Operational Guide: Offset Printing

By Linda Casey

Optimizing operations is becoming more crucial for label and packaging converters as they face uncertain economic futures. To help packaging manufacturers optimize their offset printing operations, Packaging Impressions interviewed John Lackner, president of Colbert Packaging. [Editor’s Note: We originally printed that Colbert Packaging was located in Lake Forest, Illinois. That was the original location. Today, Colbert operates from Kenosha, Wisconsin, and Elkhart, Indiana, with a warehouse in South Bend, Indiana. Its current headquarters are in Kenosha, Wisconsin.] With more than 35 years of experience in package printing at industry titans such as MeadWestvaco, Graphic Packaging International, and, of course, Colbert Packaging, Lackner has hard-earned insights on optimizing operations for offset printing of packaging. Here are some gems from that talk.

Trio of Challenges Facing Packaging Manufacturing Companies

Lackner notes a trio of challenges loom large, casting shadows of uncertainty over lithographic printing operations. First, skilled press operators are as elusive as they are essential, bearing the know-how to master the intricacies of the offset lithographic sheetfed press.

“I understand that getting labor was a challenge,” Lackner says. “But what I want to talk about is bigger than that. It’s the actual skill sets necessary to run an offset, lithographic, sheetfed press. There are not many places where you can go and get trained to run a printing press. So, skill dilution, especially as you embrace technology, becomes a bigger problem. It’s incumbent on the industry, ourselves, and the organizations that support this industry to train and develop employees to become skilled in the craft of printing, and that will be an ongoing challenge…”

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Linda Casey Author's page

As editor-in-chief of Packaging Impressions — the leading publication and online content provider for the printed packaging markets — Linda Casey leverages her experience in the packaging, branding, marketing, and printing industries to deliver content that label and package printers can use to improve their businesses and operations.

Prior to her role at Packaging Impressions, Casey was editor-in-chief of BXP: Brand Experience magazine, which celebrated brand design as a strategic business competence. Her body of work includes deep explorations into a range of branding, business, packaging, and printing topics.

Casey’s other passion, communications, has landed her on the staffs of a multitude of print publications, including Package Design, Converting, Packaging Digest, Instant & Small Commercial Printer, High Volume Printing, BXP: Brand Experience magazine, and more. Casey started her career more than three decades ago as news director for WJAM, a youth-oriented music-and-news counterpart to WGCI and part of the Chicago-based station’s AM band presence.