Shin Liao, Ph.D. Associate Professor, Department of Graphic Arts Communication, National Taiwan Normal University
162, Hoping E. RD., Taipei, 10610, Taiwan, sliao@ntnu.edu.tw
Abstract
The objective of this research is to explore the competency for pre-press
professionals under the circumstance of rapid revolution and change of technology in the printing industry. The literature reviews collected in the beginning of this research identified a few of skills, knowledge, somewhat goodwill or attitude, of the pre-press professional as the competency. A survey was also conducted through members of the Association of the Taipei Printing Industry. The total 287 questionnaire were sent out for investigation, and 107 out of them were returned and valid. The rate of feedback is nearly equal to 37%. The competency for pre-press professionals were finally
categorized into 26 items in the research; more importantly, the 3 items among them--the ability to precisely set both plate-making and finished size, the skill of layout, including setting running head, running page, corner line and cutting line, the understanding of color cast in fixing a manuscript – are most essential for pre-press professionals and highly valued by the printing industry.
Keyword: printing industry, pre-press professional, competency
Introduction
With the rapid development and revolution of technology, the process and procedure of the printing has been tremendously changed toward digitalization.
Especially in the pre-press process, digital prepress technology has become less cost intensive, more efficient and reliable, and as the knowledge and skill required to use the new hardware and especially software have become more widespread within the labor force, digital automation has been introduced to almost every part of the process.
This circumstance has come out an issue of how to manage the workflow to gain efficiency and quality in the entire production of digital printing.
To deeply explore the competency of pre-press professionals will be the key to success in managing workflows of production in the modern printing industry. The pre-press is the first process of production. Employees, who are actually responsible for the production (e.g. layout), usually have to attend to part of pre-press in order to complete the process without errors. Managers can be benefited from understanding capabilities of their labor force well to assign task, allocate responsibility and implement job training. According to the report from the Industrial Development Bureau of Taiwan Ministry Economic Affairs (2006), 12 companies have accepted the Bureau’s help to upgrade color-control techniques and to integrate work-flows
through digitalization. All evidences show that competency of pre-press professionals change. Since the competency of professionals has been changeable along with the technological and economic development, its scopes and contents need be updated too (Lee, 2003). The identification of the competency in this research is based on the principle of adjusting with the integration of new technique and printing job.
The purposes of this research are mainly to explore the current development of the modern printing industry and to understand the professional competency of the pre-press industry.
Terminologies:
Competency: the condition or quality of being competent when someone fulfill the job, including of ability, skill, knowledge, and somewhat goodwill.
Pre-press professional: Field (1980) indicated three processes in the standard
printing industry: pre-press, press, post-press. Prepress is the term used in the printing and publishing industries for the processes and procedures that occur between the creation of a print layout and the final printing. The prepress procedure includes the manufacture of a printing plate, image carrier or form, ready for mounting on a printing press, as well as the adjustment of images and texts or the creation of a high-quality print file. The pre-press professional means someone who is fully responsible and specially trained for pre-press tasks.
Literature Review
The Current Printing Industry:
Since the labor force, especially pre-press professionals is the key to success in managing a printing business, in the era of knowledge based economy, we can foresee that the digital automation will become the main stream in the printing industry. Not only were work forces replaced by the automation of machines quickly, but also white-collar employees felt threatened with such a volatile environment of management.
Huang (2001) pointed that digitalization has made it possible that processes of printing, including of pre-press, press, and post-press, can be fully coordinated without any impedance. The International Cooperation for Integration of 6 Processes in Prepress, Press and Postpress (abbreviated as CIP4), formed by many printing suppliers and educational groups, strived to set up a standard format of file transfer and data sharing for the integration of the printing industry. Therefore, printing techniques, graphic arts and graphic communications are formed into one technology.
With the mature of CIP4 application, all files can be inter-operated cross platform through machines supplied by those members, so as to avoid the repetition of file inputs, reduce errors and get high-quality products. (Liao, 2006)
At the same time, the electronic commerce and internet also facilitate the
integration of the printing industry. As a result, a company can greatly gain efficiency from customers’ inputs to final printing by digital automation, mainly in the reduction of production costs and the enhancement of performance without errors.
The Pre-press Workflow:
In current Taiwan printing industry, the pre-press process can be mainly
considered as 3 procedures of input, assembly, and output. The main task of input is
typesetting graphic and text. The facilities of graphic input include of the plotter plate, digital camera, photo CD, handy scanner, flatbed scanner, desktop scanner, and cylinder scanner. The text input is usually done by typing directly from a keyboard, or scanning from the manuscript and then transferred into the electronic file by text recognition of some software (Chang, 2000). The client-server network can serve well in the assembly of files among computers. The Color Electronic Prepress System (CEPS), which edits graphics and texts and then makes into four color separation screens for the plate-making use, becomes the main operation system of pre-press process (Ho, 1995). The digital instrument of pre-press output, based on the Postscript language, interprets through the Raster Image Processor (RIP) to screen data and then outputs by layout software (Cheng, 2001). The facilities of pre-press output include of electronic files for multi-media publication and network communication, the screen plate machine, computer to plate ( CTP) machine, the proof machine, and the digital press machine for customizing products (Hsieh, 2000).
