Prepress and Production Management Issues - Essay Example

Prepress and Production Management and Section # of Introduction The aim of the paper isto access the impact of technology on the prepress. The paper deals with the achievement of prepress from the last 20 years and showing the production management and system of the prepress firm. The research of the dissertation deals in-depth with the impact of technology on the prepress industry. Moreover, the impact of globalization and economy is shown; the negative and positive impact. The last part of the paper deals with the impact of mergers and acquisition on the prepress industry. Background and History Prepress is a simple business dealing with the publishing of the books. It is not a simple case rather involve a huge production process required a complete formulation of strategies and policies. The prepress business from the last year took a great leap in the production management and this all because of the technological advancement [Jeff Madura (2003)]. As the technology emerges, the process and steps in the production management augmented. Therefore, the aim of the paper is to look at the successive track of prepress production management and factors that greatly affect on this industry. 1985-1995 eras When seeking the advancement in the publishing o f books within the years of 1985 to 1995 then it shows that little advancement took place, the same typesetting methods were in used by the firms due to lack in the computer technology. The computers affect the typesetting in the late years of 1993 and 1994 [N. Gregory Mankiw (1998)]. But this advancement was on very short area as less computer help was taken by the firms. The reason is that they were holding less computer specialist that can handle all the type setting of the books. The binding system of the publishing house was usually a mechanical process in which less ethnology was used and more human power and labour was in use. Less technological advancement in binding books were taken in account by the firms. Whereas, the large huge firms which were few in number was continuously seeking the latest technology for binding books and were using by only these firms. Very few famous companies emerge at that time that is still considered as the pioneer of the publishing house such as Pearson [Kenichi Omaha (1892)]. However, the printing set of the firms enhanced with time rapidly. The firms were able to better print the pages. This is the only sector of the publishing housed that completely affects the over all efficiency of the firms. 1996 to 2006 eras During these ten years the publishing house widely enhanced at global level. There are many reasons that directly and indirectly affect the production management of a publishing house in last 10 years. The information technology is one of the reasons that took great place in augmenting the publishing house. Other than technological advancement, the competition boost the publisher to introduce much better techniques and tools that can help him/her in lowering their internal cost but enhancing the quality of the books [Michael Armstrong (2003)]. Different production management techniques were redesign and new techniques substitute the old ones. In the start of 21st century a huge leap in the publishing industry were seen. Their production management changes at once thus affect the effectiveness and efficiency of the publishing house. Though different publishers are using different mechanism and techniques in their publishing house that in their term producing best quality work. Below we are taking in account different steps of production management to know that which real steps are taken by the firms in the production management of the publishing house [Payne.A. ed.1995]. These steps start from the planning process to the production completion process. We will overview different advancements that were introduced by the famous firms. Production management process of Prepress firm with respect to the latest techniques used by firms in year 2007 This section of dissertation aims to discuss the production system of the prepress with respect to the latest techniques and technologies which are used by the firm in 2007. I have presented the type of process that is sued in the prepress and planning function of the firm. Furthermore, different steps are shown that incur in the prepress production system. In line with this, the use of quality management system [Lee J. Krajewski and Larry P. Ritzman (2003)] is provided that is directly affecting the quality of prepress firms. Batch process The prepress is the batch process of publishing books in which high volume of the same product is manufactured repeatedly. It differs from the other major manufacturing process. There is narrow range of the same product is manufactured in which variety is achieved by assemble-to-order strategy. The production lots and the customer groups are handled in batches in which the flow pattern is jumbled. It is a linear process in which high volume of the product is required with the standard product manufacturing [Peter Ferdinand Drucker (2007)]. The vertical integration is high in the publishing house as three major activities are performed by it; typesetting, printing and binding. The major benefit of the publish house is that it requires less resource flexibility. When the volume of books that are needed to publish is high then there is no utilization of resources in effective