Talking about the experience of CTP in the hottest

Discussion on the use experience of CTP in Hong Kong printing enterprises

the pace of Hong Kong printing enterprises using computer direct plate making (CTP) is accelerating. In mid-1998, there were only five CTPs installed in Hong Kong, but by February 2002, this number had reached 40, an increase of more than eight times, of which about half were installed in 2001. Although Hong Kong was hit by the financial storm during this period, the economy has not yet improved, and the business environment is still very difficult. However, the price of CTP plates continues to decline, the effect of digital typewriting is becoming more and more mature, and the printing enterprises that have installed CTP have made a positive reputation in terms of cost-effectiveness. Various factors have made the benefits of adopting CTP exceed the costs that need to be paid. Many printing enterprises have included the installation of CTP into the agenda of their development plans

substantial increase in production efficiency

almost all printing enterprises that have used CTP agree that the production efficiency will be greatly improved after using CTP. Mr. Ma Shifang of express plate making and Printing Co., Ltd. said: "Before CTP, the time for registration and color matching is about 15 to 20 minutes for each print. Therefore, the loss of paper is about 100 to 200 pieces each time, which is the basic loss of time and paper for each print. Now when CTP is used to produce zinc plate, the first piece of paper can be completely set. The Heidelberg CTP production system we use can output the PPF ink control document of CIP3, and only 20 to 30 pieces of paper are needed for color matching, which reduces the loss very much More, and the cost is more competitive. Plant expenses, machine depreciation, employee wages and other expenses are relatively fixed. Therefore, saving time can make us print one or two more jobs every day. The efficiency of the printing press is increased by 30%, which naturally brings more benefits. "

the original business of American Express was color separation and plate making, film output and traditional typewriting. The printing machine and CTP production line in Heidelberg were purchased in the middle of 2001. CTP adopts delta technology workflow, including delta prepserver, which is responsible for rip and file management, signation assembly workstation, CPC 32 ink calculation workstation, a trendsetter thermal zinc plate output machine, and three large format inkjet digital typewriters. ICC characteristic files are calculated and generated by print open software, The staff responsible for color management will regularly update the ICC feature file. This is a very advanced CTP production line. The digital typewriting adopts the concept of room to ensure that the output is consistent with that on the zinc plate. Due to its rich experience in prepress, it took only two weeks of training after CTP installation and it was fully put into production. Although their printing is a newly developed business, most customers are very satisfied with the output of CTP zinc plates, and they also entrust the printing to express, which makes them busy from morning to night

in fact, CTP is not the patent of large enterprises. Some small and medium-sized printing enterprises in Hong Kong are also considering applying CTP in the parts and short edition market. For example, the printing service of urgent mail can promise to complete 1000 A4 color leaflets within two hours. This is equivalent to printing 250 sheets of paper on the printing machine whether the Quarto line is damaged or not. If it works well, 4 to 5 such jobs can be completed in an hour. This delivery speed is difficult to achieve without CTP. CTP will gradually change. It will also play a leading role in the development of polymotor 2 of all plastic (and composite) internal combustion engine and change the service and competition mode of short edition printing

whether the CTP system is easy to use and whether it can effectively prevent problematic manuscripts from entering the production line has always been the key to the smooth operation of CTP. Generally, the method of manually checking manuscripts by export companies is time-consuming, error prone, inefficient and easy to cause bottlenecks. Therefore, PDF has become an ideal format for CTP production. The reason is that in the process of forming PDF files, the system has checked the integrity and correctness of manuscripts, which can prevent problematic manuscripts from entering the system. LEGO Printing Co., Ltd. adopts Agfa's apogee Series 2 workflow because of its flexible support for PDF. It can generate optimized PDF files on the client side and convert PDF files in the background, and the system is easy to learn. According to Mr. Wu Liesheng, a partner of Lego: "Before installing CTP, we didn't have any prepress experience. All the software and computers related to prepress were purchased at the time of installing CTP. We have two employees in charge of CTP production. When CTP system was just installed, one employee just graduated from college, and the other was transferred by the customer service team. Because apogee is easy to operate, it took only three months to train two people and it can be fully put into production. Our department The system has been in operation for nearly a year, during which no printing error occurred, and no support services from Agfa were sought. At present, about 20% of the prints are sent to CTP system to output zinc plates. At first, only some customers tried CTP because of cost. Now even the most demanding customers are willing to use it. Some customers' contributions are already in PDF format, which can be made up immediately, which greatly improves the throughput of the system and accelerates the pace of production. The masters in the printing workshop also like CTP very much, because the zinc plate of CTP is easier to register and print, the production efficiency is significantly improved than before, and their printing technology can also be played better. "

