Production management principles in newspaper pre-press production

This article presents the research results from a project considering planning and control of newspaper pre-press production. The project, initiated by NATS (Scandinavian Newspaper Technical Co-operation Council), focused on Scandinavian newspaper production, and looked at it from a traditional production industry point of view. The project was mainly concerned with how to manage the pre-press production: from text typing to the moment when the press starts. To obtain reasonably good planning and control of this production, the project suggested use of the period batch control (PBC) method. The method has some very interesting characteristics: it is easy to use, easy to understand and easy to implement as a computerized tool.