Short-run’, ‘on-demand’ and ‘quick turnaround’: phrases now so drilled into every commercial printer’s psyche that more than a few have probably been heard muttering them in their sleep.
And joining them in their night-time mumblings, no doubt, will be a fair few on the machine manufacturing side of things – and not just digital vendors. For while digital is the technology immediately associated with short-run jobs needed in a hurry, litho has been doing its damnedest to keep apace, with some litho kit now making ready in as little time as 15 minutes. This makes it economical for run lengths as low as 300, according to some.
But this isn’t a one-man race. Litho is still often assumed to be unsuitable for runs of less than 1,000 because it involves platemaking before printing, in addition to a longer makeready period than digital. So it stands to reason that, for a litho press to really deliver value for money on short runs and to compete with digital in delivering speedy turnarounds, printers will need to make sure that their platesetter is going at a decent rate.
This is not, however, an area that generally gets given the attention it deserves, warn those in the business of manufacturing platesetters.
"I feel there are probably many printers with platesetters that could do with updating," says Eddy Houba , director of EAMER demonstration centres at Kodak. He explains that this could involve either buying a new machine or, where possible, upgrading it.
"A platesetter is always seen as a little bit of a necessary evil," he adds. "If printers could run their businesses without them, they would love it."
"A lot of companies are reticent to make an investment here until they can see some growth in the economy," agrees Brian Filler, president at Screen Europe. "I think they’re more likely to want to invest in a new press first, but of course when they do that, they’ve really got to invest in a new platesetter."
Lagging behind
It’s certainly not the case, explain Filler and Houba, that platesetter technology is lagging behind the latest litho presses in the speed stakes. "Commercial platesetters are now available in speeds of well over 60 plates per hour (pph) and I haven’t heard any of our customers say, ‘we won’t buy one of those because it’s not fast enough’," reports Houba. "From a speed point of view, we’ve always got something to meet their demands."
So who exactly could benefit from upgrading to a speedy 60-plus pph? "I would say that the requirement for 60pph either comes from the printer having a lot of presses to feed, or having a 10- or 12-colour press," says Filler. "This puts pressure on the platemaker due to the number of different colour sections for each job.
"But it’s not just these people who need the fastest platesetters. Run lengths are getting shorter and shorter and that’s putting a much higher demand on the repro side of the company. There is a requirement for plates for the press and a quick turnaround. The older type of platesetters do not deliver from that point of view."
Derek Hillyard, director of European sales and support at ECRM, agrees that the platesetter is key to impressing customers with speedy turnarounds. "I often tell quite a nice little story about one of our customers. Someone called after dropping off a disc to see when the job would be ready and the printer was able to reply ‘we’re just making the plates now, so it’ll be done this afternoon’," he recounts. "By having a fast platesetter, the printer was able to have the job ready to go on press almost straight away."
This is a phenomenon Kodak’s Houba refers to as a fast ‘first-drop time’, something that allows printers to meet customer demands by changing job queues at the drop of a hat, and to stick to tight deadlines when something goes wrong on press and a new plate has to be made.
"Faster platesetters are absolutely necessary due to decreasing run lengths," says Houba. "But they also allow people to change the priority of the queue, because there’s one plate that they need immediately. So this first-drop time is also important. A fast platesetter is needed by a customer with a lot of different jobs who, because of this, needs to be highly flexible. Then it’s more this first-drop time that counts, rather than sheer productivity."
Of course, real speed freaks may well be contemplating whether to dispense with plate-making altogether and go for on-press processing. Here, says Peter Banks, sales director at direct imaging press manufacturers Presstek, the plates are imaged and the job printed in one process. Presstek says this streamlines the pre-press side of things even further to deliver economic short runs and a fast computer-to-press time.
"There are two ways that on-press processing reduces time to press," says Banks. "You decrease the time to mechanically process the plate if it’s done on-press. You eliminate the time taken to transfer the plate from CTP, to processor, to press.
"If you have a platesetter that runs at about 16 plates an hour, the whole platesetting stage could take about 30 to 40 minutes. A set of four plates will take 15 minutes more. You’ve then got to put them into a processor. This will take about five minutes, before you take them to a printing press. Our quickest on-press processing press, by contrast, will take about six minutes from pressing the button to the first printed sheet coming out. The Presstek 52DI and 34DI presses take about 10 minutes. There you have a dramatic improvement in time."
But on-press processing won’t suit everybody. Most obviously, this is because it will only be an appealing option if a printer is already considering a new press as well as a new platesetting system. Also, Presstek’s DI presses currently only go up to a B2 size, reports Banks.
Wholehearted commitment
And even if neither of these factors is problematic, printers will still have to consider just how wholeheartedly they want to commit to short-run, last-minute work before investing. That is, on-press processing can speed the pre-press side of things up for short runs, but it is not necessarily a cost-effective option for those wanting a machine that can also regularly blitz through large numbers of long-run jobs, says Banks.
"Conventional presses with conventional CTP are still the best solution for long run, defined as 20,000-30,000 impressions or more," says Banks. "With long runs, the fact that it takes 30-40 minutes to make the plates doesn’t matter because you’re going to be printing for a good few hours."
