Streamlining Worflows For Navigation Charts

The UK Hydrographic Office (UKHO) has bought a Luscher Flexpose 75 and two Luscher Xpose 160s complete with plate handling systems.

The UK Hydrographic Office (UKHO), the government agency responsible for providing the UK's charts and printed navigation material, has bought a Luscher Flexpose 75 and two Luscher Xpose 160s complete with plate handling systems.

The installation of the three units, supplied by Turning Point Technologies (TPT), will streamline the organisation's workflow, providing both financial and production benefits.

The Flexpose 75, the first to be sold in the UK, will replace a letterpress machine, which the UKHO used to make stamps for chart corrections.

The stamps are part of a manual process to keep stock charts as up-to-date as possible.

The introduction of the Flexpose 75 will revolutionise the productions of chart correction stamps said Turning Point Technologies.

Not only will it reduce the lead-time in preparing stamps but it also allows the stamps to be rotated allowing for better positioning on the chart.

The machine will be used to produce four or five, A3 plates per day, with 18 template stamps per sheet.

Paul Kelly, the production manager at UKHO, said: "The Flexpose 75 is a real step change in technology, where we benefit from reduced lead-times as well as flexibility in production.

The other clear benefit is that the whole process is water based so we are totally chemical and waste free." The introduction of the two Luscher Xpose 160s, complete with the plate handling systems, will have a marked effect on the initial printing of charts.

To put the task in some perspective, the UKHO prints about four million charts per year, each run varying from 50 to 7,000.

Consequently, in a normal year the operation would be looking at somewhere in the region of 10,000 to 11,000 print runs, said Turning Point.

The Xpose 160s will allow the UKHO to reduce the pre-production time and take it closer to a more commercial, just-in-time, model.

The increased plate capacity of the two machines, 46 plates an hour, is nearly seven times the output of the existing single platesetter and removes a bottleneck in the production cycle.

That means that each chart can now be produced from new plates, whereas under the old system there had to be a plate library.

The effect is two-fold, first a reduction in plate handling from nine movements to just one and the second a reduction in lead time from three days to half a day.

Previously, UKHO had run two-day plate buffer just in case the single CTP machine went off-line.

Using new plates also reduces set-up time by 20 per cent to 30 per cent and decreases the possibility of damaged plates.

The machines' ability to image and punch without moving the plate also contributes to accuracy and a quicker set up.

"The UKHO had some very specific technical requirements outlined in the initial specification but with the Luschers we have been able to tailor-make the machines to meet these demands," said Martin Mayo TPT's business development director.

He added; "Both the punching system and the machines' resolution have been individually engineered to fit the UKHO's specification.

The in-situ punching to meet the critical image and plate positioning needs and the optics, the bespoke resolution requirements of 2032 dopts per inch (dpi), which the UKHO uses for chart production.".

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