With three daily and six weekly papers to produce, Brunswick News Inc. in New Brunswick, Canada, understands all too well the importance of staying one step ahead in the pressroom. In fall of 2004, the publisher began looking for an alternative to its film workflow for production of all nine of its products.

“Our filmsetters were 10 years old and had reached the end of their life,” said Daniel Mlodecki, manager of manufacturing operations for Brunswick News. “We started looking around at various computer-to-plate vendors and software vendors that would allow us to track plates through a system - a full-fledged tracking system, as opposed to the manual ‘call-the-plateroom-and-yell-at-the-guy system.’”

Brunswick News produces 4,000 plates each week on its Agfa platesetters for its three daily and six weekly newspapers.
Photo: Brunswick News

Through a comprehensive search that included a number of site visits, Mlodecki said the publisher was sure it wanted a vendor that offered hardware and software as a package.  

No finger pointing

“We didn’t want the software guys pointing at the computer-to-plate guys saying ‘it’s his fault,’ and vice versa,” he said. “We liked the idea of having one system to fall back on.”

Specifically, the publisher wanted more control, overview, analysis and scheduling improvements for the entire process, from submission of editorial copy and ads, through proofing, and all the way to press.

Brunswick News ultimately decided on software from Agfa, including the Arkitex workflow and two Advantage DL violet platesetters. The publisher brought in Arkitex Director, which serves as a control center for the entire workflow, automating tasks and monitoring production through to the press. Brunswick News rounded out the workflow package with Arkitex Producer for straight workflow management, Arkitex Grafix RIP for PostScript color interpretation, and Arkitex NewsDriveX for steady data streams to the imagers.

“Producer is sort of a traffic cop that moves material from one stage to the next,” Mlodecki explained. “Director is the user interface to go in and approve pages or release them for plating, and NewsDrive is basically a computer that sits on the front of the CTP machine to feed TIFF files into it.”

The various newspapers in the group submit TIFF files to the publisher’s production facility in Moncton. The dailies are the Times & Transcript in Moncton, the Telegraph-Journal in Saint John, and the Daily Gleaner in Fredericton. The nine weeklies printed at the site serve readership throughout the province. All told, production of the three dailies and nine weeklies amounts to 4,000 plates each week.

Mlodecki said the hardware and software were delivered on time and on budget and that everything worked well from jump.

“We’ve had a very successful go of it.”

Auto-inking next

Brunswick News later this year plans to add the auto-inking feature if Arkitex in conjunction with a press upgrade and new press controls on its six-unit Goss International Corp. Headliner offset press to facilitate its ink settings and printing.

“We haven’t selected a controls vendor (yet) but we are just now in the process of purchasing Agfa’s auto-inking, which will spit out the ink values for the eight columns across the page.”