The Republican-American in Waterbury, Conn., last September completed a computer-to-plate installation — but it wasn’t the daily’s first.

The paper in 2000 became one of the early adopters of CTP in the United States, in that case moving from film to an FD-YAG foundation with two Agfa (Autologic) 3850 machines.

This time around, the Republican-American (daily, 50,903; Sunday, 57,385) chose violet technology from ECRM Imaging Systems. The paper installed two Mako Newsmatic HS units at its Waterbury plant and a single Mako Newsmatic for its Step Saver commercial facility in Southington, Conn., which produces some of the daily’s special sections, two weeklies, four shoppers and a number of additional jobs.

Photo: ECRM
Andrew Pape, with Production Manager Ray Creighton, right, holds a recent edition of the Republican-American produced with the publisher’s new CTP workflow.
 

For the Republican-American, CTP is lovelier the second time around, so to speak. The newspaper’s move to violet went off without a hitch and was completed over Labor Day weekend last year, said Andrew Pape, director of operations.

“We installed on Friday and Saturday, tested on Sunday and Monday and we were off. We haven’t looked back since.”

 

(Editor’s note: If Pape’s name sounds familiar it might be because when the Republican-American initially rolled out CTP (see Newspapers & Technology, July 2001), it was Pape’s cousin, Andrea, who oversaw the project as the daily’s director of operations. Andrea has since moved on to The Hartford (Conn.) Courant, where she is production director.)

Having been through an install before made steps such as calibrating RIPs and press presetting functions much simpler, Pape said.

There are similarities between the old and new CTP technologies, but on the hardware side, Pape said the new workflow is much smoother.

“This is a lot less finicky than what we had with the earlier units,” he said. “It literally only has two moving parts, three if you count transport.”

Nearing the 7-year mark, the Republican-American’s Agfa YAG machines were coming to the end of their lifecycle and the machines’ outdated design also limited the size of plates the daily could produce.

“They were set up for a 55-inch web and we had cut down to 50-inch,” Pape said. “We couldn’t get the savings we needed on metal after the cutdown.”

Pape counts the high-speed Newsmatics’ ability to handle different plate sizes among the biggest benefits of converting. At the Waterbury facility, the daily has one machine set up for single plates and the other for doubles.

“Having them set up that way was one of the best things we did because it’s a lot easier now to deal with page changes,” he said.

The daily also looked at thermal and ultraviolet (from basysPrint) technology, whittling its list of possible suitors down to six before finally selecting ECRM.

Future looks green

Reducing energy to drive the units was a major consideration for the paper. The daily has been able to cut its prepress power consumption significantly by converting from the 30-amp/220-volt YAG machines to the 5-amp/120-volt violet units.

“Our energy costs here are about 10-12 cents per kilowatt hour so energy usage was definitely a factor,” Pape said, adding that dedicated prepress labor was reduced by 40 percent.

The move to violet will also pave the way for the Republican-American’s vision of a chemistry-free future, according to Pape.

The Republican-American already had a good working relationship with plate supplier Fuji, having used its plates since 2000, and now uses Fuji’s LP-NNV violet plate.

Polkadots Software Inc. supplied workflow software. Pape said the app was particularly attractive because of its automated page-pairing capability. The centralized workflow, consisting of two RIPs and two output servers, feeds the two Mako Newsmatic HS platesetters in Waterbury and the Mako News at the Southington plant, allowing imaging to be shifted to either plant.

The daily’s plate punch bending equipment and transport system,  installed by Burgess Industries in 2000,  delivers imaged plates from the plateroom down to the pressroom two stories below.

Evaluating quality

Pape is familiar with the thermal vs. violet quality argument and said he spoke to 14 newspapers and one commercial shop using violet and concluded that ECRM’s violet technology was most compatible with the newspaper’s demands.

“We looked at whether we could get as good of a dot with violet (compared with thermal) and if you’re printing a magazine there may be a slightly higher demand for the highest quality, but for us in the newspaper industry violet is pretty close to that,” he said.

Quality has no doubt improved, Pape said.

“Registration is a lot better, better densities, and in the next six weeks we’ll start implementing stochastic screening with Harlequin’s plug-in product.”

In addition, the Republican-American’s makeready has gone from 80 minutes down to 27 — a 66 percent time savings. Imaging quality at the Southington facility went from roughly 85 lpi to 100 lpi, which Pape said customers noticed immediately.

“The Step Savers are now the highest quality paper in their market, which I’m sure is a factor in their increasing ad revenues,” he said.

Of course, the largest measure of success on any CTP project is ROI and Pape said the move has paid off.

“We were less than 16 months on the ROI for the Southington facility and here (in Waterbury) when you factor the two units we were about 26 months ROI for the whole thing.”