When we look at the parts of the value network that are closer to magazine production, quality expectations focus on the issues that influence the efficiency of magazine production. Quality space of the magazine - A methodological approach to customer requirements as a driver of product development.
Development trends in the printing and paper industries
The same phenomenon was also observed in other countries (Figure 1a), although a little later than in the USA. A structural change in the consumption of newsprint can be detected in the USA in the late eighties (Figure 3) and somewhat later in other countries (Figure 1a).
Product development in the paper industry
- Present methodology used in paper development
- Product development in the supply chain
- Taking the customer perspective into account in product
- Summary
There is a lack of published research on managing product development in the paper supply chain. Paper development is thus actually only part of product development in the supply chain.
Objectives of the thesis
Data gathering through interviews and surveys
Interpreting qualitative research data
Using Quality Function Deployment (QFD) in data analysis
After forming the graphs "Customer needs and requirements" and "Technical response", the degree of correlation between quality and quality elements is evaluated in the relationship matrix of figure 7. The challenges encountered in the application of the QFD method in the paper industry are do with features that are typical of the process industry.
Classification of product properties using Kano‟s methods
For some customer requests, the customer is more satisfied with an improvement in product functionality. The classification of the product feature depends on its location on the Kano Rating Table (Table 3) (Berger, 1993).
Physical product, service aspect and symbolic aspect define
Symbolic aspect means the overall image of the product, including the product and the company. The final physical product includes the appearance of the magazine - the layout, the printing and the paper.
Defined limits of the study
However, a needs assessment has been developed to complement the product development process currently used in the paper industry. The purpose of the case study is to map the quality requirements from the various sectors and to convert them into paper characteristics through needs analysis.
Advertising
- Advertising – a combination of customership and
- Overview of the workflow in producing an advertisement
- The properties of an advertisement
- Choice of media
- The reader
- Publisher interface
- The future of magazine advertising
- Summary
The advertising agency is responsible for creating the ad within the limits set by the advertiser. The choice of medium and the design of the ad are decided by the advertiser, the advertising agency and the media agency. The magazine's editorial content also includes magazine ethics, which should be in line with advertising ethics.
Uniform quality of the magazine was mentioned several times as an important factor for the advertising agency. Advertising agencies also consider the potential offered by the size and shape of the ad at the design stage. The size and shape of the ad obviously depends on the size and shape of the magazine.
Publishing
- The magazine – editorial content packaged in print
- Overview of magazine publishing
- Publishing a new issue of a magazine title
- Collaboration in magazine publishing
The quality of the magazine is defined in the publishing sector as quality of content: The content speaks to the reader – it is relaxing, entertaining and current. The ad sizes are fixed and based on the format and column structure of the magazine. The format is based on the limitations of the printing press, which means that the amount of return paper is important.
In addition to printing and finishing the magazine, printers also provide the paper. One of the most important issues is the successful use of the Internet, e.g. the communities formed on different websites. In addition to content and appearance, publishers offer advertisers knowledge about the target group and its accessibility.
Printing
- The printing house – roles in printing and technical
- Overview of the workflow in the printing house
- Good print quality - license to be in the printing business
- Future trends in magazine printing
- Summary
The findings of the interviews in the printing sector are presented in the chapters and summarized and compared with the findings from the literature in chapter 5.3.5. The interview topics are presented in Appendix 2. The role of the printing press has changed over the past few years. in the print section before printing. The printing house expects the paper brand to be fully tested when printing.
In the printing house, good print quality means that the variation in print quality is small. The role of the printing company in printing magazines is shifting to services and advice. Unfortunately, price is currently one of the printer's most important assets.
The advertiser‟s requirements
Advertisers' expectations in Table 9 are analyzed according to Figure 18 (p. 63) and expectations that are definitely related to the paper and can be related to the paper, e.g. Correlations between advertiser and paper needs have been assessed and the most important properties of paper from the advertiser's point of view have been identified and listed below. Whiteness - Visual uniformity - Visible small details - Colorful photos - Consistent print quality - Natural color - Color registration - Easy page turning.
