DI Offset Press Boosts Short-Run B3 Market

Surrey (UK) repro and digital print firm, Replica Repro, has expanded its print facilities and its business with a Screen Truepress 344 DI offset press.

Surrey (UK) repro and digital print firm, Replica Repro, has expanded its print facilities and its business with a Screen Truepress 344 DI offset press.

Originally a pre-press company, Replica has diversified in to print over the last few years to service agencies, print buyers and other printers.

Clients also include DFDS Seaways, Warner Holidays, Butlins and the Aga Khan.

An HP Indigo 1000 digital press went operational three years ago and the new Truepress 344 now enables the company to further increase its short run B3 print services, said Screen.

Paul Burton, the managing director of Replica, said: "The Truepress is a natural extension of our business and complements the HP Indigo perfectly.

It's a litho press producing brilliant litho-quality results with the added advantage of direct on-press plate imaging providing super fast turn-around.

It has all the benefits of a traditional offset press with the digital ease of use by a single operator that is familiar to us." He added: "Like many repro companies we had been hit by our customers taking repro in-house.

Our only choice was to diversify in to print to counter dwindling repro income.

It's been absolutely the right decision and we are already on target to achieve a 50/50 income split between our repro and print departments." Replica shares print work between its two presses according to job specifications.

The Indigo handles jobs up to 200 copies, requiring special substrates and variable data, whilst longer run, standard print jobs are placed on the Truepress.

"Truepress run lengths vary from 200 to 15,000.

Because there are no click charges - there are no limits.

We now have the capability to print a wide variety of jobs from plastic decals and book jackets to business cards, A5 leaflets, CD covers and 16-page brochures very cost effectively," said Burton.

An experienced Truepress operator is currently training a second minder who also works in the pre-press department.

The benefit is that the same person can take full ownership of a job from the desktop to the printed product, explained Burton.

He commented: "It's only 10 minutes from the point a job is sent to the press to the first good sheet it delivers, so the process is ultra-streamlined.

I can print a job in the same time it takes to make a set of plates to put on a traditional press." The company has been a long term fan of Screen technology for and today operates the full spectrum of Screen technology: a Cezanne scanner, Tanto Imagesetter and B1 Platerite CTP, as well as the new Truepress 344 DI press, all centrally controlled by Screen's PDF/PostScript Trueflow workflow system.

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