Color Management System (CMS) is coordinated by a set of software and
hardware to maintain the consistency of color through the procedures of pre-press (Lo, 1998). The core elements of CMS are calibration, characterization, and conversion, following the specification of International Color Consortium (ICC) (Lee, 1999).
Professional Competency:
A profession is a vocation founded upon specialized educational training, the purpose of which is to supply disinterested counsel and service to others, for a direct and definite compensation, wholly apart from expectation of other business gain. The scholar Chia (1979) made a definition of profession which should covers abundant knowledge, excellent capability, service and devotion.
The competency is the condition and quality of doing something well or
effectively. The competency does not mean only the personal technique or skill but a kind of ability to make the job efficiency and success by fully utilizing knowledge, perception, and expertise (Chu & Chen, 1999). Lee (1999) also explained that the competency is the performance of personal knowledge, operation skill and good attitude to execute the job effectively.
Wu (2007), quoting from Darlling-Hammond, stated that the profession is composed of expertise, technique, mission and responsibility. Professionalism is the process of enhancing those elements to be qualified with service, independence, and uniqueness.
Chen(2001) defined that the competency is the behavior or real performance of implementing a job through the personal knowledge, skill, and goodwill.
Hong(1997) divided the competency into the dominant and recessive ability.
Generally speaking, profession, management, and personal relationship are relevant to dominant abilities. Intellectual wisdom and personal value belong to recessive
abilities.
According to above statements, this research generalized that the competency for the professional is the condition and quality of utilizing knowledge, technique, and goodwill for someone who is devoted to a special-trained job. As a result,
professionals with the competency will be highly respected in society through their join into the group, service and independence.
Method
Questionnaire and Validity:
Literature review and survey method were used to conduct this research.
According to literature review, prepress professional competence were defined. A questionnaire was developed to investigate how important the competences were ranked. A five points Likert scale from 5 to 1was equivalent to strongly agree, agree, no ideas, disagree and strongly disagree. The questionnaire was reviewed by five respect scholars and professionals from the field of graphic communication to check questionnaire’s content validity.
Samples:
The target samples of this research included managers, leaders, or executives with the experience of management in the printing operation from the Association of Taipei Printing Industry. The 287 questionnaires in total were sent, and 115 out of them were returned. After removing 8 invalid copies, 107 questionnaires were effective. The return rate is 37%.
Reliability:
Cronbach’s α is used to test the internal consistency among participants. The αvalue is 0.966, which means the answers to the questionnaire among participants reaching high reliability.
Results The Description Data:
This study has collected 107 valid questionnaires. The description data of the participants are described as the following:
1. Sex—
72 out of 107 participants are male and 35 are female. The percentage of male is equal to 67.28%, and females 32.71%.
2. Age—
14 out of 107 participants are grouped into the age from twenty to twenty nine, 18 from thirty to thirty nine, 41 are from forty to forty nine, 24 are from fifty to fifty nine, and 10 above or equal to sixty.
As a result, the percentage of people of age from twenty to twenty nine years is equal to 13.08%, from thirty to thirty nine 16.82%, from forty to forty nine 38.31%, from fifty to fifty nine 22.42%, and above or equal to sixty 9.43%.
3. Seniority—
9 out of 107 participants belong to the group with the seniority of less than 5 years, 13 between five and ten years, 10 between eleven and fifteen years, 26 between sixteen and twenty years, and 17 between twenty one and twenty five years, 14 between twenty six and thirty years, and 18 more than and equal to thirty one years.
As a result, the percentage of the group with seniority less than five years is equal to 8.41%, between five and ten 12.14%, between eleven and fifteen 9.34%,
between sixteen and twenty 24.29%, between twenty one and twenty five 15.88%, between twenty six and thirty 13.08%, and more than and equal to thirty one 16.82%.
4. Educational Level—
11 out of 107 participants belong to the group with junior high school educational level, 31 are senior or vocational high school, 53 are under-graduate or college, and 12 are graduate level.
As a result, the percentage of the group with junior high school educational level is equal to 10.3%, senior or vocational high school 29%, under-graduate or college 49.5%, and graduate 11.2%.
5. Working Department—
20 out of 107 participants belong to the group people working in the department of pre-press, 14 press, 2 post-press, 2 logistics, 39 sales, and 30 others.
As a result, the percentage of the group working in the department of pre-press is equal to 18.69%, press 13.08%, post-press 1.86%, logistics 1.86%, sales 36.44%, and others 28.03%.
