In fewer than six months, Stephens Media wrapped up its ambitious project to convert its 13 newspapers to violet computer-to-plate. The installs, which included the publisher’s flagship Las Vegas Review-Journal and papers in Arkansas, Nevada, Hawaii, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Washington, began last spring as the group installed 25 FasTrak violet CTP units from alfaQuest Technologies.

The machines installed range in size from 180-plate-per-hour units and associated TrakMate autoloaders for the Las Vegas Review-Journal to 150-plate-per-hour systems at other sites.

 

Terry Duck, production operations director for the Review-Journal and Eddie Metz, production director at The Morning News in Springdale and the Times Record in Fort Smith, both Arkansas dailies, worked together to pick the technology and oversee the installation.

Preparation pays off

Both agree that preparation ahead of installation at each site was key to Stephens’ quick and smooth transition to CTP.

Metz’s papers were the first to install the CTP units beginning in late April - two units apiece at the Times Record and Morning News, as well as TrakMate II autoloaders and Glunz & Jensen K&F Inc. Interplater 85 processors at each site.

Installation at the Times Record began April 24.

“We produced six live plates that night to test the system,” Metz said. “On April 25 we went in and tweaked some software, then we went live that night and never went back (to film).”

The schedule was the same at the Morning News, with install and six live plates on April 26, and 100 percent go-live the night of April 27, he said.

“We pulled the film the morning after go-live at both sites,” Metz said. “I’ve done this for lot of years and if you leave the crutch, people want to go back - if you make them use it, they go forward.”

In preparation for the conversion to CTP, Metz and Duck visited each of Stephens’ 13 sites, along with reps from alfaQuest and Fujifilm Graphic Systems USA, which is supplying the violet plates for all of Stephens’ properties.

No surprises

“We went to every one of the sites to address all electrical, plumbing, space and lighting issues, so there would be no surprises,” Metz said, adding that the visits resolved problems at several sites that could have severely disrupted the conversion.

The site visits yielded a report for each paper that specified the steps each had to take to prepare for the installation.

“We detailed for them what they needed to do, right down to buying transformers for some sites,” Duck said. “In some cases, we had to tear out walls and change power around, or build ramps, and in other cases the units just slipped right in.”

Whatever the case, Duck said preparing each individual site ahead of time was essential to making the project go so quickly.

The Review-Journal’s rollout took a bit longer than the other sites - approximately two weeks, according to Duck. That was due to the fact that three lines went to Las Vegas and because of the daily’s large production load.

“We couldn’t take out the previous equipment ahead of time and prepare for it as well as the other sites,” Duck said. “We had to migrate across the room and change the power - as we pulled out a film line we had to have our electricians convert power to the new line and then install (the CTP equipment) and get it up and running.”

Still, not too bad, considering the Review-Journal produces 17,000 plates per week.

“To coordinate that effort was quite an undertaking,” he said.

Last site in October

Stephens’ last site, The Daily World in Aberdeen, Wash., went live in October.

All of the Stephens’ properties but one transitioned from alfaQuest filmsetters, and although the past relationship with the vendor was a factor, Metz said the publisher did look at several other vendors.

“AlfaQuest was the best choice for the Stephens Media group,” he said. “There is no question in my mind that violet has a lower cost of ownership and we’re very pleased with the print quality coming off the system.”

For Duck, it was a matter of both speed and price.

“Our view was that violet gave us the most speed in our small operations for the best price,” he said.