Ridgefield Park, NJ – August 8, 2005 – Looking for quality improvements, Professional Graphic Communications (PGC) has retired its polyester CtP system in favor of Agfa's new :Azura chemistry-free system with the 4-up :Acento platesetter. The Pittsburgh-area printer with 30 employees made the switch in February this year in order to make gains in quality and productivity. Replacing the older polyester system with the new :Azura chemistry-free system is helping make PGC, which has annual revenues of about four million dollars, even more profitable. The company's sales staff has found there are more jobs to be accomplished in the same time period, resulting in potentially increased sales. “Typically, we were getting six jobs a day out of the print shop and now we are getting nine,” said Mike Weinzierl, owner, PGC. “The prepress group loves the new :Azura system. They say it is faster and more efficient. This has been a help with our backlog of jobs and now, there's more pressure on sales to get more jobs in here. We work so much faster that we now even have the ability to make slight alterations in our pricing, and attract even more business.” The :Azura plates, with its ThermoFuseTM technology, have not only helped the company save time, but PGC customers are now getting even higher quality output. Jobs that would previously take an hour of film ripping and stripping are now done in 20 minutes with four :Azura chemistry-free plates. “When printers look to upgrade their prepress equipment they tend to seek the newest technologies. As such, printers are looking at the next generation plate system, and they are finding it in our :Azura chemistry-free system,” said Agfa's David Furman, senior marketing manager, CtP systems, North America. “:Azura, with its ThermoFuse technology, allows polyester plate users such as PGC to migrate to a high quality metal CtP system, while at the same time benefit from the elimination of chemistry needed for traditional CtP.” In addition to Agfa's :Acento and :Xcalibur 45, :Azura is also in use on Screen's PlateRite CtP systems, Heidelberg's Topsetter and Creo's Trendsetter and Lotem. Readers who are interested in learning more can contact Agfa at 1-800-540-2432 x4848 or by email at [email protected].