouthwash, local UV product printing, glazing, what to pay attention to, etc., must be considered in advance, so that the process before and after the process can coordinate and coordinate. To formulate the process and quality standards for each process, the process coordination, requirements, and materials should be clearly defined. In the face of new processes or unstable factors, necessary tests shall be conducted to formulate corresponding preventive measures so as to be prepared and to reduce the process failures and quality risks brought by the post-press processing to ensure smooth post-press processing. , To improve product quality and production efficiency.

3 Quality management should be “hard and soft”

"Right" refers to rigid management, that is, institutionalized, mandatory management: "Flexible soft-leaf management, it is also people-oriented, conscious management. Postpress quality management must be rigid and flexible combination, it is necessary to improve the mandatory management The system will be changed to the “human law” and “using the system as the law” to implement a standardized and institutionalized management. At the same time, we must fully respect the requirements of employees' humanity, humanity, and self-value enhancement, actively carry out democratic management, and mobilize the enthusiasm and creativity of employees. In order to further improve the quality of post-press processing management.

Enterprises must strengthen institutionalized post-press processing quality management, implement or further implement ISO9000 quality system certification, improve the quality management system, formulate process quality standards and quality assurance measures, standardize process operations, and digitize and form quality management operations. And there must be appropriate assessment methods and rewards and penalties to ensure that the quality management system is implemented. For example, what each process does, how to do it, how much to achieve, what requirements to achieve, how to control, what records to form, etc., must be rigorous, accurate, and standardized. Through these rigid and compulsory preventive system constraints, employees can earnestly study and implement quality standards, and strictly follow the proofs, process requirements, and standards construction to eliminate the subjective and random behavior in the production process. Control the status to ensure the quality of printed products after printing.

Strict rigid management has a good effect on maintaining the production order of post-press processing, standardizing the process, and stabilizing product quality. However, it lacks flexibility and places employees in a passive and passive state, which may easily lead to employees' lack of participation in improvement and participation in management decision-making. Initiative, its enthusiasm and creativity can not be fully exerted, which is extremely unfavorable to the improvement of the quality of complex and diversified post-press processing products. In particular, the post-press processing is labor-intensive, the process changes frequently, the new technology emerges constantly, and the management system It can't be everything. This requires a certain degree of flexibility in the management of post-press processing quality. It should be people-centered and create a proactive working environment that stimulates employees' internal potential, initiative, and creative spirit. Ultimately, quality management is transformed from passive behavior to active awareness. Promote the transformation of employees' conscious willingness to reduce the quality of post-press processing quality management, improve management efficiency, and help improve product quality. For example, to create a customer-oriented “internal customer shop” within the company: the next process is the “God” of the previous process. The upstream process must serve the next process, and the upstream process must not only ensure the quality of product processing, but also To facilitate the next process. Give full play to the operator's role in the quality management of post-press processing, and implement the “three threes” of process quality, so that the operator can achieve “three confirmations” in the on-site production process: confirm the processing quality of the previous process product and confirm The process requirements, technical standards, and processing quality of this process confirm the quality of the completed product delivered to the next process: "Three nos": No acceptance, no processing, no transfer of defects: "Three mutuals": run through each other, check each other's problems, Help each other.

4 Strengthen on-site management

There are various kinds of printing products, and the post-press processing process is complex and changeable. After many conversions, the products often require a lot of manual labor, cooperation between processes, selection of equipment and materials, transmission of various information, storage and transfer of products. Such as, can easily lead to human error accidents, affect product quality. For example: flip books in books and magazines, wrong stickers, and different types of packaging cartons are mixed with each other. The reason why these errors are difficult to eliminate is mainly due to the chaotic management of the scene. One of the difficult problems in post-press processing is quality instability. Although due to the special nature of the printed products, there are many influencing factors, but site management is not a reason that cannot be ignored. The materials and semi-finished products are piled up in disorder and stored in a poor manner. The maintenance, maintenance and use of equipment and tools are inappropriate. They are afraid of trouble and are arbitrarily operated. As a result, the process conditions in the production process are not stable and the product quality fluctuates.

Enterprises should pay attention to the on-site management of post-press processing, and rationally allocate and optimize on-site production elements such as people, machines, materials, energy, law, and rings through scientific planning, organization, coordination, control, and incentive management so that they are in good condition. Maintain normal operation to achieve high quality, high efficiency, low consumption, balanced and safe production.
To raise the level of on-site management, it is important to establish appropriate standards and to achieve regulations. It is necessary to specify specific, standardized and effective practices as well as quantifiable standards for assessment or rectification. At the same time, it is necessary to strengthen inspections and strict disciplines. In particular, it is necessary to strengthen guidance and gradually enable employees to develop the good habits of consciously maintaining work sites, keeping the environment clean and in good order, and maintaining sound equipment, building a teamwork spirit, ensuring work quality, and avoiding human error. It is necessary to habituate, institutionalize and regularize on-site management work. In particular, we must actively promote “5S management” and continuously improve on-site management to stabilize and improve product quality.

5 Reasonable production scheduling

The post-press processing involves many contents, complicated processes, and long construction period. However, in the actual printing production arrangements, the production cycle of post-press processing is often not considered enough, and the phenomenon of loose, tight, insufficiently coordinated and disorderly production before production is also experienced. More serious, in addition, in the business orders, commitments to customers, there are also factors in the post-press processing factors considered too little. The time of plate making and printing is relatively abundant, but the production cycle of the post-press processing is short and the production is highly strained, so that the product quality cannot be guaranteed. In the inevitable trend of the development of printing products to “small batch, variety, short cycle, high quality”, the contradiction between production cycle and product quality has become increasingly prominent. And to resolve this contradiction. Scientific and rational production scheduling is essential.

To achieve reasonable production scheduling, the following points should be noted:

(1) The production cycle before and after the process should be rationally allocated and closely linked, so as to reduce the wait for work and take off due to mistakes in production arrangements. For example, a multi-adhesive plastic book with text, inserts, and cover, and the cover requires hot stamping and laminating. If the print volume is large, then first print the cover or print the text first? Whether to reprint another sticker, or to print a part of each sticker, the production schedule must be weighed according to the actual situation in many ways, and reasonable arrangements should be made to avoid the need to wait for the book to be attached and to wait for work, thereby shortening the binding cycle. The rush to work resulted in insufficient processing of the book and affected the quality.

(2) The same batch of products should be arranged in order, first printed, first processed, and then post-printed. This will not only help the ink to dry, but also avoid the deformation of the paper due to changes in the moisture content of the printed semi-finished products. Affect the quality of the post process.

(3) Production arrangements vary from product to product. The process characteristics and requirements of different products and processes are different. This requires that they be taken into consideration when the production arrangement is made, otherwise it will cause unnecessary quality problems. For example, for coated film indentation products, such as the squeezing of the film and die cutting after the film is coated, the quality of the paper film separation at the indentation will be caused: the product that is stamped on the large-scale ink, if it is placed after printing, The time is too long, it will lead to the failure of the hot stamping of aluminum or not, especially when the dry oil is not added when printing.

6 Quality Management Endless

Although the degree of automatization of post-press processing is relatively low, it is a labor-intensive process, but the post-press processing operation is skillful and requires stricter requirements. The overall quality of the operator directly affects the final quality of the product. However, due to various reasons, post-press processing personnel are changing frequently, the quality of personnel is generally low, lack of professional personnel, and the management foundation is weak, which has become an important factor restricting the improvement of post-press processing quality management.