October 1998 Issue
"Heave-ho" To Heavy Lifting
Material handling safety is a matter of taking calculated manual lifting risks, enlisting the help of an array of safety equipment—or simply losing productivity. by Susan Friedman Sure, press downtime is a major thorn in productivity's side, but how far will any print job progress if key workers are absent—home nursing back injuries caused by heavy lifting? Material handling safety's effect on operation efficiencies and profits could be comparable to the impact of digital prepress or streamlined makeready. A plethora of medical and insurance data shows why. According to the Ergonomics Assist Systems Equipment (E.A.S.E.) Council of Material Handling Industry, back disorders are most
1998 TLMI Converters of the Year
Family ties that first tested, and now bind Custom Tape & Label have created a new generation of tag and label talent and drive. by Susan Friedman James O. Buckley founded Custom Tape & Label Co. with a dream familiar to many: to provide a better life for his family. He didn't know then that business and family would eventually become one entity—or that the unexpected unification of home- and work-life would fuel a collision of wills. But the dust has long settled from past differences, and Buckley's venture has become a tradition that won't soon fall from the family tree or the tag
A Full Plate
Offset plate suppliers stretch to manage conventional- and digital-world needs. By Susan Friedman Many offset plate suppliers are stretching to be in two places at once—edging conventional technologies up a notch while running like mad to win the digital marathon. Convention rally On the conventional side, Dwight Collier, national sales manager for pressroom products at Pitman Co., a distributor of printing consumables, equipment and services, sees "a conscious effort to continue to improve plate latitude in a variety of environments." Three areas of emphasis, he notes, are developing coating weights that are more resistant to abrasion, improving grain structures to achieve a more efficient
Don't Get Stressed Out Over Tension
Tension is the force acting on a web to stretch the web in the longitudinal direction, i.e., the machine direction. Web tension is always identified as the total tension across the face of the web. Determination of the correct tension for any given web on any given machine is difficult to predict. The Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry (TAPPI) has determined standard tension values for paper and board stocks, and many of the companies in the field have published charts and specifications for various plastics and combinations of paper, plastic and metal foils. Even the guidelines that do exist, however, are
