Acknowledging the pressures of external costs, India’s newspaper printers got together this week to cut waste and benchmark efficiency.

Delegates at WAN-Ifra’s India conference in Delhi heard of a groundbreaking project to measure and compare efficiency, bringing potentially huge benefits, and which may become a model for the industry worldwide.
And at individual plant level, focus turned to savings on energy costs and newsprint use.

From a year ago, when the challenges – such as that of building a new printing plant every four-and-a-half months – were of a more positive nature, attention in Delhi turned to cost and waste control. Especially costs impacted by India’s volatile exchange rate.
KasturiBalaji, author of a new WAN-Ifra report on newsprint waste management released at the conference, spoke of the money publishers could save.

by reducing their newsprint waste.Newsprint accounts for about half the cost of producing a newspaper, making every per cent of waste saved critical.

He says tackling waste calls for commitment from the top of an organisation right down to the shopfloor. “It requires not only the right attitude but also the efforts of everyone involved in newsprint handling, preparation and printing, and even those dealing with newsprint in an indirect way – such as editorial, circulation and advertising departments.

“Their decisions can determine the efficiency with which newsprint is used,” says Balaji. “What is needed is a ‘process’ rather than a ‘programme’ approach to usage.”

From another of the country’s major publishers, ABP, manufacturing associate vice president Snehasis Roy talked yardage and how the company had changed from 45 to 42 gsm (and some 40 gsm) newsprint. “The challenge was to ensure that quality and performance were not compromised,” he says.

The company switched from AM to FM (stochastic screening) and worked with manufacturers to “redesign” newsprint, “redevelop” ink and “review” dampening solutions, changing the latter from acid to neutral.

Newsprint had been improved by the introduction of more virgin fibre, less pressing of the web, and the use of more fillers: “We had a lot of help from the mills,” Chandra says.

The outcome has been not only an extra 16,000 pages per metric tone, but better detail, better registration, less set-off and the use of less ink and chemicals.

“Take your time and get it right. There must be no compromise with plate life, quality, visually or graphically.”

Higher energy costs have also become an issue for Indian newspaper printers, and Sunil Patil and Amit Gupta of Times of India publisher Bennett, Coleman & Co, shared experiences in reducing this cost.

The company had been using diesel generators as a reliable source of power, but the cost of both this and ‘mains’ power had increased by 60 per cent. As a resut, BCCL has migrated its load, moving from 60 per cent generated power to only five per cent. It is also looking to optimise consumption and use some solar power.

Elsewhere, the following savings had been achieved:

Compressed air costs were reduced six per cent by reducing pressure by one bar, and a further two per cent by stopping leakages;

Cleaning press folders with a vacuum cleaner instead of compressed air saved another two per cent;

Using slightly warmer chilled water saved four per cent in energy without an investment cost, while installing more efficient chillers saved a whopping 37 per cent;

Tackling air conditioning leakages, optimizing temperatures and installing more efficient pumps were among contributors to another ten per cent saving;

Optimised lighting levels and the use of LED lamps instead of fluorescent and metal halide cut energy use by half.

Future plans include the use of renewables and an energy audit of press installations.

Finally, ABP managing director and chief executive D.D. Purkayastha introduced a new “all departments” efficiency benchmarking scheme which it is hoped will be adopted globally.

Five (anonymous, but possibly recognisable) large publishers had backed the scheme with the object of helping improve the operational efficiency of the industry as a whole.

Some 12 basic metrics had been benchmarked, and Purkayastha says, “these very bland figures will give a direction. Each has a huge impact.”

Potential savings for each participant could be at least INR240 crore and potentially as high as INR600 crore (six billion rupees or close to US$100 million). Huge figures, and he urged publishers to join the scheme “in large numbers” and make a difference.