manner is required. Almost customer involvement in prepress is nil as they required more written skills. More capital intensity is required as there is more fixed cost that occurs on the operations from typesetting to the binding process [Michael Losey, Sue Meisinger, Dave Ulrich (2004)]. As the technology advances and affects greatly on the prepress therefore, less labour intensity is required by the firm. Planning projects The planning of projects within a publishing house need different steps to accumulate a better production processes in the future. These planning project steps in the publishing house matter a lot, as they not only ease the whole process but also help the publisher to keep a chain of work within different departments and thus trying to reduce much of the cost and time. These planning steps [Peck et al 1999] that were used in the production management of the book publishing requires steps as 1. Defining the work breakdown structure 2. Diagramming the network 3. Developing the schedule 4. Analyzing the cost-time trade-offs and 5. Assessing the risk Defining the work breakdown structure The work breakdown structure is important for the firms where different works or different department interact to give a single product in the market [Robert L. Mathis (2006)]. Same is the case with the publishing house where typesetting, printing and binding of the books are the three major department need to break down work and to channel each step of the work that it can reduce cost and time of publishing a book. The work breakdown is actually the breakdown of the activities that helps the publisher to know deeply into the activities and to know that where the problem is occurring. The task ownership [Philip R. Cateora and John graham (March 13, 2006)] is provided to the employees to complete their respective task. This work breakdown includes managing the raw material, supplying the raw material at time, typesetting process of the material is broken into different small task accomplished by the specialist of each task, printing process of the material and last step involves different small task associated with the binding process. Diagramming the Network The method of networking actually forms a relationship between the different task of the work to provide efficiency and higher productivity in the end with the help of Nodes and Arcs [R. Wayne Mondy (2007)]. The network design is used by the publishers with the help of arcs and nodes. The arcs represent he activities and the nodes represent the events that took place in the publishing house. Usually in the publishing house the network that specially used by the publishers are the precedence relationship. According to precedence relationship a sequence is determined by the publishers to undertake activities in a way that it specifies that an activity cannot start unless the preceding activity has been completed [Philips Kotler (2003)]. This is because the binding step cannot take place in the publishing house until the printing activity doesn't completed. As soon as the printing activity closes, the process of binding starts in the publishing house. Usually the preceding activities happened in the publishing house where the next activity can not start until the preceding activity doesn't finish. Therefore, a networking is required to prevent the large delays of the work that a cause a huge cost on the firm. The networking of the activities within the publishing house matters a lot as it identify and organize the whole data and identify the interrelationship between activities. This networking provides a forum to the publisher of different function which enables him to know the different activities taking place in the publishing house [Richard G. Lipsey, Alec Chrystal (2003)]. This also enables the publisher to know the completion time of each step that is useful in future planning of the publishers. Moreover, the use of networking in the publish house enables the publisher to trade-off between the time and cost in different activities. Developing the Schedule Higher the uncertainty higher will be the risk. As in preceding network formation, the publisher can know the time of each task taken by the employee's. This helps him/her to organize a better schedule task for the future to reduce the uncertainty level. Critical time path of each and single activity is measured by the publishing house to develop a better schedule for the future. The time estimation in completing different task can be noticed by the publisher using statistical tools or learning curve models [Stephen P. Robbins (2001)]. This helps the publisher to know the activity slack of the project. The activity slack enables the publisher to know the maximum time delay that an activity can take without delaying the entire project. Generally the publishers in their publish house use the technique of earliest start and earliest finish times or latest start and latest finish times [Stella M. Nkomo, Myron D. Fottler, R. Bruce McAfee (2004)]. These time measurement techniques required by the publisher to establish a better schedule for the firm in the near future to reduce the level of uncertainty. Analyzing the cost-time trade-offs The total cost that occurs on the publishing of the books is sub-categorized as indirect cost, direct cost and plenty cost. The direct cost includes the material, labour and direct overhead cost that incur during the production. The indirect cost of the