Platesetter Helps Court Cut Production Time 50%

When the State Supreme Court of Connecticut (USA) hands down a decision, they turn to the Commission of Official Legal Publications (COLP) to publish their findings, with help from ECRM.

When the State Supreme Court of Connecticut (USA) hands down a decision, they turn to the Commission of Official Legal Publications (COLP) to publish their findings, with help from an ECRM platesetter.

The Connecticut Law Journal is a weekly recap, of up to 500 pages, of the court's decisions handed down for that week and is not only distributed throughout the state but also throughout the USA to a weekly circulation of about 4,000 people (including local and national major press outlets).

COLP is also responsible for printing over 600 different forms, including arrest warrants, all police and court documentation, clerk forms, civil documentation, family legal documents, housing, juvenile, probate court, state and city police schedules and documentation and appellate court papers, for instance.

Whilst as much as 80 [per cent of the printing is mono, COLP is also responsible for producing four-colour flyers, brochures and yearly directories.

As a government agency, the printing office offsets costs by selling the publications they produce to legal offices and legislative branches in other states.

All funds generated are returned to the state's general funds.

According to COLP's production supervisor Gary Salisbury, COLP generates enough revenue to offset all direct costs for the state of Connecticut by producing documentation and promotional tools that other states want to purchase.

To continue its development, COLP bought and installed its first CTP platesetter, courtesy of a local graphic arts dealer.

According to Salisbury, account representative Mark Ferreria and director of EPP sales Karl Adelman of The Tripp Company were instrumental in not only cost justifying the purchase but also demonstrating the production benefits of CTP in the COLP operation.

Eventually, COLP installed the department's first platesetter, an ECRM Mako 8.

Salisbury is a 21-year veteran of the CT office, who has been managing the operation for the past four years.

He said: "Direct CTP workflows are new to this department but after just two weeks we were fully operational.

In eliminating image setting and implementing the Mako 8 workflow, we've cut 50 per cent in backend production time, especially when we do hard volume books.

When we do forms, where we bring PDF's in to the Miles system, we're cutting 75 per cent - 80 per cent off make-ready time.

I thought we would be farther behind on the learning curve but we're already in full production.

With CTP, we're gaining a number of days on many large-format projects." COLP's production workflow is based upon a Miles 33 pagination system, the same system used by the USA Supreme Court.

Text is created on the Miles 33 (due to the security features) imported from the court reporters office network and ported in to an Ultimate Impostrip system, which creates the eight-up pages.

The pages are then fed to the Harlequin 7 RIP and imaged on the Mako 8 CTP platesetter.

The 25-person department (one shift with 11 people on the shop floor), produces about 200,000 law journals, 250,000 envelopes and over seven million forms per year, as well as another 12,000 hard bound books.

Salisbury explained: "Every bit and byte of information we receive must be treated as highly sensitive for security purposes and treated with the utmost of secrecy due to our work with the state supreme court.

I'm proud of our ability to meet deadlines.

We have pre-press, printing, binding, shipping, warehousing, typesetting, in the 8,000 square-foot operation." And he added: "We produce and ship in a JIT [Just in Time] format.

Because we print and mail the docket, which is the schedule for all courts in the state, having reliable tools in our production workflow is critical." The eight-up CTP Mako 8 is claimed to provide commercial quality and press format flexibility for managers focused upon return on investment.

Integrating violet CTP imaging technology, the Mako 8 is said to provide cost-effective platesetting for commercial printers.

ECRM said that with a maximum format of 32.4" x 45.0" (824mm x 1,143mm) and production speeds of 20 eight-page plates per hour, the Mako 8 is engineered to keep multi-press operations efficient through flexible, fast and trouble-free operation.

The system is also said to accommodate any plate size between 32.4" x 45.0" (824 mm x 1,143 mm) and 10.0" x 10.0" (254mm x 254mm).

The largest format provides space for eight-page jobs with all trim marks and colour bars in position.

The minimum format allows for most popular duplicator size presses, added ECRM.

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