Independent Variables
Category Quantity Percentage(%)
sex male 72 67.28
education junior high school 11 10.3 senior or vocational
high school
31 29
under-graduate or
college
53 49.5
graduate 12 11.2
department Pre-press 20 18.69
press 14 13.08
Post-press 2 1.86
logistics 2 1.86
sales 39 36.44
others 30 28.03
Table 1. The Data Distribution of the Sample
The Rankt of the Competency for Pre-press Professionals:
We have mentioned the adoption of Likert’s five-level scaling method in the questionnaire to measure the importance of competency. We assign points to each
level, and 5 points means very important, 4 points important, 3 neither important nor unimportant, 2 unimportant, and 1 very unimportant.
Content of Competency Mean Standard Deviation
Ranking The ability to precisely set both
plate-making and finished size
4.16 0.82 1
The skill of layout, including setting running head, running page, corner line and cutting line
4.07 0.79 2
The understanding of color cast in fixing a manuscript
3.98 0.91 3
The ability of composition to present texture materials in graphic form on paper or printing medium
3.91 0.84 4
The setting of columns to begin page layout
3.89 0.91 5
The execution of blocking out color pictures
3.77 0.82 6
The skills of character manipulation, such as handling color tint, reversing, rotation, and transformation
3.77 0.87 7
The adjustment of color tone for images and pictures
3.76 0.73 8
The adjustment of color cast of images and pictures
3.75 0.75 9
The capability of page layout 3.73 0.76 10 The recognition of printing techniques,
including of offset and gravure press.
3.71 0.88 11
The manipulation of texts, especially in the size, font, and typeface.
3.67 0.82 12
The adjustment of sharpness and softness of graphics.
3.67 0.73 13
The capability of composing texts and graphics in plates of color printing
3.67 0.84 14
The understanding of software and hardware of compositors
3.66 0.96 15
The execution of repairing of pictures 3.65 0.79 16
The understanding of the principle of color separation and reproduction
3.6 0.95 17
The marking and annotation of the manuscript with color chart
3.6 0.77 18
The handling of background color, line art, and lace border.
3.59 0.81 19
The ability of making a shadow of texts and graphics.
3.58 0.8 20
The ability to make cropping and registration mark of the printing plate
3.57 0.96 21
The ability to crate image frames 3.52 0.9 22 The capability of color arrangement 3.5 0.94 23 The operation of facilities relevant to
image scan or color separation
3.43 0.92 24
Doing special gradient and flat tint 3.43 0.9 25 Familiar with the operation of dot meter,
colorimeter, and densitometer.
3.38 0.92 26
Table 2. The Importance of Competency of Pre-press Professionals According to table 2, we can see that the ability to precisely set both
plating-making and finished size is the most important from the point of view of the printing industry, then the second comes the skill of layout, setting running head, running page, corner line and cutting line, and the third the understanding of color cast in fixing a manuscript.
Quantity Kendall’s W Chi-square D.F. P-value
107 0.089 238.137 25 0.0000
Table 3. Kendall’s W Test Statistics
From table 3, Kendall's coefficient of concordance W, equal to 0.089, and
P=0.0000<0.05, shows that 107 respondents’ opinions toward 26 items of competency reach ranking consistency.
The Comparison among Managers:
The multi-variance analysis was adopted to exam whether managers’ attributions affect their rating of the competence. The results indicated that managers’ sex (F=1.38, P=0.17) and seniority (F=0.671, P=0.673) do not affect managers to rate the
competences but managers’ age and education level do (Table 4). Scheffe post hoc test
was used to exam how the age and education level affect competences rating. The results showed that there is no difference among age groups (Table 5); however, managers with high school degree and junior high school degree do have different rating on the importance of competence (Table 6). Overall, most managers in this study rate the professional competences consistently except mangers with junior high degree.
I.V. D.V. N M SD F P
Rating of the importance of professional competence
sex 107 3.67 0.62 1.38 .170
seniority 107 3.68 0.58 0.671 .673
age 107 3.68 0.332 4.174 .04*
education 3.62 0.61 3.474 .019*
Table 4: Multi-variance analysis
Age N M SD F Sig Scheffe
(1) 20~29 14 3.36 0.14 4.174 0.04
NS (2) 30~39 18 3.45 0.11
(3) 40~49 41 3.89 0.09 (4) 50~59 24 3.61 0.15 (5) over 60 years
old 10 4.09 1.17
Table 5: Scheffe post hoc test on age groups
Education level N M SD F Sig Scheffe (1) Junior high school 11 3.30 0.53 3.474 0.019 2>1 (2) High school 31 3.94 0.60
(3) Undergraduate 53 3.67 0.60 (4) Graduate 12 3.57 0.70
Table 6: Scheffe post hoc test on educational level
Conclusion
Although managing the printing business in such a volatile environment of digital automation is a challenge for a lot of managers or executives, they can still promote the competency for the entire company step by step. The key will be the truly understanding the competency of labor force.
This research identifies 26 items of competency for prepress professionals and concludes that the ability to precisely set both plate-making and finished size, the skill of layout, including setting running head, running page, corner line and cutting line, the understanding of color cast in fixing a manuscript are the most essential and highly valued by managers in the printing industry.
A company running toward the digitalization will succeed by providing a good training for labor force, re-allocating the workflow of production, and gaining the competency of organization.
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