WHP invest in latest superior quality platemaking

White Horse Press is improving efficiency and cutting costs with its continuing investment in state-of-the-art pre-press solutions from Creo, a subsidiary of Kodak.

The company has recently invested in a fully automatic Lotem ® 400 Quantum thermal platesetter running 20 micron Staccato ® which has joined an existing Prinergy ® PDF-based workflow management system installed three years ago. This plate imaging solution is complemented by Synapse ® Prepare production-ready PDF creation software installed at the beginning of the year along with a Synapse InSite web-based customer portal into the White Horse Press pre-press environment, marketed by White Horse to its customer base as "4Print". The installation will enable the company to streamline production, increase capacity and improve its service offering to customers.

"The Lotem installation is part of an ongoing investment programme that has already had a significant impact on our business," says Steve Greener, joint managing director at White Horse Press. "We offer a fast, high quality service which, because of all the benefits delivered by the new equipment, we can now take to the next stage."

Unmatched in the 4-up class, the Lotem 400 Quantum will enable White Horse Press to produce up to 25 plates per hour compared to 12-16 plates per hour from its old platesetter. This will provide the company with the additional plate throughput that it needs to feed its busy presses. Turnaround times will also be speeded up through the use of Synapse Prepare, which will enable customers to create production-ready PDFs that will fly through the workflow. Job files can be submitted directly into the prepress workflow for automatic pre-flighting via 4Print, further speeding up the production cycle.

"We are now able to increase our production speeds by decreasing the unknown and time-consuming 'hassle-factor' that can occur between receiving a file in and outputting plates. Thanks to this investment, we are now getting a more uniform workflow with less variability, which is helping us to eliminate non-chargeable down-time," continues Steve Greener.

      The installation is not only about increasing production at White Horse Press but also about increasing quality. Staccato produces high-fidelity, artifact-free images that exhibit fine detail without halftone rosettes, screening moiré, grey-level limitations or abrupt jumps in tone-with no impact on RIPing or rendering time. It also makes colours more vibrant and produces near photographic results.

"We are looking forward to introducing our customers to Staccato and the quality that it will deliver and to continue to increase the implementation of our other investments. Already around 60 per cent of customers are using 4Print either occasionally or often and they are beginning to take to Synapse Prepare as they can see the benefits of a PDF workflow and of using the tools that support it. Both solutions involve a process of education and over the summer we will be rolling out a focused programme to inform customers how they can use the Synapse products to ensure their jobs flow smoothly through our workflow," concludes Steve Greener.

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