publishing house is the administrative cost, operating cost and indirect overhead. Other than these cost the third and most important type of cost is the penalty cost that incur when a process delays and causes a huge cost on the firm. Usually when the firms holding activities in a way that one activity did not start until the preceding activity didn't finish than in that case the time is the important factor that helps in reducing the cost. The publisher must consider the crashing, to reduce overall publishing cost and total time taken by the whole process. The crash time will provide a crash cost to the firm that lowers the overall cost of the firm. Different techniques are introduced by the business executives that help in finding the minimum cost schedule by the firm. These schedules are used by the publisher to minimize their total cost. Pearson Company, based in United States ensures their minimum cost by reducing much of their time in publishing a book. Assessing the Risk Risk is the factor that produce hurdle in not reaching to a define project. The risk associated with the publish house includes the delay of an activity, higher cost of an activity and other issues in the firm. The risk is lowered by the firm by adopting the risk management techniques. This enables the publisher to schedule the activities that can lower the level of risk [William O Bearden, Thomas N Ingram, Raymond W LaForge (January 13, 2003)]. The more the publisher certain about the activities and actions in the firm, lesser will be the risk component in the firm. Quality management system in Prepress firm Total quality management is the set of your management, polices and rules that are resulting high degree of quality in totality. It is actually delivering of product and service to your customer, beyond their expectations. Quality management is the enhancement of the traditional process and the way that we use in different processes. Total quality management tool is use in order to achieve the required quality in your processes. This quality management tool is widely accepted by major organizations and hold different techniques. The quality is required by the prepress firm to gain the maximum market share. What basic techniques of TQM are sued by the firm is provided as below: 1. Benchmarking is a technique through which a company can measure itself against best industrial practices, used in all manufacturing and service organizations. It is actually using the experiences of others. 2. Information Technology is a major tool in all organization as without it improvement is not possible. It usually helps in launching TQM in your organization. 3. Quality function deployment is another TQM tool, which is use to fulfill beyond the customer expectations. It is actually refer to the voice of customer. Affect of technology on the Prepress Technology actually consists on many factors such as physical equipments, procedures, and know-how and support network used in production management. Prepress managers have made important informed decisions about the technological possibilities to pursue and to choose the best among them to implement [Robert S. Pindyck, Daniel L. Rubinfeld (2004)]. There are three main areas of the technology that are 1. Product technology 2. Process technology and 3. Information technology Let see how these three major areas of technology impact greatly on prepress. Product Technology The product technology largely associates with the product and services that are manufactured or provided by the firm. The product of the prepress is the books that they publish and thus need a good quality product at the end. The quality of the books mainly depends on the quality of the paper, the quality of the printing and the quality of the binding. The quality of typesetting is enhanced by the sue of latest computer technology that enables to minimize much of the mistakes and more enhanced quality of styles and formatting are presented by the computer technology in the books. The unique use of Photoshop, adobe and other software's enables the manager to use latest techniques in typesetting of the books. Moreover, the comics and animations in the typesetting present a more augmentation to the book representation. Printing area of the books require the use of different types of paper qualities that show the over all quality of the book. With growth in technology different types of papers are introduced with time that is used by the publishers. These papers keep their quality with time and do not destroy with time. Other than this, the printing quality of the printers increases by the use of CNC printing machines. CNC printing machines are the computer numeric machines that require less labour effort. Different software's are installed that helps in the automatic performance of the machines. These CNC machines provide best quality printing while using the minimum time in printing. Laser printing machines is another useful discovery of the technology that requires the laser beam rather than the powder or liquid printing of the books. These laser beams provide more quality printing of the books and ease the work of the publishers. Process technology The process technology involves the use of latest technology for possessing of your work. These are the support devices that support your prime activities. There are many forms of technological products that are used by different department to make the system better. For instance, the