VALHALLA, N.Y. (November 19, 2007) - Nestled in the Roaring Fork Valley, in the Rocky Mountain town of Glenwood Springs, Colo., Gran Farnum Printing is an award-winning commercial printer with dedicated employees, loyal customers across the country and a spectacular view from the office window.
Owners Gran and Glenda Farnum have been growing and improving their business for the past 28 years, since its inception in 1979, and have recently moved from their original location to a beautiful new facility within the impressive landscape of the Rockies.
Gran Farnum Printing recently upgraded its prepress department with the purchase and installation of a Dart 4300 platesetter and Fujifilm LH-PJ plates. "The Fujifilm technical team really went the extra mile in getting us set up quickly and correctly," said Gran Farnum. "We now enjoy a much more efficient printing process thanks to the new equipment and plates."
According to T.J. Lawrence, graphic artist and pre-press specialist for Gran Farnum, "The consistency of the platesetter has really made life easier. We've not had to remake any plates due to plate quality since Fujifilm installed and set up our new system."
Along with the Dart CTP device, Gran Farnum also installed a new processor, the FLH-85-Z processor from Fujifilm, which has helped the company maintain consistent plate quality.  "With the new system, we've gone from cleaning our processor every two weeks to having to clean it and change chemistry every eight weeks," says Lawrence. "The speed and accuracy of the Dart are amazing - night and day over our previous system. Countless time and money were spent on test plates and recalibration with our previous system, but since the Dart was installed, we only run a test plate every two weeks to confirm that nothing has changed. We have not had to recalibrate once since installing it and we've have had zero change in our dot size since the install."
This new solution has also had a significant impact on the company's environmental efforts, as they're using much less chemistry. "Environmentally speaking, we couldn't be happier. Our previous system took nearly four hours every two weeks to clean. The waste developer was not environmentally friendly and required special procedure because of its hazardous nature," adds Lawrence. "Now we only have to change chemistry every eight weeks and the cost of chemistry has been drastically cut."
"For years our company has been very "green" as far as paper, ink and pressroom chemistry are concerned. It is great to be able to add plate making to our efforts as more and more of our customers are environmentally aware and appreciate our efforts," says Gran.
In addition to seeing benefits in the prepress department, Gran Farnum is also realizing benefits in the pressroom, thanks to the Fujifilm LH-PJ plates. "We're using much less water on press with these new plates, and the stability of the Fujifilm plate allows us to hold the 98 percent dot uniformly throughout the press run," explains Greg James, pressroom manager. "Controlling the plate and coming up to color is much easier and much faster than it was before."
Gran Farnum keeps their Dart CTP device on track with help from FUJIFILM Graphic Systems U.S.A., Inc. and the company's Taskero Universe Hardware monitoring software, which automatically alerts the proper people when the system needs attention.
Taskero Universe is able to perform a number of tasks remotely, including failure alerts, firmware upgrades, diagnosis of problems and predicting potential problems, real-time monitoring of performance and error history.
"With Taskero Universe we have the confidence that our system is always in top operating order," reports Gran. "We have had absolutely no problems, but it is comforting to know that if we ever do, there is a good chance that it can be fixed with minimal or no down time. This is very important, as our schedules are always tight."
Gran says he's proud of the company's progress as he walks through the new facility that boasts a 5000-degree Kelvin lighting system and Munsell Gray walls to provide the best color-viewing environment. With the interior design, Gran Farnum Printing has gone well beyond the industry standard in terms of viewing conditions. "We wanted to ensure that viewing color would be reliable throughout our entire facility, not just in one booth or one room," explains Gran. "This helps eliminate mistakes in color correction and our customers don't have to crowd around a viewing booth to review a proof or a press sheet. Our entire facility is a viewing booth."
Gran Farnum Printing is a high-quality commercial printing facility that typically runs 225 – 250 line screen on a coated stock. They boast an internal staff with the color knowledge and experience to keep the color aligned in the shop and to assure that proofs always match the printed piece.
From modest beginnings, Gran and Glenda have been able to keep up with exciting and innovative trends in the printing industry and still maintain a close and personal small shop atmosphere. They take pride in establishing long-term relationships with their customers and are dedicated to understanding their customer's needs and continuing to meet their project deadlines.
"The consistency that we get from the Dart platesetter imaging Fujifilm's plates is the key to making our production easier," says Gran Farnum General Manager Doug DiDonato. "We now enjoy a newfound confidence that we'll match color from job-to-job and from month-to-month without going through the extra calibration steps we did previously."