Most of these properties are from the categories Evoking impressions and Paper as a carrier of information (Table 8). Features from the Technical Performance category, i.e. Color Register and Easy Page Turning (Table 8), are closely related to the visual look and feel of the paper. Thus, expectations on paper are strongly related to feelings at the symbolic level (for example, tactile qualities) or to the physical capacity of paper as a carrier of information (for example, visual quality).
The publisher‟s requirements
Printing company advises on paper choice - Publisher wants to buy the paper in the future - Printer must be satisfied with the paper Physical product Paper properties - No waviness. Publisher willing to buy the paper in the future - Printer must be satisfied with the paper. The publisher's requirements mentioned above were linked to the paper properties (Table 8, p. 65) using QFD (Appendix 4).
These include quality uniformity, both paper and print quality, paper consistent with magazine branding, and ghosting and wavy paper. These paper characteristics clearly reflect the role of the publisher in the magazine's value network. The magazine's brand and content are the publisher's responsibility, but then so are the costs.
The printer‟s requirements
However, there is one exception: the need for minimal variation is poorly met with the paper properties listed in Table 8 (page 65). Paper as an information carrier and especially uniform printing quality were also seen as very important roles of paper. As mentioned earlier, the printing quality, or the role of the paper as an information carrier, is the 'license to be' in the printing house and is therefore important.
This may be because the paper characteristics related to service were very limited (Table 8), as were the services expected by the printers. The properties in the Service of the paper mills category only correlate with one customer requirement, reducing their importance in the analysis. However, some services provided by the paper producer were not discussed at all, for example technical customer service of the paper mill, sample books and sample services.
Classification of paper properties (Kano model)
One way to represent the results of the Kano questionnaire is to calculate the better and worse values for the properties and then plot the properties in a better-worse diagram. This can be explained by the fact that paper is a mature product, and as a result, most of the properties considered here have had time to move into the must category. Most of the properties belonging to the Technical performance and Paper as an information carrier categories are rated as Must-be.
Some of the properties in these categories are not solely dependent on paper, for example no cutting errors. Most of the sensory attributes were rated as unimportant, however, white shade of paper and feeling of stickiness were rated as Must-be attributes. The properties that belong to the Evocative category support the symbolic aspect of the paper.
Summary
Thus, it is reasonable that since respondents represented different parts of the value network, they were not unanimous in their evaluations. The differences between the results of the QFD analysis and those of the Kano study confirm that these two methods play a different role in the needs analysis. QFD can be used to map the differences between sectors in the value network, and the results can therefore be used in marketing.
The Kano model, on the other hand, can provide valuable information for product development by categorizing paper properties into imperative, one-dimensional, and attractive. Properties in the indispensable category should be kept at an acceptable level, but it does not make sense to devote a lot of time and money to developing them much further. Efforts should be directed mainly to the development of one-dimensional properties and attractive properties.
Requirement analysis method
For example, printers did not rate any of the paper attributes associated with paper mill services as important, although the service was ranked high as a customer requirement. The challenges of QFD analysis are strongly related to the interpretation of interviews and the identification and evaluation of customer requirements. The structure of the questionnaire proved to be unclear to the respondents in some respects, some other methods of data collection, e.g.
Perhaps due to misunderstandings, the differences between sectors in a magazine's value network in the QFD analysis were not so clearly revealed in the results of the Kano questionnaire. The results of the Kano questionnaire are obviously closely related to the issues and questions asked. Thus, the results of the interviews and QFD analysis are valid in Finland; however, generalization to other countries and cultures is not recommended.
Quality space of the magazine
Competition in the printing industry in Western Europe is fierce due to the saturation of printing markets. The goal of requirements analysis is to consider the customer's perspective at the very beginning of paper development. In the printing sector, the size of the printing house was a variable in the selection of interviewees.
Based on the data from the interviews, a table of distribution of clients of the advertising sector was created (Table 2). The service part includes the target group - definition of the target group, penetration into the target group, information about how the target group reads the magazine, etc. The printer's ICC profile has been delivered to the customer - The publisher decides on the paper.
The definitions in the magazine's brand are related to images of the product and the reader. The requirements for magazine quality are different in different parts of the value chain.