use of new electronic vending machines is used by the companies that enable them to audit the whole mechanism of the production house. Moreover, the use of latest computer technology by the finance and Research and development department of the publishing house keep the publish house more augmented with time. Electronic catalogues and language translation computers have widely ease the working conditions of the publish house. Moreover, group technology is now in used by the publishers in which a single labour deals with many machines at a time. As these machines work automatically and require less human efforts therefore, a single expert can deal with many machines at a time. These machines in publishing house are different printing and binding machines. Information technology Information technology is the use of latest electronic technology by the publishers. The use of electronic commerce augment the growth of publish house at global levels. Pearson and McGraw are the examples of publish house that are famous to publish the books at global level. The growth of such firms increases by the use of latest information technology system. They are using the electronic commerce widely in their firms to produce awareness about their publishing house to the consumers. The publishing of paper books in today world doesn't matter alone rather the publishing houses are now required to publish their latest books and their access on the internet. These firms are now showing their latest and old version of books published by them and trying to enhance their market by providing access to their books on internet. They are using the integrated marketing techniques and electronic media to capture the global market. Their global electronic shops are the result of the use of latest technology by them. The easy access to all books by students and teachers on the internet widely captures the global market by the publishing house. Moreover, they can easily market their newly publish books on the internet which provides a better awareness of their publishing house Benefits of technology for prepress 1. Cost: the overall cost of the firms reduces by decreasing the labour cost and wastages cost. The use of more augmented machines enhances the working conditions and provides better cost-effective strategies to the firms. 2. Quality: the quality of books increases by the firm due to the use of latest technologies such as CNC and laser printing machines. The better quality of the paper is adopted by the firm with better typesetting conditions. 3. Accessibility: with growth in technology firms are able to provide a better awareness to the consumers. The accessibility to their published books becomes easier by the use of electronic-commerce. 4. Time Cost: the most important affect of technology is that the time cost of the publishing house in typesetting, printing and binding of books decreases by the use of technological equipments and tools. The cost that as affected by the delay of activities is reduced by the use of different techniques that reduces the overall time cost of the firm. Affect of Globalization Globalization of the firms means deploying of facilities and operation around the world [And Jackson Mathis and Jackson (2006)]. The globalization of publishing house means that how the publishers are using the facilities for their operation around the seven continent of the world. The off-shore sales and imports of the publishing house mainly offered to whole of the world but hey use to select few regions for their publishing of books. Mostly the firms are using the United States of America and United Kingdom to serve the European and American countries. Whereas, to serve the eastern countries the firms using the India, Singapore, China and Japan as their major countries. The reason is that from these countries they can access to different countries [Alan M. Rugman and Richard M. Hodgetts (March 2000)] through air and water channels. Impact and reasons for globalization The publishing house using the globalization [Anant K. Sundaram, J. Stewart Black, (1995)] for many reasons that providing a positive impact on the firms. Though, there are reasons that widely used for globalization but that differs from firm to firm. What the basic reasons for their globalizations are, given below: Improved Transportation and communication technology The access the better transportation for their published books the firms is using the globalization techniques [Charles W.L. Hill, Gareth R, Jones (2003)]. The more convenient the customers are in buying your books the more growth the firm will have. Therefore, the publish house or firms are trying to achieve maximum transportation technologies by the use of globalization. Communication technologies for globalization increase with time. These technologies are not even cheap but also easy to access. For instance, the use of internet, facsimiles machines, and electronic mail [Fred R, David (2005)] are the examples of latest telecommunication technologies. These all technologies provide a way for the publishing house to globalize their product. This is the most important factor that helps the firms to globalize their products. In fact, many integrated marketing firms are formed on the internet, for instance, Amazon. These firms are marketing the latest books published by different publishers. These all communication technologies enable the firm to start providing their services on global level [N. Gregory Mankiw (1998)]. Opened financial systems Different financial systems are open on global level that helps in transaction. The use of pay pal, master cards or other transaction mode through internet helps the publishing house to provide best services through net. The price of each book is quoted with them and the customer is able to purchase these books via internet by using the latest financial techniques available on internet. Increased demands for importing the books The demand of books increases with the increase in the education level of each country. As the education increases the quality of education also increases with time. This quality of education requires better books published by famous publishers. For instance, the high level education institutes used Oxford, Pearson or McGraw publishers for their institutional books. These demands of books enable the firms to grow at global level and this is the main affect of globalization on the publishing house. Benefits of globalization 1. Globalization enables the firm to sue the cheapest way of marketing and sales of the books through internet. This reduces much of their internal cost that incurred while other marketing and sales techniques. 2. Awareness to the customer increases with the globalization of the publishing house. 3. As the awareness of publishing house increases, this increases the demand of their published books. As the firm is able to increase their demands, the more will be the growth at global market increases. 4. Internal cost of the firm reduces by using the different cheap techniques used at global level. For instance, use of internet and integrated marketing techniques provides cheap marketing technique at global level and thus, it effects on overall cost of the firm. Disadvantages of globalization The globalization where provides benefits, also causes huge disadvantages also and these advantages are explained as follows 1. Relinquish proprietary technology: the firm when start operating in other country or sector than this is the disadvantage that the firm has to give up their technology advantage to that sector. When one firm moves from one sector to other it took all those benefits that are unique for the new sector. Thus, this causes a disadvantage for the firm as these might be the key success factors of the firm. 2. Political risk: sovereignty of government on private and public firms is the main factor of political risk that may cause a problem of take over. When the extreme conditions of nationalization occurs in the country than the government use to overtake the firms without paying any compensation pay to the firm. This is the most important factor of the political risk that the publishing house may seek while working out of their country boundaries. 3. Effective-cross functional communication: the firms may get the risk of non-effective cross-functional communication. Different functions of the firm are unable to communicate properly at global level. Affect of Economy The economy in which you are serving matters a lot on the growth of the firm. The stronger the economy less will be the uncertainty level and less will be the risk. The factors that affect the economy directly affect the firm's growth. The level and size of Income, education, human resource, technology and political risk directly affect the growth of the publishing house. The more advance the economy is the more the firm face the growth in that economy. The publishing house in Japan and china are in numerous numbers as the education level in these countries is higher. Let see the effect of different economic variables on the prepress. Educational level The higher the education level the more will be the demand of the prepress. As the education increases in the countries, this require more prepress in the country. Similarly, the level of education when reach to maximum standards than this provide different firms to globalize their products in such countries. Income level The higher the income level of the economy, the more investment the firm can seek for their prepress. When the economy does not grow then companies are unable to find better investors for their firm. Therefore, the prepress firms require seeking the income level of the economy in which they are trying to serve with their published books. Human resource The better the human resource of the economy, better the firm can gain human capital for the firm. When the human capital of the economy is unable to serve the firms than the firm faces different problems. Similarly, if the human capital of the economy is very costly this directly affect the cost of the firm. Therefore, the human factor in the economy affects a lot. Technology The technology is the main factor that affects the output level of the firm. The more the economy advance in technology [Garth Saloner, Andrea Shepard (2001)], the more will be the opportunities for the firm to gain maximum growth level. The technology directly affects the production management of the prepress. The production management of the firms enhances from last few years due to the use of many new techniques and tools that reduces the overall cost of the firm where as, increasing the quality of the firm. Political Risk The more the nationalization of the country, higher will be the risk of take over. Similarly, the more imbalances of the political conditions in the country, higher will be the risk associated with the firm growth [Ian Brooks, Jamie