Top Quality Award for printing at Wick Communications
The team at the Sierra Vista Herald is: ( Pictured left to right) Jay Williams, Rhett Hartgrove, Jimmy Neves, Dean Kinney, Bernie Mendoza, Mike Ziegler, Dennis Marple, and mention to David Olthoff and Micah Gove, who left the Herald press crew during 2013.
Congratulations to the press crew at the Sierra Vista Herald for winning the top quality award for 2013.
My hat goes off for the consistent effort that goes into each and every publication to make sure that there is the highest quality coming out of the facility. On average, the Sierra Vista press facility prints 230 jobs per month. Jobs usually range from 1,000 to 10,000 copies. As far as customer satisfaction, 2013 had no customer complaints about print quality.
When I asked Plant Manager Rhett Hartgrove what processes he has in place to keep the quality a major focus, he wrote in an email, “We have incorporated scheduled preventative maintenance that ensures we have successful runs from when the start button is pushed until we shut down. End of shift reports as well as data entry in Press metrics are vital in ensuring that our scheduled maintenance is completed. We have also found reviewing Office Copy pulls before the run is completed gives us the opportunity to re-pull if the quality is not there.”
Thanks guys for the outstanding quality.
Most Improved Quality in 2013 by a location at Wick Communications
Pictured Left to Right
Benjamin Stuwe (pt press and mailroom helper)
Ray Pfeffer (Production Manager/Pressman)
Paul Rouse Jr. (pt press and mailroom helper)
Roger Peltier (mailroom lead)
This award goes to The Capital Journal in Pierre, S.D. Lead pressman Ray Pfiffer started at the Cap J in February of 2013. He was very quick to identify needed maintenance on the press to improve the quality. He quickly started implementing those items and generating an increase in quality as well as a decrease in spoils.
When asked what the thing that made the biggest difference once he took over, “There were a lot of ‘things’ that needed to be done when I arrived, but the most important was to set a standard of quality and consistency that I knew was attainable. I’m a lead pressman, an old school guy with years and years of experience, and I knew that consistency was the key to improving quality, and it’s fundamental in offset printing. My maintenance journal is full of the steps I took to achieve this, routine, technical, and at times creative but I’m a press guy, and that’s just what I do. I enjoy working at the CJ, the talent, energy, and dedication from everyone is inspiring. The product deserves to look good in print, we are a quality newspaper, and it’s been my pleasure to contribute.”
Honorable Mention, for printing at Wick Communications
From Left to right: Ryan Sleight, Alan MacNellis, Jose Islas
In this year we had a very unique situation where the score in Top quality was very close and there was unusual circumstances. Because of this I would also like to hand out an honorable mention to Ryan Sleight and his team from the Frontiersman in Wasilla, Alaska. They came within 0.02 points of Sierra Vista. That is a great team effort as I know they were short staffed for nine months in 2013. So I really want to recognize the amazing effort they put forward. Another Top Quality award goes their way. Amazing job guys.
