Product category:
Printing Presses and Machinery (New and Used, Service and Repair)
News Release from: Presstek | Subject: Presstek Dimension 400
Edited by the Printingtalk Editorial
Team on 20 July 2005
Platesetting's Flexibility For Short Run
Books
Parchment in Oxford (UK) has acquired a Presstek Dimension 400 chemistry-free platesetter from A B Dick.
Parchment in Oxford (UK) has acquired a Presstek Dimension 400 chemistry-free platesetter from A B Dick It is the latest investment in new technology that the company has made since it brought the litho and digital print sides of its business under one roof
This article was originally published on Printingtalk on 30 Sep 2004 at 8.00am (UK)
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Mary Parchment, the company's managing director, said: "Our production is predominantly short run books, journals and catalogues, of which 60 per cent is for the mail order industry.
We wanted more flexibility to decide whether to print a job digitally or by litho and this could best be achieved if we centralised our business.
New technology gave us this opportunity because most of it is a quarter of the size of our previous equipment." Last year Parchment focused on re-equipping its finishing department and this year it turned its attention to pre-press.
Further reading
CTP System Passes Test On Live Retail Print Job
When the Square Group in London seriously started looking for a computer-to-plate system, it set A B Dick a big challenge.
900 Chemistry-Free Quality Plates A Month
A Presstek Dimension 400 platesetter with Compose workflow from A B Dick is producing up to 900 chemistry free plates a month at Masterange Business Services in Harlow (UK).
"We had about five people running two dark rooms in the old building where now we have a Dimension 400, with a very small footprint and daylight working, sitting alongside our digital copiers.
All our staff are cross-trained to work on a least three pieces of equipment and the Dimension does not need specialist operators, although we have appointed one person to carry out its regular maintenance," Parchment continued.
When Parchment decided to dispense with traditional platemaking, A B Dick was the company's first port of call.
Mary Parchment pointed out: "As we were making a major capital investment in a piece of equipment that is at the heart of our pre-press department, it was absolutely vital to choose a supplier that we could trust and felt confident would support us through the change in technology.
We had no qualms with A B Dick because we had dealt with the company over the years.
When we bought an A B Dick Colour digital press, it was very supportive during our learning curve.
We definitely didn't want to buy from a company that would walk away once it had installed the equipment." And she further emphasised: "The other significant advantage of the Dimension is that it uses chemistry-free Anthem plates.
We are an environmentally friendly company and some of our customers are too, so it is an added benefit.
The quality we achieve from the Anthem digital plates is much better than on our conventional plates.
An increasing number of our books are now printed in four colour and the plates perform well on our four colour Heidelberg and our recently purchased two colour ADAST press.".
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