LIGO's main business is book printing. At present, there are six printing machines, and most of the printed products are transported to European and American markets. They adopt a complete production process of apogee Series 2, including pilot responsible for converting PDF and mosaic, PDF rip for point processing, printdrive for managing output, and large format Galileo with violet laser for zinc plate output machine. According to Mr. Wu, Galileo is adopted because of its fast output speed. Digital typewriting includes two large format Sherpa and ICC feature files, which are calculated and generated by colortune pro

adequate training is the key

printing enterprises entering the new technology field will inevitably involve many unknown factors, especially the adoption of CTP technology, which is a capital long-term investment and will bear certain risks. The support of suppliers is very important. Good suppliers can make the bumpy road easier to walk. Therefore, the technical strength of suppliers, whether there is a complete solution, whether the training is sufficient and comprehensive, whether they fully understand and master the market and trends, and whether they are willing to provide long-term support are all the factors for the smooth operation of printing enterprises after the introduction of CTP. Lijia paper printing industry Co., Ltd. focuses on the production of packaging and printing. Before the introduction of CTP, the prepress processes were outsourced. It is hoped that after the introduction of CTP, it can provide a one-stop complete service from design to prepress, printing, post press binding and so on. According to Wu Lizhen, director of Lijia: "We chose the screen because they promised to give us the greatest support, and finally they realized their promise. When CTP was first installed, the screen sent special personnel to guide on the site every day, answer the technical questions of our employees, and solve the difficulties encountered in production. Because we installed scanners, film output machines, zinc plate output machines, digital typewriters and other equipment at the same time, and the employees had no previous experience in printing and color separation, and In addition to offset printing, we also have flexographic printing, which has encountered many problems. The screens help us overcome them one by one, and we can establish a production team in a short time. CTP has been put into production for about a year. Customers are very appreciative of the quality of CTP, and some customers even specify to use CTP zinc printing. "

Lijia is a heavyweight printing enterprise. In addition to 12 offset printing machines, there are also many flexographic machines and complete post press processing facilities. CTP adopts the trueflow workflow of the screen, and its core is PDF data processing. Platerite thermal output machine is used for zinc plate, knife God output machine is used for film, Caixian is used for scanner, and labproof system is used for digital typewriting. This system supports 1-bit TIFF typewriting, ICC feature files are calculated and generated by labfit

improve the technical quality and naturally improve

the rotary machine has always been the main way to deal with a large number of printing. Due to its fast speed, its control is generally more difficult than offset printing. If CTP is used to cooperate with rotary printing, it will naturally encounter many problems. Mr. Chen Yucai, assistant vice president of Taiye (Hong Kong) Co., Ltd., agrees with this very much. He said: "Therefore, it took us two years to make full preparations before CTP was carried out. We simulated the production process of CTP with film within two years, found out all possible problems and came up with solutions. At the same time, we also established production standards and quality specifications, and tested various contingency plans, so that when CTP production was really carried out, we were naturally familiar with it. Facts proved that this strategy was very successful, and we installed zinc After the version output machine, it will be fully put into production the next day, and all processes will operate as usual. For employees, the output of zinc version is only an additional option during output, and nothing else is special. CTP system has been put into operation for about two years, and no errors have been encountered. Power supply of small deformation extensometer: 220V, 15A or net weight of designated host: 560kg, overall dimension: about 1000 × seven hundred and fifty × 1680 mm （W × D × H) According to the specification: at present, about 60% of the zinc plates are processed by CTP system. Because many of our customers are publishers of international magazines, they must meet their quality requirements before they can have business. If the quality is not in place, there may even be compensation. Therefore, we have high requirements for color. According to our own rotary machine characteristics, paper ink combination and other factors, we establish different ICC characteristic files, and test the stability of color every time we print. Our goal is to keep up with the world's top printing enterprises in terms of quality. At present, we are experimenting with the application of FM on the rotary machine, and the initial effect is ideal. "

Taiye has five rotary machine production lines and two flat offset printers. The CTP system is the workflow of Cleo. The zinc plate output machine includes two trendsetters and another Renaissance, which are used to copy film spots. Because 90% of advertisements are still submitted in the form of film, digital typewriting includes both large format jet printers and color laser printers. The CTP process of Taiye is carried out in two workplaces separately. The first workshop is responsible for manuscript inspection, picture color separation, digital proofing and other processes, while the second workshop is responsible for zinc plate output, gbt5482 ⑴ 993 metal material dynamic tearing test method copy and actual printing management. The two places are about an hour's drive away, and the middle is connected by a special line. Good production standards are the key to smooth system operation

master new knowledge and give play to the advantages of CTP

some printing enterprises think that purchasing CTP is to buy a batch of computer servers, zinc plate output machines, digital typewriters, etc. as a result, the calculation of cost-effectiveness is concentrated on hardware, software and other facilities. In fact, the essence of CTP adopted by printing enterprises is to master new production knowledge and use new knowledge to innovate printing technology. Therefore, the cost of acquiring new knowledge, the breadth and depth of mastering new knowledge, and whether new knowledge can be used to increase benefits must be carefully measured. After installing CTP, the quality and business volume of some printing enterprises are improved synchronously. After installing CTP, some printing enterprises fail to increase their competitive advantage. The difference is that the knowledge they master is different in quality

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