The Printer

Piper Shaggy Superman

Piper Shaggy Superman wrote: »

Public sector:

Manager: "Joe, I need you to get up to speed on a new printer. Can you report for a training session next Tuesday at 9 a.m.?"

Joe: "Sorry, I'll have to talk to my union first about getting a pay increase for the additional training and work responsibilities I'm being asked to assume. Depending on the outcome, I'll consider attending the training — but don't expect any resolution for months."

Private sector:

Manager: "Joe, I need you to get up to speed on a new printer. Can you report for a training session next Tuesday at 9 a.m.?"

Joe: "No problem, I'll be there."

More like:

Manager: "Joe, I need you to report to X so that you can take part in a week long forklift driving and safe pass course so that you can load paper into the new printer"

Joe: "What?......I'm an administrative assistant"

Aceandstuff

An Irish printer company has made a little game out of this now.

devtech.ie/game/

In all fairness, it is harder than it looks. :pac:

McMurphy

I see the company who provided the 800K printer to the Dail have been identified

emaherx

Johnny Dogs wrote: »

I see the company who provided the 800K printer to the Dail have been identified

Hardly delivered in that van

emaherx

emaherx wrote: »

Hardly delivered in that van

A Robin Reliant (my brother calls them “pencil sharpener on wheels”) is like the tardis.

You plonker

whippet

Has anyone any actual real idea of what is usually printed by this department ? Or are we all just ranting about Christmas cards etc without knowing exactly.

My understanding is that there was always an industrial press in Leinster House .. why ? I don’t know .. maybe for printing stuff that is sensitive and can’t risked being leaked for security, economic or timing reasons .. so having an isolated print room might make sense.

As for the need for a full offset press unless we know the run rate and actual historic usage everything is speculation.

While something like a HP Indigo may suffice there is a scale of economics that needs to be compared.

The staff who operate the press room will be traditional printers and heavily unionised .. so any move to digital would result in job losses and re training .. which we all know is impossible in our civil service - it just wouldn’t happen.

As for the selection of the actual press - Komori are one of the biggest manufacturers of presses in the world and a 800k machine isn’t a massive deal for them .. the notion of back handers and brown envelopes is just pub talk. I have plenty of experience of tendering for work on the etenders.ie and on Office of Government Procurement frameworks .. the way it happens is that the department will identify a required specification .. the tender is published and parties who feel they can meet the requirements will tender.

More than likely the press room bosses went to an industry show like Drupa and looked at all the options and decided what spec would suit and wrote the tender based on that research.

As for the storage .. 2k a month for a secure warehouse in Dublin is about right .. Considering insurance, rates and market rates.

I’m not defending this purchase but a little context is needed .. people talking about outsourcing to Snap or Reeds, PDFs etc is just bar stool talk.

What this just shows is the inherent bleed of cash the ‘permanent’ government of the civil service is. And you can be full sure that this is the case with most civil services around the world.

I can also attest that government contracts are rarely ever cash cows for people supplier equipment .. it’s service providers who can coin it !!

emaherx

whippet wrote: »

Has anyone any actual real idea of what is usually printed by this department ? Or are we all just ranting about Christmas cards etc without knowing exactly.

My understanding is that there was always an industrial press in Leinster House .. why ? I don’t know .. maybe for printing stuff that is sensitive and can’t risked being leaked for security, economic or timing reasons .. so having an isolated print room might make sense.

As for the need for a full offset press unless we know the run rate and actual historic usage everything is speculation.

While something like a HP Indigo may suffice there is a scale of economics that needs to be compared.

The staff who operate the press room will be traditional printers and heavily unionised .. so any move to digital would result in job losses and re training .. which we all know is impossible in our civil service - it just wouldn’t happen.

As for the selection of the actual press - Komori are one of the biggest manufacturers of presses in the world and a 800k machine isn’t a massive deal for them .. the notion of back handers and brown envelopes is just pub talk. I have plenty of experience of tendering for work on the etenders.ie and on Office of Government Procurement frameworks .. the way it happens is that the department will identify a required specification .. the tender is published and parties who feel they can meet the requirements will tender.

More than likely the press room bosses went to an industry show like Drupa and looked at all the options and decided what spec would suit and wrote the tender based on that research.

As for the storage .. 2k a month for a secure warehouse in Dublin is about right .. Considering insurance, rates and market rates.

I’m not defending this purchase but a little context is needed .. people talking about outsourcing to Snap or Reeds, PDFs etc is just bar stool talk.

What this just shows is the inherent bleed of cash the ‘permanent’ government of the civil service is. And you can be full sure that this is the case with most civil services around the world.

I can also attest that government contracts are rarely ever cash cows for people supplier equipment .. it’s service providers who can coin it !!

