Assessing the technical competitiveness of printing papers

This dissertation studies the technical quality assessment of a printing paper. The theoretical framework basis on the customer value hierarchy concept and the product integrity concept. The experimental part of the research was divided into two phases: Interviews of the publishers and the printers and the testing of the technical quality of selected consumer magazines and a set of selected white paper samples. The revenue coming from the advertising and the revenue coming from the copy sales arethe most important factors of efficiency of the publisher. They form the highest level in the customer value hierarchy of the publisher. A printed product is profiled according to the target group and product segment. There is no absolute level of good printed quality. It can be studied only in context of the requirements set on the printed product. Publishers quality expectations are basic elements of external product integrity. The most important elements of efficiency of the printer can be summarised to reaching high production efficiency in order toattain good profitability and competitive delivery times. Printers' factors of efficiency base on the customers expectations on the consequences in use situation in the customer value hierarchy. They form the basis of internal productintegrity. The use of purely technical testing to classify printed products according to the customers' expectations proved to be only indicative at its best. The information gathered from the interviews was documented and sorted withthe help of the QFD-technique. The technical quality of two different coated paper grades were assessed based on the customer expectations and based on the best achievable quality. When customer requirements are used for the basis of assessing the technical quality of printing papers the order from best to worst is different than when comparing the papers just based on the best achievable quality.