| Skill | What it means | Level needed |
|---|
| Follows shop safety rules around presses, cutters, and bindery machines, wears the required PPE, keeps guards and interlocks in place, and knows the eyewash, spill, and fire procedures for the pressroom. | |
| Applies lockout/tagout before clearing jams or cleaning inside a press or bindery machine so the equipment cannot start while hands are in it. | |
| Reads the job ticket to pull the right quantities, paper stock, inks, colors, and finishing instructions, and figures the paper the job needs using printer's measurements (points, picas, basis weight) and pieces-per-parent-sheet math, before the job goes on press. | |
| Checks paper grain direction and stock type against the ticket, keeps stock wrapped until it is needed, and airs, jogs, and conditions it at the press so it feeds and prints correctly. | |
| Loads sheet piles or roll stock into the press feeder, sets the feeder, guides, delivery, and feed and tension controls for the stock, and checks incoming stock for transit damage before running. | |
| Obtains or mixes inks, fills the ink fountains and adjusts the fountain keys and flow through the run, and sets the dryer, UV cure, or spray powder for the ink and varnish being run. | |
| Makes ready the dampening system on an offset press: mixes fountain solution to the recipe, checks its pH and conductivity, fills the dampening fountain, and sets or changes dampening roller covers and form rollers. | |
| Mixes PMS spot colors to the formula guide, weighing the base inks on the ink scale, and checks the mixed color against the guide before the ink goes in the fountain. | |
| Mounts, registers, and changes printing plates, blankets, and cylinders between jobs following the press manual's mounting and packing procedure, including cleaning the protective gum off the plate at mount and gumming it at removal. | |
| Pulls the first make-ready sheets, checks them against the signed contract proof for position, coverage, and color, and holds the run until the match is approved. | |
| Checks register marks on pulled sheets with a magnifier during the run and makes the small register adjustments needed to keep the colors in line, escalating drift it cannot correct. | |
| Reads ink density on the control strip of pulled sheets with a reflection densitometer and tracks it against the job's target through the run. | |
| Pulls random samples during the run and inspects them for print quality, and where the job calls for it runs the functional checks such as a barcode scan or a tape rub test. | |
| Enters the job's settings at the press console or workstation terminal, watches the console and automated defect-detection systems during the run, responds correctly to fault, error, and alert messages, and reports pressroom humidity or temperature readings that are out of range for the press. | |
| Recognizes common print defects such as scumming, ghosting, hickies, misfeeds, paper jams, and toner scatter, fixes the simple causes, and escalates the rest. | |
| Cleans ink fountains, rollers, plates, and printing cylinders at the end of a run (anilox rolls and doctor blades in flexo shops), removes and cleans the dampening system on an offset press, uses the right wash solvents per the SDS, and disposes of waste properly. | |
| Oils and greases press and bindery equipment on the preventive maintenance schedule and records the PM. | |
| Runs a production digital press and manages its toner, fuser, and waste consumables. | |
| Downloads or scans job files into the print production system, makes the operator-side adjustments the ticket calls for (fonts, graphics, separations), and archives completed jobs so they can be replicated. | |
| Sets up and operates the guillotine paper cutter to cut stock and finished work to trim size safely, and checks the cut against the ticket's trim size. | |
| Sets up and runs the paper folder, saddle stitcher, and collator to the job ticket and checks fold accuracy and page sequence against the approved dummy before the job moves on. | |
| Sets up and runs the paper drill and the scoring, perforating, die-cutting, and laminating units to the job ticket, and handles, inspects, and stores the dies (inline die cutting in flexo shops). | |
| Shrink wraps, boxes, or bands finished work, makes and applies legible labels, and preps mailing jobs by weighing them on the postal scale and sorting to carrier and postal requirements. | |
| Records counts, waste, and run times on production logs or the shop-floor terminal, including stock counted in for the job, so each job's actual usage is traceable. | |
| Communicates clearly and courteously with the press crew, prepress, bindery, and customers where applicable, orally and in writing, about job status and problems. | |
Oregon publishes ten employability skills, the same statewide. Tick the three that matter most for this job.
Optional. This is where a skill list becomes hireable: what you look for, in your words.
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