West Australian Newspapers (WAN) decide on thermal CtP from Kodak
Before making the decision a team of ten executives at WAN undertook extensive research locally and overseas to ensure the new additions met four main criteria: fast throughput speed for plate imaging, processing and punch/bending; cost-effective plate production cost; high level of operator efficiency; and consistent quality of plate to press.
Greg Shurman, general manager – printing, explains: “We needed plates to be made at 300+ plates per hour in peak periods to allow us to at least achieve the throughput we get from the current analogue platemaking system. We also needed to allow for growth in platemaking volume without affecting press start deadlines.
“We decided to invest in four platemaking lines to ensure peak hourly requirements could be comfortably met whilst providing an appropriate level of operational redundancy. The company had already had extremely positive experience in the Kodak CtP environment at its commercial printing operation, although editorial-to-press deadlines are nothing like those which apply when printing a metropolitan daily newspaper with one of the largest distribution areas in the world.”
The West Australian has a current circulation of 210,000 copies for the weekday editions and 385,000 for its Saturday edition, which averages around 500 pages and has more than one million readers.
While the company recognised it would benefit from CtP quality and platemaking speed potential, the cost per plate had to be justified in comparison to the current film-to-plate environment. Research confirmed the Trendsetter News 200 throughput speed was clearly capable of making the plates required to meet deadlines, at a cost which could be justified.
“With increasing market expectations of consistently high quality print reproduction, we believed we must invest in platemaking equipment which would allow us to take full advantage of computer-to-plate technology. The issue became a choice between violet light and thermal technologies, said Shurman.
“Our view was that whilst violet light offered some cost advantages and was capable of producing a consistently high quality dot on plate, the benefits to our company from a further investment in thermal technology were clearly evident in the sharpness of the printed images we were getting from our existing Trendsetters.”
Shurman sees the installation of the four Kodak Trendsetter News platesetters fitting well with WAN’s upcoming commissioning of the double-width KBA Colora press line and single-width semi-commercial Comet press. “It will equip the company with the resources required to meet the demands of the market for improved quality of presentation. CtP technology will also contribute to on-time delivery of the newspaper to our distribution system, which will mean home-delivery readers will receive their copy at a consistently early time.
“Additionally, advertising material will be reproduced to plate at a consistent high quality level of repeatability. This combined with the new presses will deliver the print reproduction expectations of advertisers to their target markets,” he observes.
Once the installation is completed in the third quarter this year, WAN is expecting significant improvement in platemaking efficiency with the capacity increasing to 800 punched, bent thermal plates per hour.
Before making the decision a team of ten executives at WAN undertook extensive research locally and overseas to ensure the new additions met four main criteria: fast throughput speed for plate imaging, processing and punch/bending; cost-effective plate production cost; high level of operator efficiency; and consistent quality of plate to press.
Shurman sees the installation of the four Kodak Trendsetter News platesetters fitting well with WAN’s upcoming commissioning of the double-width KBA Colora press line and single-width semi-commercial Comet press. “It will equip the company with the resources required to meet the demands of the market for improved quality of presentation. CtP technology will also contribute to on-time delivery of the newspaper to our distribution system, which will mean home-delivery readers will receive their copy at a consistently early time.