Book printing quality management

People who have done book printing and quality management know that many books and periodicals make you dizzying from printing, page selection to folding, copying, binding, waxing, copying, binding, and so on. As long as the process is wrong, the subsequent process is generally difficult to find, so it will cause the occurrence of non-conforming products, the quality of the entire batch of products will be reduced.

The author has been engaged in the quality management of books and publications for more than a decade in the printing industry. From this decade-long experience in management work, we must understand that in order to improve the overall quality of books and periodicals, we must strictly grasp every basic process. The following are some experiences and methods of the quality management of each process that the author summarized in his company's work in more than a decade, for the reference of colleagues.

1, printing

The key to improving the quality of printed products is to enhance the accountability of the printing staff. The specific approach is to print out a proof sheet (this proof sheet must be confirmed by the captain first), and the quality inspector on duty shall conduct a full proofreading, make a form for record and sign, and bear any responsibility for any mistakes.

After the sample was signed, during the normal printing process of the batch, we required the captain to take a comprehensive inspection for every 500 impressions, and the deputy to take a sample proof for every 200 impressions. If there is any doubt, the batch (500 sheets or 200 sheets) should be separated and marked clearly so that the next step (selection page) can be smoothly selected. However, we once discovered that nearly one-third of the prints found after the printing was finished had a quality problem. According to the quality problem, it should be printed in one of the three shifts A, B, and C. However, after the selection page, it was not possible to identify which shift was printed. As a result, the responsibility could not be traced to the responsible person. . However, through this incident, we have added a rule to our quality management system: that is, at each place of a plate (posting marks or other places that do not affect the finished product), add “A, B, C” to the drying. The 3 words are used as 3 job numbers. In this way, when quality problems arise, they can be traced to the finished books and magazines. At the same time, this is also a powerful means to strengthen their sense of responsibility.

2, selection page (post)

Page selection may seem simple, but it must be very careful and responsible people to be qualified for this job. The work of selection of posts focuses on "tick" and "points": "Tick" is to reject unqualified products and secondary and waste products; "sub" is to classify products of various levels. Therefore, the page selection personnel must be very careful. After the selection of the posts, the quality of the selected products must be reported in a tabular form. Since the printed matter with the previous problems during the printing process is basically marked, the problematic product is easily selected when the page is selected. In this way, our quality management personnel can check the selection form to make the product The quality level is well known.

3, folding

Current folds include manual folding and machine folding. No matter what type of folding, the first requirement is that you cannot take the wrong page, and then you cannot reverse the page. According to our quality problems that have occurred over a long period of time, we can know that the mistakes caused by folding personnel are mostly these two phenomena. Once the first phenomenon occurs, it is a large quality accident. This kind of error is most likely to occur in books of the same series and in different books. Our company has ever appeared. There was a series of English exercise books printed at the time. There were three types of first grade, second grade and third grade. Due to the similarity of the characters in the quotation marks, the folding staff could not read the content, and the three kinds of signatures were placed in one place. A careless folding staff went after the third post of the first day to get the post. , but took the third post of the second day, folded and then put together with the first one, the post mark hit Qi, page number just connected. As a result, after the finished product of this book, the quality inspection personnel inside the factory did not check it out and sent it back to the student's hand, causing a very significant impact. The second phenomenon is reversing the pages of the book. If there are several rehearsals, the pager’s negligence will be folded in. If it is not very careful, it is difficult to check it out.

To prevent the above two phenomena from happening, you must do well when the printed pages have not yet been pulled into the folding workshop. Similar books should not be pulled together. Even if they are not put together, they must have very clear signs. , and in which direction these signs can be clearly seen in the book. Only by doing this can you overcome the wrong post. As for the requirements for folding pages, page hits, and so forth, it is a commonplace problem, so this phenomenon rarely occurs.

4. Bundling

The process of flattening and bundling mainly requires that the process be strictly controlled and that the employee's operation method is correct and appropriate. Generally, no quality problems will occur.

