End of Job - Cleaning up on press?

[jvieira]

We have just finished printing an order and my crew was cleaning the screens and removing everything from press. I was looking at them cleaning the screen and they were doing it on the press. It must have taken them 5 minutes to clean one screen thoroughly.

To me this is 5/10 minutes of stoppage time that we could maybe remove from the equation and be better used to set it up again for a new job. Being this specific order a small 25piece front and back, every minute counts as it doesn't give us enough profit to have the machine stop.


Do you guys also remove ink on the press or do you use a different setup to maximize the time it is running?

[Frog]

There's a big difference between removing ink and cleaning a screen. It does not take five minutes to card out the excess ink.

[TCT]

If you have the next job ready to go, try having one person tear down and the other one set up.

Tear down DOES NOT mean removing ink while on press. The screens, squeegees, flood bars need to come out right away so the set up person can use that space. That is provided you are that prepared.... I can preach it all day, but it ain't happening that smooth here all the time at all! 

[screenxpress]

I do mine all on press. BUT, I don't print enough jobs to have any backlog.  I do like the convenience of completely cleaning all the ink off in a device that rigidly holds the screen (i.e. the press head).

What I might recommend is cobbling up a cheesy device mounted to the wall with clamps to hold the screen for off-press cleaning. 

I think something like that would speed up the cleanup rather than trying to fight the screen during cleaning off-press.  Just my thoughts.

[jvieira]

There's a big difference between removing ink and cleaning a screen. It does not take five minutes to card out the excess ink.

removing ink. card out that's it. i'm not sure it was 5 minutes, it seemed a long time to me, my main point was "do they need to do it on the press???"

[jvieira]

What I might recommend is cobbling up a cheesy device mounted to the wall with clamps to hold the screen for off-press cleaning. 

I did set up a small space for them to card out the ink off-press this afternoon. will see how it goes next week, they didn't seem to like it but had no other ideas. I was also thinking on setting up a clamp on the wall to clear the press as fast as possible, will need to have a better look at that in the next few days, shouldn't be difficult to set it up

[Frog]

A cart onto which the press guys place the screens, and squeegees and flood bars and clamps to then be rolled to wherever they can be de-inked.

[screenxpress]

If it was me, I'd have to have something like a shelf to put down newspapers (like the platen) under the screen and then something to hold the screen as I wipe on it and clean all the ink off.

[Inkworks]

When the machine is going around, you are making money. Anything that stops the machine from going around should be moved out of the way so the machine can go around. You are dead right to move the screen clean-up off of the press as long as you have enough staff to be printing while someone else cleans up the screens and squeegee/floodbars.

Identify the bottlenecks to production and eliminate them.

[Maxie]

We never clean on press, a waste of press time.
A few years ago I went to a lecture by Greg Kitson, he spoke about using 2 carts, one for the screens going onto the press, one for the screens coming off.
If we are not printing the same colors we put the squeegee and flood bar in the screen and take the screen off and put it in a cart.
When we stop printing we have 3 or 4 people who quickly remove the screens and put the new screens and squeegees, flood bars in place.     One person carries on with the registration and the rest have other tasks to do.
I am attaching a photograph and video of the cart in use.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZt4LdEVR8g

[jvieira]

We never clean on press, a waste of press time.
A few years ago I went to a lecture by Greg Kitson, he spoke about using 2 carts, one for the screens going onto the press, one for the screens coming off.
If we are not printing the same colors we put the squeegee and flood bar in the screen and take the screen off and put it in a cart.
When we stop printing we have 3 or 4 people who quickly remove the screens and put the new screens and squeegees, flood bars in place.     One person carries on with the registration and the rest have other tasks to do.
I am attaching a photograph and video of the cart in use.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZt4LdEVR8g

This is a brilliant set up! The video looks great and I will definitely set up a dedicated area for this
One question though, why are you not reusing that ink? It's not much you're putting away but after a few screens a day doing that, you're sending $$$ out the drain. We put as much ink as we can back in the bucket.

[jvanick]

I know at gregs shop he is carding the ink back into the buckets near the de-ink station.  I watched his guys doing it the last time I was there.

[Maxie]

Yes, we first put as much ink as we can back into the bucket and then the final bits that are left we throw away.
I supposed we could take more into the bucket.
When we are busy the process is first to take off most of the ink.
The video is just before cleaning and emulsion removal, a final check.