Should a daily newspaper rely solely on 1 CTP workflow for its operations or should a redundant workflow be considered?

Thanks!!!

Hi RichC,

Redundancy is a must or almost a must. The scale of that need can be magnified or minimized based on what equipment and manufacturer you are planning to get. A best of class imager will be very very reliable and you will have minimal downtime. Like an external drum thermal device with very solid successful history in the field, that's a good bet against any downtime. Also, multi-laser array is important, like GLV. Whereas some of the internal drum visible light platesetters are sure to leave you hanging from time to time and with age will wear and go down more and more till replaced.

Another option may be having a backup with another facility locally or within your company that you could shuttle back & forth plates and files in a crisis. I have a guy about 90 miles from here that I can send Preps files and final PDf and he can plate for me. We have exchanged specs and info in great detail. I am his backup and he is mine.

I have been running for about 4 years with a single Trendsetter, we are a 30 million dollar a year outfit and run 24 hours 6 to 7 days a week. I have only had to send 1 job out for plates. But that's an exceptionally good record and not one to set your luck upon. In the newspaper business redundancy is very very standard and common. Depending on the size and such, unless you are a pretty small outfit, i would highly recommend the best devices and the redundancy as well. You will not regret that decision, if you are a big enough outfit to swing it, then do it fore sure.

You may also think of having one fully automated line as your main output. Then, an additional manual feed unit as a backup imager. In a pinch, you would most likely have an imaging or plate feeding punching problem to fix, rarely a processing line. So, in a pinch, you start feeding manually to a backup machine and hand feeding to the processor till repairs are executed. This would save money on your equipment overhead but give you redundancy too.

What are you looking at putting in? What is your plate count per day?
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Just a quick note to say a big thanks for the reply!

To answer your questions:

We're looking at Heidelberg, Screen, Fuji and ECRM. We have two we're leaning towards -- I'm sure you could guess which two. Our plate count now is minimal, but our hopes are high for an increase. We do no more than 50-60 plates/day.

Another big must for us is not just the imager, but a JDF compliant workflow pushing jobs through from customer to shipping.

Wish us luck!

Best Regards,

richc

quote:

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Originally posted by richc:
Just a quick note to say a big thanks for the reply!

To answer your questions:

We're looking at Heidelberg, Screen, Fuji and ECRM. We have two we're leaning towards -- I'm sure you could guess which two. Our plate count now is minimal, but our hopes are high for an increase. We do no more than 50-60 plates/day.

Another big must for us is not just the imager, but a JDF compliant workflow pushing jobs through from customer to shipping.

Wish us luck!

Best Regards,

richc

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We're looking at Heidelberg, Screen, Fuji and ECRM. We have two we're leaning towards -- I'm sure you could guess which two. Our plate count now is minimal, but our hopes are high for an increase. We do no more than 50-60 plates/day.

The daily’s install also includes an alfaQuest NewsMate autoloader with a 100-plate-capacity cassette, Glunz & Jensen Raptor 68 plate processors and Fuji LPNNV violet plates.

To better manage its workflow, The Citizen is using alfaQuest’s Panther RIP software, which it began using with its previous alfaQuest Panther Pro 62 filmsetter, and Page Imposer.

“We looked at a few other vendors as far as workflow and decided to go with Page Imposer,” McCormick said. “It was a pretty easy transition from our prior PantherPro operation.”
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