Weatherston, Grahan Wilkinson (April 2004)]. Affect of mergers and acquisition The mergers and acquisition affects a lot on the firms overall situation. The mergers and acquisition do not provide complete advantages for the firm rather much of the risk is associated with these mergers and acquisition. The firms are required to seek complete future cash flows and risk and a better comparison [Henry Mintzberg (2003)] of them can give the firm a better future. Positive affects of the Mergers and Acquisition The positive affects of the mergers and acquisition are gained when the prepress firm completely recognise the future return and risk while using the accurate techniques. What these positive affects are given as follows 1. With mergers and acquisitions the internal cost of the firms decreases while this enhances their better access to resources. Usually mergers within the firms are done to gain the advantage of opponent firms. For instance, if one firm lack resources and other with the investments than two firms can merge to provide in what the two firms lacks. Moreover, the total cost of publishing is distributed among the two firms that reduces the over all cost of the firm. 2. The mergers provide better access to technologies and research and development. It is seen that the firms usually merge to seek a better opportunity. Usually these firms together research and develop a new technique, tools, phenomena or strategy that will be the key to success factor for their futures. 3. Road map technique emerges because of these mergers. Road mapping is a technique in which different firms across the globe merge to provide better services for each other. This enhances to produce a standardized product for the firm. 4. Prepress firms require producing standardized products at global level and this standardization is gain when the firm merge with other firms. Disadvantages of Mergers and Acquisition 1. The risk associate with the mergers and Acquisition increases when the firm is unable to seek the risk associated with the mergers. Let see the negative impact of the mergers and acquisitions on the firm 2. Low retention rate of employee's is the biggest back draw of the mergers [Gregory G. Dess, G. T. Lumpkin (2003)]. When the two firms belonging to the two different cultures merge each other than their expertise quit from the firm when they are unable to deal with the culture. 3. Achievement and motivation of the firm decreases with the merger and acquisition if the internal culture does not suit with employees. If they are unable to communicate with each other and do not satisfy with the culture then they start quitting from the firm [Jobber. D., 1997]. Future Prediction of the Prepress The future of the prepress mainly depends on the advancement of technologies and techniques. Though the firm already gain much of improvement in last few years but better techniques with growth in time increase [John Bratton, Jeffery Gold (2001)]. Therefore, better techniques must be adopted by the firm. If the future of the prepress firms is taken in account then we can see that still firms have much opportunity to get the best in the future. Better typesetting techniques, better quality and better tools and equipments can reduce the over all cost and time of the firm. Moreover, the competition in the prepress industry increases and thus firms are required to get mush better opportunity to deal with competition. Better tools and equipments are required for the binding of books. Conclusion The over all paper shows that the prepress industry has gained much of the advancement in the last few years. Pearson, McGraw and Oxford are the famous prepress firms dealing at global level. Technology is the main factor that enhance then over all operations of the firm. The paper describes the latest production management system of the prepress firm that shows that the firms are required to lower their time cost between the two activities that directly lowers their cost. With technology the firms are able to globalize their product. The internet, electronic email and better communication channels increases the level of globalization of the firms. These resources comfort the firm by providing better marketing and sales techniques, enabling the consumers to access the better publishers at internet with less time consumption. These prepress firms are directly affected by the economy of the country where it is serving. Lastly, the paper shows that the better future prediction before merging or acquisition can provide a better future cash flow in the life of the firm. References And Jackson Mathis and Jackson (2006) "Human Resource Management" First Edition Alan M. Rugman and Richard M. Hodgetts (March 2000) "International Business", Third Edition. Anant K. Sundaram, J. Stewart Black, (1995) "The International Business Environment" First Edition. Charles W.L. Hill, Gareth R, Jones (2003) "Strategic Management" 6th Edition Fred R, David (2005) "Strategic Management" Eleventh Edition N. Gregory Mankiw (1998) "Principles of Microeconomics" 1st Edition Garth Saloner, Andrea Shepard (2001) "Strategic Management" Gregory G. Dess, G. T. Lumpkin (2003) "Strategic Management" Henry Mintzberg (2003) "Strategic Planning" Ian Brooks, Jamie Weatherston, Grahan Wilkinson (April 2004) "The International Business Enviornment" First Edition Jobber. D., 1997. CIM Handbook of Selling & Sales Strategy. 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