So for those wanting a system that can process long-run work economically, but also perform speedily and economically when short-run work crops up, the fastest platesetter on the market will be the answer. Or will it?
Phenomenal rate
In fact, most agree that 60pph is a pretty phenomenal rate. Many printers will actually achieve the holy trinity of economical short-run work, quick turnarounds and an on-demand set-up with something a bit more modest. That is, while printers with an aging, 10- or 12pph machine might perhaps benefit from upgrading, they won’t necessarily need to go for the very fastest, most expensive commercial model on the market.
"A few years ago, an average speed of 20 would be more than enough. Even now, we’re talking more around the 35-40 rather than 60 mark for most printers," concedes Kodak’s Houba. "In some publishing operations, you really see a demand for up to 62 and 63 plates per hour. But because in these bigger operations you usually have two shifts – sometimes even three – the 40-45 platesetter is often fast enough."
Sean Lane, Fujifilm UK product manager offset solutions, adds that while a very fast first-drop time might be crucial for the success of some operations, most don’t need to cater for on-demand print in quite such an extreme way.
"A very fast platesetter does come in handy when there’s a problem on-press and a remake is required. So the quicker you can get the plate remade, the better," he says. "And I do understand the argument for the fastest first-drop time. But I don’t think most printers would normally have the press standing and waiting for the plate to come out of the platesetter. They would plan their production and the plates would be sitting waiting to go on press."
It’s rare to find a scenario where one plate is needed quickly and without warning, then. This means that most should prioritise a back-up platesetting option over the fastest model, says Lane. Having two medium-speed setters will enable a printer to turn out a set of plates just as quickly as one 60 plate-per-hour machine, he says, but will also provide peace of mind regarding potential breakdowns.
"Rather than rely on one fast platesetter, companies needing a high throughput of plates would do well to have two mid-speed platesetters to give an element of redundancy," he says. "It’s a slightly higher risk strategy to have one fast machine."
Those spurred to invest in the fastest equipment by reports that many could do with speeding up their platesetting system, may also want to heed some further advice: in some cases, buying a faster platesetter won’t actually speed this area up unless other supporting systems are also revamped.
Houba explains that a printer’s workflow system, plate sortation and automatic loading equipment all also play a vital role in reducing the time it takes for a plate to make it onto the press.
"Sometimes you see that one of these very fast devices – a Magnus 800 63pph machine, for example – has a workflow in front of it that just doesn’t make sense," he says. "The printer is never going to benefit from 63pph because the workflow isn’t going to do it."
"I think it would be unwise to pay extra money for a faster platesetter without considering automating the plate loading with an automation unit," adds Fuji’s Lane. "You may be better going for a slower platesetter, but adding automation. That way, you’ll save money from that configuration but still boost speed."
Printers would be best-advised to look at the whole picture when upgrading their platesetting system, then, and spread the investment evenly across the platesetter and supporting kit. By this logic, they would also be well-advised to investigate whether the platesetter is, in fact, the weak link slowing their operation down. If not, they should consider investing in other – potentially cheaper – areas first.
This might entail a simple step like taking better care of platesetting equipment, says ECRM’s Hillyard. "People take CTP for granted and don’t always take care of their housekeeping," he says. "Making sure your equipment is well-serviced is obviously going to ensure you produce plates as quickly as possible. It doesn’t make that much difference on a violet laser machine, but on a thermal machine, as diodes fail, they do actually slow down."
Primed pressroom
It seems, then, that making sure the platesetting area of a litho pressroom is primed for the ever-more ubiquitous short-run, on-demand jobs needn’t mean paying vast amounts for the fastest platesetter.
Certainly, there are commercial printing outfits – such as those printing magazines and brochures, those with 10- or 12-colour presses, those with many presses to feed, and those priding themselves on catering for last-minute requests – who will benefit from a 60pph model. But many will be equally well-served by a machine that runs at 40-, 30- or even 20pph.
The key message to take from manufacturers’ warnings about this being a neglected area of the litho pressroom is that care must be taken to ensure you have the right speed for your business, whatever that may be. The key here is to check you have the right workflow system, plate sortation equipment and automatic loading kit to allow your platesetter to do its thing.
In this way, litho printers can ensure digital doesn’t steal the show, so litho printing sits alongside ‘short-run’, ‘on-demand’ and ‘quick turnaround’ on printers’ lips.
Case study: Welshpool Printing Group
Welshpool Printing Group, based 20 miles west of Shrewsbury in Powys, Wales, upgraded its platesetter from a 15-plates-per-hour (pph) Agfa Galileo to a 32pph Kodak Magnus three years ago. The firm would wholeheartedly recommend other printers follow suit in switching to a faster model.
"Our Magnus is totally catering for our production requirements at the moment," he says. "We’d only invest in a faster machine if we were processing a lot more work or if people were coming to us demanding shorter print runs of litho quality. But we only run the platesetter for eight hours a day. We ran the old one for 16 hours, so there’s still room for boosting production."
