Kodak's eye for detail impresses Watchtower

Religious group Watchtower - headquarters of the Jehovah's Witnesses - chooses Kodak's software and hardware to do its printing.

With publications including The Watchtower magazine, monthly journal Awake! and a number of pamphlets and brochures, the not-for-profit organisation searched for a solution that was cost-effective and reliable and found Kodak to be the answer.

Watchtower acquired a Kodak Trendsetter 800 Quantum II eight-page platesetter, introducing computer-to-plate reprographics to replace film output from an imagesetter.

"The trendsetters are well known for their reliability and we've been achieving premium levels of quality on our plates," said Luc Kikkert, graphics manager at Watchtower.

"With the Trendsetter, the quality has been fine and we have had no drop in the dot percentage on our images. The linearisation has been great and there has been little drift - we check dot accuracy with a Techkon SpectroPlate plate measuring device on a weekly basis."

The Trendsetter was well equipped for the run sizes of Watchtower's publications. "Considering that the average print run of the English-language edition of Watchtower magazine is around 440,000 we need strong, resilient plates on the presses," Kikkert said.

"We can complete that printing using two sets of plates. We don't bake the plates but we can still achieve these levels of reliability from the image."

This equipment has also been integrated with Kodak's Prinergy workflow, which Kikkert believes has enabled greater performance, productivity and profitability.

"Installation of the hardware and software and the supply of plates visa Ron Filetti of Kodak's consumables sales has gone smoothly," Kikkert said. "Kodak's service and support has been reliable and comprehensive."