The ctp dilemma

The best way to acquire a first class ctp system may be not to invest in one at all but to utilise the expertise available at the nearest trade house.

Cashflow a bit tight? Could do with a few readies to tide you over a tight period? This may be an anthem for many at present, but to be fair it is not all doom and gloom and there are some interesting changes taking place in the industry.

Recent research into ctp sales and market trends, coupled with considerable anecdotal evidence suggests that a fairly conventional printer may be wiser to stand back and review business investment options when it comes to ctp.

A number of printers, particularly in the B2 sector where ctp penetration is probably at its softest have chosen to go down the trade supply route, and in the process breathed life back into what was becoming a dying trade.

Not less than £50,000

It is not difficult to see why this is so. An investment in ctp even for a most basic model is unlikely to be less than £50,000 and an automated system could easily top three times this amount. But that is only part of the issue. Jay Mustapha who runs CTP London, which provides a trade platemaking service to several printers around Enfield and the outer reaches of north London, says: "Any printer investing in ctp must realise that it is not only the cost of the kit that has to be considered, but staffing levels must also be taken into account. But what is probably the most important is having the skill and the software to handle the great variety of incoming file formats and how to deal with them when there are problems."

Mr Mustapha's point is that because he handles platemaking for a number of customers and therefore has the cost of having all the various elements that go into trade platemaking to hand, he is better placed to handle files that may well stump an individual printer. The overheads as well are borne by the number of printers using the service, so the actual cost of each individual plate may well tend to be cheaper than if it were produced inhouse. This is particularly so if genuine accounting systems are used and full right downs are incorporated.

There are some fairly hefty 'buts' though. But number one has got to be the proximity of the service provider. Most trade platemakers today are fairly new businesses, rather than an evolution of a traditional prepress house. CTP London is a good example. Some initial research on Mr Mustapha's part established that in addition to the core customer base on his trading estate, there were a number of printers within a half-an-hour's drive who did not have ctp and were more than willing to give CTP London a go.

This proximity of being within about a half-an-hour's travel time is probably crucial to the overall success of providing trade ctp services. The Internet, broadband, ISDN and so forth, have all largely solved the problems of providing the platemaker with the data, so it is the delivery of the plates back that is the only issue.

An example of another well established trade house operating on similar lines to CTP London is Trans-Graphics. Its way of working is similar to CTP London and suggests that there are two distinct types of trade platemaking services developing. One is largely no frills and very focused on platemaking and the second type provides a service that is much more intense and involved.

Trans-Graphics is a remarkably busy trade house in Morley, West Yorkshire, and one gets the feeling that it is very busy because it does just one thing, that is making plates. In addition Trans-Graphics keeps it simple. It has two manually fed Creo Trendsetters from Heidelberg and a single operator can cope comfortably with feeding both units. The proprietor John Sunderland, director of T-G explains how the business developed. He says: "Once we became aware of how much better ctp plates were than those made with film, we approached both printers and print buyers alike to interest them in providing a service. I think to be fair the initial drive to change to ctp came from the print buyer rather than the printer, but it didn't take long for printers to see the benefits."

Very real fear

Mr Sunderland is inadvertently highlighting the very real fear printers have of losing control of production if plates are made outside, which was of course the original drive behind bringing repro inhouse. But those investments in imagesetters are now ending their useful life and a printer has to choose whether to install ctp himself or go to a trade house.

A printer is a little like a farmer deciding whether to invest in a combine harvester. He only needs his machine for set times of the year and though a printer's ctp use is more on a daily basis, his system will sit idle for much of the day. This leads to the printer facing the dilemma of having to go after extra work to keep idle hands from becoming a heavy drain on cash flow, which invariably means going for design and variations on asset management, a notoriously challenging area to manage costs and make real profits.

But could a printer now buy secondhand to save costs? If, as plate manufacturers say, ctp plates now account for 50% of all plates sold this may suggest a secondhand market is developing. Bui Burke, sales director of Screen UK, one of the leading suppliers of ctp systems in the UK, says: "There is no real evidence yet of any market developing. Even the early machines can still make enough plates each day to keep the presses running so I cannot see a printer who had come into the ctp market early either trading up or selling out and using a trade house."

And this leads us to the point as to a possible reason a flourishing market is developing for trade platemaking. For ctp to be a favourable investment Mr Burke is inclined to think that a minimum of 500 plates needs to be made each month, with 1,000 plates a more realistic threshold to cover both the capital investment and the manning costs. He agrees with Mr Mustapha in the suggestion that a trade house is better equipped to cope with the unpicking of troublesome files.

General preference

It is interesting to note that amongst the trade houses questioned, a general preference was to supply thermal plates and use external drum platesetters, such as supplied by Screen, Creo and Heidelberg. John Wilson, KPG product and technical manager, says: "Our Electra Excel plate is now remarkably stable and predictable and backed up with a strong service force, its wetting characteristics are constant, but in addition the problems of processor maintenance is significantly less. There are virtually no significant waste disposal problems."

Mr Sunderland of Trans-Graphics agrees. He says: "The plates are either exposed or they are not, and in the last couple of years I can't recall having quality problems and over 90% of our plates are ctp. Any plate remakes are for other reasons, but I think our confidence is also based on the support we get from KPG. I don't think we are considered as a cheap solution; our services are conceived more in the context of quality and this has been achieved with a £500,000 two-year investment programme."

This is a sum of money out of reach for a single printer, but represents smallish beer if apportioned across the client base of a trade house successful enough to be producing 2,000+ plates per month.

So it is clear that a trade platemaking service can flourish provided he is based in a catchment area where there are a number of printers already established and can deliver within a half-an-hour or so.

But what about the vexatious issue of data management?

On the whole this path has been avoided by Trans-Graphics though it is being looked at by CTP London, but more as a co-operative project. Neither house has pursued press finger printing and specific colour profiling with any vigour. And this leads neatly into the second type of trade house. One business that has grasped such challenges very firmly by the horns is PPI Group of Leeds. It sees its future as providing not only a high quality trade platemaking service, but believes growth will come from helping businesses to manage change by providing brand management, data and asset repurposing and providing design services.

Tony Talbot head of business development says: "We are looking to give a printer an extra edge by incorporating into his plates an extra quality. Because much of the services we provide have developed within the high end of the packaging and PoS sector, we have a pool of particularly specialised skills. We see the future as pushing these skills into the wider area of general commercial print."

Two-pronged strategy

PPI Group has a two-pronged strategy. Mr Talbot explains: "Firstly, we want to actively work with the printer to ensure that the plates he gets takes into account the press fingerprint, and incorporates colour management profiles. The second part of the strategy is to work with clients to ensure that regardless of which press or which method of printing is used, the results have the same consistent brand quality."

Standing back and looking at the market, even though it could be debated that CTP London, Trans-Graphic, Morley and PPI Group, Leeds scarcely represents a definitive cross section of the printing industry the service each provides is a response to a changing market. Each chooses to avoid automation, all agreeing that if the systems give trouble then it is in this area that problems occur, while imaging issues thanks to thermal are largely non-existent.