EXPERT ONLINE: Measuring Prepress Productivity

What can you do to increase throughput in prepress? You can unearth the number-one hidden source of additional billable hours: human productivity at the computer. Unlike presses, folders and stitchers—where you can count “clicks” to monitor output and productivity—you can't easily count the mouse clicks made by a prepress operator. (Any innovators out there want to jump on this one?)

If you could count clicks, you'd aim for the least amount of clicks necessary to complete each job to achieve ultimate efficiency. But alas, watch your prepress operators clicking away—are they really getting jobs done as efficiently as possible? And if they're guessing through menus, what should you do?

Online software skills assessment is the easiest and least expensive way to determine if your staff is working efficiently at their workstations. First, you must obtain their buy-in for this process and they must see the benefits in the form of less frustration, greater job satisfaction and more confidence in the quality of their work.

When employees know they're being measured and they've had a hand in creating the metric, their productivity rises over time. “Sit down with employees and hammer out goals together,” says Joanne Sujansky, Ph.D., founder of KeyGroup, a leading workplace productivity firm.

Once you've identified weak spots, set aside time to bring each person up to speed. Training/education options include:

• Online training—including prepresstraining.com, newhorizons.com, elementk.com, vtc.com, lynda.com, adobe.com, sessions.edu and agitraining.com • Classroom training—including local colleges, training centers and PIA affiliates • DVD training—including totaltraining.com and macacademy.com • Custom training—use a prepress training consultant or your own staff • and free software tutorials and help menus.

Management needs to carve out time in the production schedule for training, which can be very cost-effective—comprehensive licenses are available for $300 per year. While most printers schedule time for routine maintenance, only the most profitable ones set aside time to keep their people running efficiently.

The best way to ensure that the learning process is not interrupted by a rush job or an overly aggressive production schedule is to make training available at an offsite location, off hours or during downtime.

While not as straightforward as measuring press output, there are prepress metrics you can monitor to track productivity gains, including: billable hours completed per day, time spent per job, preflighting time per page, time spent correcting files after the first proof has been submitted (prepress errors/rework), number of plate remakes due to prepress error and press downtime due to rework. These metrics can be monitored for each employee and for the entire department. “Put systems in place for measuring productivity and live by them. Remember this mantra: What gets measured gets done,” Sujansky suggests.

There's more. Read about measuring knowledge and repeatability online at www.graphicartsmonthly.com.