---

The human mind cannot really fathom the large-scale in life. It’s beyond our cognitive capacity. The more of it (or them), there is (or are), the harder it is for us to grasp any true meaning from the magnitude. But numbers help. Numbers can compartmentalise it all for us, give us a point of reference, make it all more manageable. So, let’s break Census 2011 into numbers...

It’s 30m 32-page questionnaires, which, with leaflets, will be put into personalised envelopes and mailed to every household in England and Wales. It’s a once-every-10-years occurrence. It’s 71 days of printing questionnaires, 48 days of printing leaflets and 198 days of printing envelopes. It’s 5,200 tonnes of paper and 143m components across 612 lines.

It’s 560m A4 sheets, which would stretch around the world more than four times if laid end to end. It’s 80,000 square feet of dedicated production space with 9,000 pallet locations.    

Clearer? Perhaps not. But it’s OK; the man responsible for all this printing doesn’t really expect you to grasp it. The scale is something even the parties involved in the print process have struggled with, despite the confidence they have in their technology and their processes.

"It is doubtful that the average member of the public will appreciate the work involved," says Tim Smith, managing director of Polestar, the printer for Census 2011. "Even for us, the scale is a little daunting, but it is also very exciting to get down to the level of engineering detail that we have managed in order to give the reliability and quality of the product."

Polestar has been here before. The company was in charge for the 2001 Census, as well as for the 2002 Irish Census.

However, Smith, who was programme manager for the 2001 job, says that back then it was just printing; this time around, there’s significantly more to it. Back then the scale was huge; this time it’s even bigger.

 "In 2001, it was hand delivered, so it was basically a mammoth print job," explains Smith. "This time it is a mammoth print, personalisation, mailing and logistics job. The scale has increased four-fold."

The Census is carried out by the Office of National Statistics (ONS), which put out a tender for the work on a consortium basis because of the number of elements involved in a project of this type. In the final stages during 2007, there were still 10 consortia in the running but, by the time the Census rehearsal took place within three local authorities in 2009, the consortium containing Polestar as the print provider had been named victorious.

"Price was driven hard, but the ONS was scientific in the way it broke down the scoring," reveals Smith. "So I would say price was relevant and significant but not total. There is always someone who will do it cheaper, but you need a credible delivery service."

Sensible timetable
He describes the timetable for the work as "sensible", with a 2.5-year contract that also incorporates time after the 27 March Census roll-out date for the printing of follow-up surveys and related work. Testing, he says, has been done to a good standard, though, again, the problem was scale.

"The 2009 rehearsal tested the process in principle," he says, "but it was not of a scale that gave us an opportunity to stress test and crunch the numbers involved."

While it may not have been possible to test the magnitude of production required, Smith was confident that the two years of planning that went into this project would ensure that Polestar was as ready as it could be. A project team was put together from a pool of external and internal talent and they have worked tirelessly to ensure that everything has been thought through and planned.

"We have put a significant amount of work into workflow, optimising products coming in, machines being serviced, waste being extracted, how often vehicles need to be brought in," says Smith. "Supplying and feeding this beast is a challenge in its own right. When running 24/7, logistics are extremely important."

Just as important was the press set-up. The timeframes are tight so productivity was essential. Polestar got its tools out. A specially adapted web press system was built (see box) to allow the complete questionnaires to be finished on press – printing, adding a unique bar code, folding, trimming and stitching were all completed inline.

Colour consistency had to be perfect as any depletion in the integrity of the drop-out inks would cause problems at the scanning stage of the Census when documents were returned from the public. Additional suction and vacuum belts also had to be bought in to keep the paper within strict registration tolerances, again for scanning purposes.

It is the bar code printing that Smith singles out for special mention – the inkjet heads attached inline needed to keep up with the speed of the web press. That meant they had to print at around 130 bar codes per second. 

The kit that kept up was Videojet’s BX6400. Managing director Chris Williams explains that the problem was never speed; the technology is capable of that. It was scale. It was just the sheer size of the print job.

"We will usually be looking at a six- or eight-hour shift before a job change," he explains. "In this case, the kit had to run for 72 days, 24/7 to meet the commercial terms Polestar had agreed with the customer. We were confident it could achieve this scale of operation and by synching the printhead cleaning with the web press maintenance schedule – which was two hours in every 24 – and training Polestar staff to clean the printheads, we avoided problems."

That’s not to say there were no problems during the print stage. You can’t foresee the unforeseeable: dust clouds, for example, didn’t come up in any planning meetings. 

But it happened. So much product was running through the machine that even though there were only small particles of dust on each sheet, low level dust clouds formed in front of the verification cameras that imaged every single bit of print for Polestar’s records. To counteract this, Polestar had to put extraction and blowers around the cameras.

"It’s the little things that you don’t think of," reveals Smith. "Computers overheating, palette movements, how you stack the palettes… these are things that you need to overcome."

The initial printing stage is now nearly over, so it is towards the lettershopping process where nimble minds will be trying to forsee the future. As far as data security and data integrity are concerned, they’re confident they’ve sewn them up.

In theory the data Polestar holds isn’t sensitive, because only addresses go on the envelopes, not names, and that is information you can get freely elsewhere. However, having all those addresses in one place is definitely a security issue, so Polestar is working to a level above ISO 27001.

Data integrity
In terms of data integrity, another veteran of the 2001 Census, Domino, is back on board. Its L400 cartridge printer and Editor GT control system are responsible for the personalisation of the envelopes with addresses and an integrity barcode. Domino European sales director for digital printing Vlad Sljapic says he is proud to be part of one of the UK’s biggest print jobs, and that his technology is more than up to the job. But there were adaptations to be made. The scale meant it required special attention.

Customisations were required to allow smooth interaction between Editor GT and Polestar’s data management system due to the amount of data involved. This was to ensure uptime and productivity, without compromising data integrity.

"This type of job allows us to test our equipment to the absolute limit," says Sljapic. "A substantial amount of product that has to be sent out in a relatively short time."

But it’s not just technology that has to adapt and prove itself. The staff too have been trained and streamlined, with shift patterns played with to maximise efficiencies.

This is indicative of the overall investment. Polestar has spent money to make money, but the efficiencies and technological adaptations are not necessarily there to take forward, says Smith. The project is too bespoke, the scale too unprecedented. 

"We have had to invest a significant amount of money and only a proportion of it will have ongoing benefits," he says. "A lot of what we are doing is so bespoke to this project that much of it won’t get used again."

Not that this would put Polestar off doing the work again, nor has it diminished the pride and excitement for the job this time around. The Census is a prestige print job, one that highlights the power and potential of print to the widest public audience possible.

With that comes pressure, of course, but it is also an opportunity. In 2021, technology will certainly have advanced, but if Polestar and its partners do as good a job as they believe they can, the printing of the Census this time should be a strong argument to keep the work in its natural, most reliable and most suited, medium next time and possibly convert doubters to the print’s many advantages in the intervening years.

---

HOW TO: PRODUCE THE CENSUS
• Lithoman 32pp short grain press with online trim and stitcher. This included using fitted VideoJet Bitjet inkjet heads and a GT control system during Census questionnaire production
• Heidelberg mini-web press
• Muller Martini A52 and a Goebel eco press
• Winkler+Dünnebier envelope machines
• Modified CMC lines incorporating a range of equipment including additional station feeds, input sensors, Domino inkjet heads, Lake Imaging cameras and quality control sensors