INSIGHT
Skills
In A Box
BY FRANK ROMANO, PROFESSOR EMERITUS AT
THE RIT SCHOOL OF MEDIA SCIENCE
Most of the skill sets of the traditional printing industry are now shrink-wrapped. That is, they
are programmes that do what skilled people used to do. Remember dot etchers and strippers?
Skill sets keep changing ― or disappearing. A printer in Rochester, New York, once wrote to the
president of my university to complain that they hired one of my students and the student could
not do paste-up. I had to explain to our president, an economist, that we do not do paste-up
anymore. It is done on a screen.
I receive regular communication from printers who need an operator for a
specifi c model of offset press, as though every school has one of each offset
or digital press. My favourite request came when Adobe InDesign was just
introduced — the printer wanted someone with two years' experience with the
programme.
All this brings us to the question: where will the print workers of the future
come from? Secondary schools can only teach the very basics, such as creating
a fi le, setting up a workfl ow, making a plate, running a small offset or digital
press, etc. University-level curricula can teach pre-fl ighting, colour science,
process control and much more. But only the suppliers can teach you to run
a modern offset press, or a state-of-the-art fl atbed printer, or a fi nishing system.
As older workers on older machines retire, fi nding replacements will be near
impossible. Even fi nding training on machines made before 2000 is a challenge.
Many printers hang on to their equipment, literally, for generations. Even after
the equipment is decommissioned, it is stored in an 'elephant’s graveyard' in
the bowels of the plant, as though someday it will be dusted off and re-started
like some 'mothball fl eet'.
someone still has to know how to set them up and maintain them. Even robots
will need maintenance and updating, or will they do it themselves? After all,
they are robots.
There needs to be partnerships between associations and education at every
level with suppliers to the industry. It is a symbiotic relationship. Most schools
cannot afford the very machines they need to teach with, so they use old
technology to teach new technology. Too many of the suppliers of desktop
software see schools as profi t centres and do not support them very well. They
should be donating software and support.
Printers, educators, suppliers and others are all in this together. We need to
cooperate to train and educate the workforce of the future. Because that future
comes every day.
There is no simple solution. Technology not only obsoletes machines, it
obsoletes the skills needed to run those machines. In the old days, unions were
based on specifi c processes like Linotyping, engraving, etc. and they could
supply skilled labour. Today, no single machine dominates and every supplier
uses different approaches, terminology, and tools.
In the old phototypesetting era, printers found operators by 'stealing' them from
other companies. One Alphatype operator moved from fi rm to fi rm, increasing
their salary with each move.
As printing on substrates beyond paper advances, new skills will be needed.
They may talk about 'lights-out' workfl ows which are highly automated, but
PG 24
FEBRUARY/MARCH 2018
AFRICA PRINT JOURNAL
www.AfricaPrint.com