This revelation was made by Stephen Vince, partner at Dragon Print & Design in Hitchin, who says that there is now much more space in his printroom. Buying the PlateWriter has meant that we have got rid of four pieces of equipment: a large sink to develop plates and a huge UV unit for exposing them. An image setter and a film processor have all gone, too, explains Stephen, who runs the company with business partner Peter Choo.
We bought the Glunz & Jensen PlateWriter 2000 because of a whole list of reasons. The image setter we had was very old and costly to keep going and it wasnt producing the quality we needed. The G&J PlateWriter was the right price - this technology used to be very expensive. It now costs us half the amount of money to produce a plate than it did before using the old way partly because its a green machine. A plate produced on the G&J PlateWriter costs £1.75 to make compared to over £3.00 using the old system. It will have paid for itself in five years.
Prior to installing the PlateWriter 2000 Dragon Print had seen a roll of film shoot through the roof from £94 in 2010 to £160 a roll now. We were using two rolls a month so it was costing us so much and we were using so many chemicals, which were costing us £400 a year to remove, Stephen recalls. It really did make financial sense to make the change and theres far less wastage this way, too the aluminium plates can still be recycled.
He adds: The Glunz & Jensen PlateWriter doesnt use any nasty chemicals and the time taken to make a plate has been slashed by at least 80 per cent - we save between eight and 10 hours a week during a busy period. Our costs have
been cut by nearly 50 per cent. The PlateWriter can also make different sizes of plates without any extra set up time making this machine extremely versatile in the print room with several different size presses.
The quality of the end product is very noticeable against how we were doing it before. We are now less likely to lose a client through quality issues because the plates produce a superior and consistent quality image he says, adding that Dragon Print makes around 2,000 plates a year.
Dragon Print & Design, which has been trading for 10 years and employs five staff, also owns a Heidelberg GTO, a Rotaprint platemaker and an AB Dick T-51 with a two-colour printing head.
FPRM owner John Davidson says: Its great to see the huge, positive impact the PlateWriter 2000 has had at Dragon Print. Ive been dealing with Steve and Peter since they started, and its been obvious that as with most smaller printing companies, they have had to watch expenditure very closely, in a very tight market. They were also very aware of issues relating to quality and the damage a single badly printed job can do to a business. Its very satisfying to have been able to help them make such a positive investment with so many immediate benefits.