When a printing press churns out 42,000 forty-page magazines an hour, even the smallest error can be a costly affair. So printing technician Torben Ellesøe and his colleagues keep a close watch on the array of screens and flashing buttons in the control room. Or the ˝desk˝, as it is commonly referred to by the printing staff at Egmont Magasiner’s print works near Copenhagen.

Every week, five Egmont weeklies are produced here in print runs averaging 170,000 copies. The large number of pages and different paper grades mean that each magazine production has to be divided into several folds. Along with the large print runs, this means that the rotogravure presses are in action 24 hours a day from 7 am on Monday to 7 pm on Friday. Many print shop employees therefore work in three shifts.

This also applies to the printing technicians based in the heart of the large factory building who work at the desk in a room without daylight but with windows that dull the noise of the giant printing presses outside.

˝Our main job is to monitor the printing process. We check that the colours and fit are correct, which means, for example,adjusting machine temperature and steam when necessary,˝ explains Torben Ellesøe.

Four-man teams
There are four technicians to every shift, and each technician has his own special function. The ˝reel˝ man works in the basement, feeding the printing presses with paper from huge reels that have to be regularly replenished as white paper is transformed into colourful weeklies.

The lead technician has overall responsibility for starting the printing process and monitoring it from the control desk, while next to him, his second-in-command keeps watch on the different stages of the process.Last man on the team is the ˝stacker˝, who operates the machines that gather the newly printed magazines in long stacks before they are stapled, cut and packed in a separate part of the printing works.

The printing technicians rotate between the four different functions. Today Torben Ellesøe is number two on the evening shift, monitoring the printing process via 12 screen displays of technical data and camera images from different parts of the press, as well as keeping an eye on various measuring dials and indicators.

Changing the cylinders
The print workers are particularly busy when one magazine print run finishes and another begins. The rotary presses are stopped so the big, heavy copper cylinders that are engraved with the magazine page can be replaced with new cylinders for the next print job. A shift often includes two, sometimes even three changes, which gives the printers plenty to do. As soon as the printing unit gets underway, the machines must be quickly re-calibrated for the next production.

˝It’s a question of wasting as little paper as possible, because discarded paper costs the company a lot of money,˝ says Torben Ellesøe. However, even when the machines are correctly adjusted, things can go wrong. Paper can split or a machine may develop technical problems.

˝The best days are those when things run smoothly, which fortunately applies to the vast majority. But sometimes things go wrong for one reason or other, and that’s a bind. The challenge of my job is to make everything run perfectly,˝ says Torben Ellesøe.

Printer by accident
Torben Ellesøe was always interested in the graphics industry, but became a printer by accident. Originally he wanted to be a lithographer, but was offered an apprenticeship
in a printing works, and now almost 20 years have passed since he qualified. His many years of experience stand him in good stead and help to relieve the pressure when unforeseen problems arise.

˝A good printing technician must keep his wits about him and be able to keep a cool head in any situation. But generally the job is fairly routine without much variation,˝ says Torben Ellesøe.

However, daily routine is offset by the close contact with colleagues and the unique jargon spoken by the small team of men, who can be pretty down-to-earth. ˝This isn’t a ladies’ hairdressing salon!˝ as one of Torben’s colleagues puts it.

˝You have to get on with your colleagues – otherwise the shifts seem very long. We have to be able to work well as a team so things go without a hitch. You can’t mind your own business for eight hours at a time,˝ says Torben Ellesøe.

Pros and cons
He works each shift – day, evening and night – for a week at a time, and has learnt to live with the rotating shift work.

˝I’ve never done anything else, and there are clear pros and cons to the system. During the day I often have time to do things at home that wouldn’t otherwise be possible. But the evening shift takes its toll on family life, and I’m not crazy about the night shift in summer, when it can be difficult to sleep during the day,˝ says Torben.

Right now Torben Ellesøe is definitely wide awake, which is all for the best. He is keeping an eye on the monitors in the control room while the presses rumble away, churning out a steady stream of weeklies on the other side of the glass. Right until the last shift shuts down on Friday evening.