Reducing Press Operator "Time to Proficiency"
at the Virginian-Pilot Newspaper
A CRI Success Story
By Don Richards, CEP Senior Performance Consultant

The Business Challenge: How to replace a rapidly retiring workforce with qualified personnel
About three years ago, Al Byrd, the Production Unit Manager for the Virginian-Pilot (a Norfolk, VA-area newspaper), noticed a disturbing trend. His experienced press operators – many of whom had spent decades mastering the ins and outs of highly complex printing machinery – were within two to five years of reaching retirement age. The Virginian-Pilot needed to act quickly to ensure that the loss of these personnel wouldn’t have a detrimental effect on the future production of the newspaper.

The Virginian-Pilot took proactive steps to recruit experienced press operators. They ran employment ads in the Virginian-Pilot, the Richmond newspaper, as well as other regional papers. However, after an entire year of running the ads, they received zero responses. “You’re more likely to find experienced people in the larger metropolitan areas of the country,” commented Al Byrd. “But in a smaller region with a correspondingly lower wage base like the Virginia Beach area, it’s a problem enticing experienced people.”

The Solution: CRI-based training featuring practice, practice, practice
Printing presses are extremely complex pieces of equipment that are operated at incredibly high speeds (see photo). A typical press can produce 50,000 copies of a newspaper in just one hour. This means that press operators have very little time to make needed equipment adjustments.

It also means that the vast majority of the job procedures required of press operators (about 90%) involve psychomotor skills – skills that require a combination of coordination, dexterity, and speed in order to operate precision tools and equipment (see photo).

“For the Virginian-Pilot, effective, performance-based training was a must,” said Karen VanKampen, CEP’s Vice President of Workforce Performance Services. “If press operators aren’t able to immediately perform to standard after completing training, there’s the potential for tremendous wastage and low quality output.”

CEP and the Virginian-Pilot first identified and prioritized several distinct target audiences for the new training program including, but not limited to:

• Individuals who were currently undergoing informal, on-the-job press operator training.
• Future new hires who would be brought on board as press operator trainees.
• All existing press operators to ensure the standardization of operating procedures.

CEP’s consultants then interviewed experienced press operators and reviewed all existing documentation to validate and update all of the steps, decisions, and criteria needed to successfully operate the Virginian-Pilot’s Goss printing equipment. In cases where standardized operating procedures (SOPs) did not exist, CEP’s consultants also developed SOPs for mission-critical tasks. For those tasks without existing job aids, CEP conducted further analysis to draft step-by-step performance supports detailing the initiating cue, steps, decisions, outcomes, and criteria for acceptable performance.

Armed with a comprehensive task listing and step-by-step job aids for each task, CEP then identified the specific skills required for press operators to perform each task to standard. For example, to run the folder, trainees must first have the skills to:

• Interpret press layout sheets
• Identify the location and purpose of each piece of folder equipment
• Set and adjust folder components
• Identify the location and purpose of console switches and indicator lights
• Discriminate examples of such things as page margins and product page cutoff
• Determine the proper adjustments needed to correct improper margins and page cutoffs
• Determine the correct procedures to follow when a paster is in cycle
• Discriminate such printing items as open ends, angle bar leads, and fly sheets

All job-critical skills were then carefully grouped together to ensure that trainees would progress through the training course in the most efficient and effective manner. CEP then developed specific modules of instruction to teach press operator trainees the skills needed to perform job-critical tasks to management’s expectations. To ensure training would help learners master job-critical psychomotor skills, CEP’s consultants focused on developing training that would allow them to demonstrate competence in each of the skills being taught. By emphasizing hands-on practice in actual on-the-job conditions, press operator trainees will gain the self-confidence and the competence needed to successfully operate press equipment to the Virginian-Pilot’s standards.

Each module contains ample opportunity to practice the skills being taught using actual equipment. Due to the active production environment of the printing floor, much of the practice is designed to be conducted on the job in the presence of a qualified training supervisor. If a trainee is struggling with a particular task and is on the verge of exceeding the wastage limit, the supervisor is positioned to quickly step in, complete the task to standard, and then provide constructive feedback to the trainee. To progress through each module of instruction, trainees must complete a skill check demonstrating that they can successfully operate each piece of equipment at full operating speeds within acceptable margins of paper and ink wastage.

To ensure the effectiveness of the training CEP developed, the materials are now being piloted on members of the actual target population. The actual training program is scheduled for roll out in Fall 2003.

Anticipated Outcomes
CEP and the Virginian-Pilot anticipate that the new training program will reduce the learning curve to operational proficiency by up to 80 percent, from five years to 12-18 months. CEP is also in the process of working with the Virginian-Pilot to identify metrics for measuring on-the-job performance and business impact.

“CEP has developed a press operator training program that dramatically reduces the time to proficiency and increases sale-ready production,” said Al Byrd. “We believe this will make a real difference to our business and positively impact our bottom line.”

For advice or support on your next training project, contact Kim Homa at 770-458-4080 or khoma@cepworldwide.com.