5, with posts

The probability of mistakes in the distribution process is large, and there are often phenomena such as mismatched posts, multiple posts, and few posts. However, as long as the post is self-checked and mutual-checked (the employees check each other), errors can be easily detected. When posting, it is easy to take the wrong post, so the quality management of the post must be consistent with the folding request so as not to take the wrong post.

6, waxing

In the past, waxing was hand-brushed. After technological transformation, many companies now use brush polishers to brush wax. Whether it is waxing by hand or waxing the machine, the solubility of the wax and the brushing gap of the signature are the most noteworthy. Quality management personnel must also pay special attention to checking this point. If operators do not do a good job, the next process will result in difficulty in distribution or mistakes. Therefore, this process needs to arrange some more experienced people to operate (especially hand-waxing) in order to avoid such mistakes.

7, brush glue, copy

Like the waxing process, some companies have also used automatic brushing machines. Like the waxing machine, the gluing machine also needs to consider the drying temperature and the consistency of the glue. These two points are done in order to facilitate the separation of this process.

8, flat, plastic loading

Flat-booking (now that books are no longer pinged, no longer discussed here), plastic binding is a major focus and difficulty of quality management of books and periodicals. Many problems such as degumming, blistering, leaking, wild glue, back wrinkling and so on are very easy to occur in this process. Therefore, before carrying out large-volume adhesive bonding, small batch tests must be carried out first. After the test product comes out, quality management personnel To conduct some superior performance test (such as placing in the refrigerator and drying room) on the glued out test article, if the temperature is lower (-20°C), the glue will be brittle and loose; the temperature is higher (40°C) Whether the glue will be soft and blistering will cause quality accidents when the book is sent to a hot area or a cold area. In addition, whether the wild glue and the glue hole and the back ridge are solved in the small-batch test can be mass-produced. Before the mass production, the quality management personnel must approve and sign the sample. In the process of mass production, frequent sampling inspections are also required, and attention is paid to the technical indicators such as adhesive temperature, adhesive temperature, and plywood pressure on the binding machine. Changes, due to a number of changes in the data caused by a large number of book degumming and other quality issues often occur, so this requires special attention.

9, finished cutting

Finished cutting is the final process. The completion of this process marks the successful completion of a book. If all the previous processes are completed and there is a mistake in the final cut, then all previous efforts will be abandoned and a lot of manpower and material resources will be wasted. Therefore, this procedure must strictly implement the sample-taking system and strictly contrast the manuscript to see if there are dimensional deviations, hanging angles, and so on. After batch sampling, the cutting deputy (the picking staff behind the machine knife) shall have an inspection system. For example, if our company stipulates that after every 20 hand-cuts, it will be necessary to stop the books for inspection and find that there are dimensional deviations and hangs. Problems such as angles, knife and flowers should be corrected in case of emergency, otherwise the responsibility of the deputy should be investigated.

10. Bundling and packing

Bundling and packaging are auxiliary processes. Generally, there is no impact on the quality of books. It is necessary to pay attention to the number of points enough, solid, but not too tight, so as not to loose or too tight and damage the book. Quality management personnel should also not forget to perform visual inspection on the packaging so that each process can be qualified.

11. Sampling of finished products Sampling of finished product batches shall be established in the warehouse of the company (public plant), and special quality management personnel shall carry out spot inspections strictly in accordance with sampling inspection methods for books (teaching materials). The company's internal standards can be higher than the national standards. If a certain index fails to meet the national standards or internal standards in the sampling inspection, it should be immediately reworked, returned to repair, and screened, in order to achieve a 100% pass rate for the books.

The above is the experience and method used by the author in the company's book printing quality management. The company has achieved good results. In the sampling inspection of the quality of the company's books and periodicals, the higher authorities and industry departments have repeatedly All products have been identified as good products (first-class products). Of course, a meter can be used to make a meal. Other companies may have more advanced quality management experience and methods, depending on the specific circumstances of the company.

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