CT&D #21. Job Submission in Printing

As physically attending press checks become less and less common, how will work flow and printing results be foreseeably affected?

According to what I have read about this subject, not all print jobs need a press check if all  intermediate proofs have been signed off as satisfactory, this meaning if one is making sure that a print is going to end up being the way they and a client intends it to be. With that said, as attending press checks becomes less common, I foresee the workflow for a printing company increasing.

Simply put, if a printing company aims to minimize (or completely forego) the time it takes for a press check to be initiated by either focusing only on checking the printer itself (for ink and paper supply, scratches, and stock behavior) or sending a proof straight to a press after reviewing and approving it thoroughly on a computer, such a company can maximize their time in processing more jobs and taking more customers. However by doing this, the importance in having printing results be error-free is even more pronounced due to professionalism that a company should deliver to its clientele (quality over quantity in print jobs though quantity is targeted as goal for business growth).

Despite this, having a press check to determine physical errors in a print job is at least helpful to avoid reprinting, a practice which contributes to rising production costs of a company due to correcting a mistake that could have been noticed and fixed before wasting resources to print. A situation that notably needs a press check is a print job involving a calendar that a retailer needs numerous copies of; this is an example where checking for color and margins should be important due to lowering levels of ink and possible mis-registration respectively with every copy printed en mass. Nonetheless, a worker responsible for pressing must always ensure what goes into a printing press is the absolute final draft of a project and needs to ensure that the press is functioning properly to reduce the chance of physical or aesthetic errors (those of which may and still can happen regardless of how perfect and accurate a final draft will be) while complying to timeliness if the volume of jobs increase in a printing workplace.