Paris, September 1, 2008 – The Web Offset Champion Group (WOCG) has made its unique  242-page 'Tool Box', containing all of its seven best practice guides to date, available to web printers in English and German languages from www.wocg.info for only € 100 plus postage.

This first ever 'Tool Box' compendium brings together all these WOCG best practice guides:

•    Roll to web processing

•    Web break prevention & diagnosis

•    How to avoid surprises when changing paper grades

•    Productivity Maintenance - How to run presses longer, leaner and faster

•    How to get colour approved rapidly and maintain it

•    Environmental considerations - Energy Economy Efficiency Ecology

•    Total process colour control & Alternative Screening Technologies

Each of these 'Tool Box chapters' focuses on a specific theme that can be read in 1-2 hours to provide a complete overview of a subject. In addition, a special introduction chapter provides an overview of the business context of best practice - economic benefits, business strategy, how to systematically apply best practices, waste prevention, key success factors and measurement.

Michael Ratcliff, Director of Engineering and Construction Management for Gannett Co., Inc. comments on the newly published Champion Group Tool Box, "The Web Offset Champion Group Tool Box is very well put together. I will keep it on my bookshelf and use it to illustrate process issues. The technical information is very good."

Randy Freeman of QuadTech and the Web Offset Champion Group confirms, "The goal of this Tool Box is to provide all of our Best Practice Guides to web offset printers & publishers in one location – to be their 'one-stop-shop' knowledge base for web printing. Best practice guides of course remain available individually at €30 each in seven languages, but the Tool Box gives you all seven English & German language guides at less than half price. Every web printer should invest in this Tool Box as a key reference source for his work."

The Web Offset Champion Group 'Tool Box' can be used in several ways:

-    To help managers optimise their production and manufacturing strategy, define key factors for success, and identify priorities

-    To assist production managers in trouble-shooting and to help identify improvement projects

-    To give process improvement team members a common understanding of a subject

-    To discuss expectations, roles and procedures with customers, sales and production staff

-    Provide a useful reference for experienced production staff, and assist printers new to web offset

-    Offer a refresher on basic best practices that are fundamental to productivity and quality

New Best Practice Guide 7 Content - Total process colour control & Alternative Screening Technologies

The new WOCG best practice guide 7 is included in the 'Tool Box' as a special feature, but will not be available on its own in a single publication in multiple languages until later this year.

Digital workflows have increased the speed and efficiency of offset printing. They have also enabled the development of Alternate Screening Technologies (AST) that can add value to offset printed images by improving their visual quality. However, the digital printing workflow chain also has multiple potential sources of colour and quality deviations. This guide focuses on optimising the conventional AM digital workflow process - this is also the prerequisite to the successful use of ASTs such as FM, Hybrid FM/AM and high lpi AM screenings. This guide is complimentary to the work of ICC, Ifra, GATF, IDEAlliance and other organisations and its objectives are to help optimise best practices that improve quality, consistency and productivity. As part of this project, 35 current users have shared some of their experiences with ASTs that confirms our conclusions that that key process success factors include:

•    An integrated industrial manufacturing strategy (that combines standardisation, colour management, process control and effective maintenance) is essential to achieve consistent high quality and productivity benefits.

•    Successful AST users indicate that the window of operating variability is tighter for AST and requires better control of all process variables.

•    An optimised conventional AM workflow is the absolute prerequisite to assess, select and introduce ASTs.


Why best practice?

Best practices are a tool to improve overall business performance and the competitive differentiation of web offset printers without making capital investment. The results should be measurable in terms of cost, time and quality.

Best practice is 'Doing it right the first time' by the systematic application of procedures, techniques and organisation to optimise a standardised product or process'.

All web offset printers - irrespective of the brands of equipment or consumables that they use - can apply the generic content of Web Offset Champion Group (WOCG) guides.

The economics of best practice

The primary benefits of optimised best practices are economic from improvements in productivity and total cost performance - these should always be measurable - some examples from printers are included on these pages. The secondary benefits maybe more difficult to measure but also provide economic value. These include better on-time delivery, more consistent and defined quality, improved environmental and safety performance.

Guides cover both heatset and coldset because of the increasing technology and business convergence between these disciplines. Best practices are also global - there is little difference between operating a printing press in Stuttgart, Sydney, Shanghai, or San Francisco. Globalisation of the printing and publishing industry requires more consistent geographic performance and the effective application of international printing standards. For this reason, individual guides are published in seven languages to make them widely accessible.

How to obtain this WOCG Tool Box

This valuable Web Offset Champion Group 'Tool Box' best practice guide compendium can be obtained in three ways:

A – Visit the Web Offset Champion Group official web site at www.wocg.info and order from 'The Champion Shop' online for only €100 with your credit card – all users worldwide except USA/Canada

B – Visit the Graphic Arts Information Network (GAIN) web site at http://tinyurl.com/3d3xjo and order from the PIA/GATF store online in US$ with your credit card – all users in the USA/Canada

C – Ask your nearest office of any of these Web Offset Champion Group members how to obtain a Tool Box from them: Aylesford Newsprint, Kodak, manroland, MEGTEC, Muller Martini, Nitto Denko, QuadTech, SCA, Sun Chemical and Trelleborg. Links to all these members' web sites can be found at www.wocg.info