The ‘good old lady' wears a ‘Green Band’
The Hindu at its printing unit
Traditionally, the oldest English daily in the South, The Hindu is known for not only its content (the famous saying “The Hindu with morning coffee”), but also for its commitment to manpower management and printing quality. Keeping this intact, how the flagship of Kasturi & Sons goes forward in its new green surroundings with its 'green concept' for working, finds out
D Ramalingam from All About Newspapers on his visit to the sprawling plant in the outskirts of Chennai.
(L to R) P Mohanraj, assistant general manager (printing) and V Harihareswaran,
deputy general manager (printing).
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The Hindu is better known for its content, print quality and manpower management.
Content
Traditionally, The Hindu has been acquiring popularity for its balanced views, detailed information on important happenings (recently the full treatment given to the RTE Act for example+, credit lines to its news reporters and photographers. A few months back, a successful IAS candidate ascribed her success to her thorough reading of The Hindu from first to last pages every day.
Print Quality
Sensor PC
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This is directly related to the ‘quality statement’. "Once the mindset is there, an employee is easily trained on the job. A person with an appropriate background puts on the job and trained continuously, bringing quality naturally."
Manpower Management
The handling of labour, sustainability and commitment of its workforce to the company rests on the management philosophy, “a good and quality meal is dished out by a good and quality cook who also needs to be compensated adequately for his efforts”. Socially also, they need to be taken care of properly. This is what prevails at The Hindu.
These have been quite a simple affairs for years together, 100+ years, practised under one roof with co-ordination being easier. How is it now with changed world, changed environment and supervised from a distant place? This is the story of Kasturi & Sons’ (publishers of The Hindu) two plants in Maraimalainagar. Yes, there are two plants, one for printing and another for ink manufacturing.
Maraimalainagar Printing Plant
With continuous expansion of facilities, the old plant in Mount Road at the heart of the city started becoming insufficient in terms of available space. So, The Hindu decided to move its production facilities to its own Kasturi & Sons Estate in Maraimalainagar, 40 km away. This suburb is well connected with trains, buses and airport (around 10-15 km away). A bustling industrial area, Mahindra World City and Ford factory, etc are already situated at stone throw distance, to mention a few.
In 20 acres area, about 60 percent built up with the printing and a kilometre away the ink manufacturing facility built up in another 10 percent area, the rest is all GREEN with well maintained lawns/gardens. Not only the vacant area but the printing area itself is almost 100 percent pollution-free very much fitting into the noteworthy 'green' concept effort.
Mitsubishi Diamond Spirit Webs with 24x4–col + 8pp b/w (9 towers), two Agfa Polaris CtPs, Nela plate punching, Muller Martini mailroom primarily comprised of NGR pickup stations, NEWSGRIP conveyors, SITECH label applicators, Online NTR trimmers, top sheet applicators with online laser printers, film wrapping machines and strapping machines (two numbers each for three printing machines), etc can be mentioned as their major workhorses.
The key to its operations is the DIAMOND EYE - world’s first inline quality control system. The main features of DIAMOND EYE include: automatic density control, automatic print quality inspection, automatic plate position checking, and ink preset functions. DIAMOND EYE automatically initiates density control when production is started. An image data server receives image data (Tiff format) and image job information (XML format with information of page number, colour location, job name, etc from a CtP server. Then the image data server converts the received image data into the modified image data adopted for its control system and store those modified image data. When operators select a job on an operating console, the selected image data in the image data server are automatically transmitted to a sensor PC. As soon as the production is started, the sensor PC automatically starts density control based on the target image data and starts print quality inspection automatically after capturing a good copy image.
To bring this to stand, the parameters are to be determined by means of a test form, adjusting to colour patches, corresponding to DeltaE (L*A*B*) and other things. This requires trained people all along the line in prepress and press operations. The Hindu engages 200+ employees comprising of diploma holders, BE (printing) and mechanical engineers as well at supervisory level, etc.
While the author/correspondent was present at Printing Machine (location A), the running quality control at 244 copies from A & B machines the copies from both looked fully identical. Each machine (A, B, C) has its own image data server and sensor PC. The total print order is generally split into the three machines for speedy production. It is also possible to operate through a central server serving the separate servers on each printing machine. This is one part where one gets copy to copy uniform quality and wastage at its most minimum. If some plate rejection or paper problem arises, machine stops automatically, with indications shown on the sensor PC.
The other part is the pollution control steps. No solvent extract goes out of the plant. Even the excess heat generated by the heatset webs are piped into a huge burner from where only the pure clean air is let off to the atmosphere. The blanket wash is re-circulated. The fountain solution is sprayed and not directly applied making the residues evaporated. Whatever waste is generated, is collected in separate containers after being dried through pipes, rest is collected by designated contractors and sent to municipality waste collection centre. The aim is to bring down to the lower carbon footprint as much as possible.
Ink and fountain solution are 100 percent customised with self-made inks, chemicals and buffers. It is strived to maintain 5.1 to 5.4 pH throughout. As for as co-ordination, editorial & management are concerned these are housed in Mount Road, rest in Maraimalainagar. The editorial content is sent from head office online, the prepress professionals then convert the PDF files into imaging of plates for printing.
Tailpiece
'Emotional to Professional' is the current management guideline. Professional editors have taken over for each publication. CEO (in his 40 to 50s) appointed to take charge of the complete day-to-day operations will report to the board of directors. All management personnel and vice presidents will report to the CEO. The good old lady (134 years of age) seeing a transformation, all these years with emotional attachment under one roof co-ordination has to adjust herself to the changing conditions of two working places and appropriate co-ordination. For any human 120 full life years are assigned, but for this industrial old day, this could well be the ripening age. All About Newspapers magazine wishes her well.
