Move To CTP Yields 130% Increase In Production

Edited by the Printingtalk editorial team Mar 4, 2005

Since Kestrel Press installed a Presstek Dimension platesetter from A B Dick, it has enjoyed a 130 per cent increase in plate production compared with same three month period last year.

Since Kestrel Press installed a Presstek Dimension platesetter from A B Dick, it has enjoyed a 130 per cent increase in plate production compared with same three month period last year.

"Compared with others in the industry we were late in moving to CTP.

There are two reasons for that, the main one being that we were very happy with our Linotronic imagesetter, which served us well for 12 years.

Secondly we were a major supplier of labelling to the textile industry, which involved a lot of repeat orders so our plate usage was relatively small," explained Colin McCallum, Kestrel's managing director.

"We wanted to expand our presence in the highly competitive short run, high quality, four colour market and a computer-to-plate system was essential to meet the fast turn around required.

We have experience of Presstek's chemistry free plates because we have been using a DI press for more than two years.

Although the Anthem plates are more expensive than conventional plates, the cost difference is easily outweighed by the costs involved in buying, storing and disposing of the chemicals used in conventional plate production.

The Dimension is servicing a five-colour Heidelberg SM 74, a two-colour SM72 and a GTOZ-P," he added.

Kestrel Press was also impressed with the small foot print of the Dimension.

"I looked at other CTP systems which, with an in-line processor would have taken up almost the whole of our repro department," McCallum commented.

The company also decided that it was a good time to invest in a workflow and chose the Compose Express, which was installed by A B Dick.

"We plan to link Compose to both our litho and DI presses but this is yet to be completed as we are still on a learning curve.

However, we are optimistic that it will give us the control we require and we are already seeing quite significant improvements in our productivity," confirmed McCallum.