The type of printer suggests it's not for printing documents sensitive or otherwise. Most likely for full colour glossy items. As for volumes no idea what they were traditionally or planned for future.

The biggest scandal here and it is a big one is that they spent another fortune on renovations because of poor planning in the initial stages.

whippet

emaherx wrote: »

The type of printer suggests it's not for printing documents sensitive or otherwise. Most likely for full colour glossy items. As for volumes no idea what they were traditionally or planned for future.

The biggest scandal here and it is a big one is that they spent another fortune on renovations because of poor planning in the initial stages.

This press is not just for glossy stock .. it can take glossy or what ever .. so standard documents is very much in its remit.

Your right that the fact that the room couldn’t accommodate the machine is a massive mistake .. however if you were to fit out a new warehouse to take this machine .. between power, air, cooling, plumbing etc a couple hundred grand wouldn’t be exceptional .. it’s just that some donkey never considered it before buying it.

emaherx

whippet wrote: »

This press is not just for glossy stock .. it can take glossy or what ever .. so standard documents is very much in its remit.

Your right that the fact that the room couldn’t accommodate the machine is a massive mistake .. however if you were to fit out a new warehouse to take this machine .. between power, air, cooling, plumbing etc a couple hundred grand wouldn’t be exceptional .. it’s just that some donkey never considered it before buying it.

It's hardly the most efficient printer choice for documents though.

Ginger83

mountain wrote: »

Training on a press like that would be about 5-6 days.

Old press more than likely exported to India, or African country.

As a lithographic printer by trade I'd love to meet a printer who could run that in 5 days.

emaherx

Ginger83 wrote: »

As a lithographic printer by trade I'd love to meet a printer who could run that in 5 days.

I suppose it would depend on what technology the old printer was. Big difference between teaching someone the new version of a printer and teaching someone to operate a printer from scratch.

whippet

Ginger83 wrote: »

As a lithographic printer by trade I'd love to meet a printer who could run that in 5 days.

It’s all pub talk

Ginger83

emaherx wrote: »

I suppose it would depend on what technology the old printer was. Big difference between teaching someone the new version of a printer and teaching someone to operate a printer from scratch.

Either way 5 days is laughable

mountain

Ginger83 wrote: »

Either way 5 days is laughable

Moving a printer from a Heidelberg 4 Colour to that komori with 5 days training is very doable.

Fogmatic

emaherx wrote: »

Industrial printers use standard printing protocols that have changed little in the past 20 years. They also remain in support for decades.

I maintain a number of industrial printers one of which was built in the 90's and has a print count of over 600,000,000 pages.

Depending on the usage the 12 year old printer could be still quite fresh or hammered to death age has little to do with these machines but mileage has.

Reminds me of when the monitor died on my AT compatible computer bought in 1987, and it felt like a waste for an otherwise perfectly functioning machine to be landfill. I tried to give it, or some parts, away on adverts.ie in 2009. The motherboard went to a printing firm whose system still used the same one. (The only taker apart from the British Museum's Digital Conservation department, for the 5 1/4" floppy disk drive).

I can't quite picture the Leinster House folks learning MS Dos, though!

Ginger83

mountain wrote: »

Moving a printer from a Heidelberg 4 Colour to that komori with 5 days training is very doable.

Possibly. I am a web offset printer.

I served my time on a web leader/atlas press and moved to a 6 tower KBA Colora

Here's an idea of the size...

SEPT 23 1989

1.8 million now

well done to all the geniuses involved in this project

James Brown

More than the price of the average house, to make the room able to take the printer. Seems legit

I was idly wondering - what was the outcome of this particular cock-up? It’s funny, or maybe not, that something flares up, there’s consternation and furore about the Komori (see what I did there?) then.... silence

Maybe the tactic of “don’t complain, don’t explain”, “it will go away”, “nothing to see here” does actually work.

Wanderer78

Deleted User wrote:

Maybe the tactic of “don’t complain, don’t explainâ€, “it will go awayâ€, “nothing to see here†does actually work.

Apparently there's some sort of virus or something

I’ve no idea whether it’s now in use or not. The story just died off

Speedsie

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I was idly wondering - what was the outcome of this particular cock-up? It’s funny, or maybe not, that something flares up, there’s consternation and furore about the Komori (see what I did there?) then.... silence

Maybe the tactic of “don’t complain, don’t explain”, “it will go away”, “nothing to see here” does actually work.

I heard on the radio during the week that staff were starting to be trained to use it now.

Speedsie

Speedsie wrote: »

I heard on the radio during the week that staff were starting to be trained to use it now.

FFS.

Speedsie

Strawberry Milkshake wrote: »

FFS.

Just found an article on it https://extra.ie/2020/03/11/news/irish-news/e2million-dail-printer