May 16, 2005 -- Canadian commercial and newspaper printer, Winchester Print & Stationery, has recently made the switch to CTP with ECRM’s NEWS CTP device. Established in 1981, the web and sheet-fed printer is located in the small town of Winchester, to the south of the Canadian capital, Ottawa. The company has carved out a profitable niche producing items such as community newspapers and magazines, books, business cards and wide format inkjet jobs. Winchester Print & Stationery turned to ECRM CTP technology following the realization that it was time to take the step up from film-based imagesetting. Kent Raistrick, Operations Manager, comments, “Our imagesetter was becoming increasingly unreliable, whilst software upgrades and maintenance were becoming more expensive. We knew it was time for a change and initially investigated staying with film. But we quickly realized that there was no benefit to be had and that CTP was the right move for our business.” The company initially invested in a new front-end workflow system and after another five months of persevering with the imagesetter and research possibilities, CTP decision time had arrived. Kreg Raistrick, Production Coordinator, adds, “We spent several months considering the different options open to us, but it was while attending Print Ontario in November 2004 that we saw two potential solutions, the ECRM MAKO 4 and also a competitive product.” Whilst the latter was interesting to the Raistrick’s, they felt that the plate price was too expensive and meant being locked into one technology. However, the MAKO solution seemed to be the right answer with its fast throughput, wide range of plate sizes and high quality output. Kreg continues, “After speaking with Richard Juneau at Unisource Canada we quickly realized that ECRM’s NEWS CTP was the solution. It proved the perfect match to the range of jobs that we output.” The ECRM NEWS CTP is capable of high productivity levels meeting the tough deadlines required by many community newspapers, yet comfortably supports the quality expectations of commercial print customers. Commissioned during March 2005, the installation could not have been easier. Unisource sent in their ECRM trained technicians and plates were on press the first day. Kent adds, “We’ve been very impressed with the ease of making plates, and the on-press quality improvement that we’ve seen has exceeded our expectations. We have also been able to increase our screen ruling on newsprint and most importantly, our customers have been very happy with the results.” Kreg concludes, “I believe that we are seeing up to a 50% improvement in productivity since installing the new workflow and NEWS CTP combination. Make-readies are quicker, color consistency is better and there are no more skewed plates, it has almost eliminated all possible areas for human error.” The company’s success is beginning to show, with new business coming in across Vancouver to Halifax, proving that investing in the right technology can pay big dividends.