5/13/02 -- "A printing press made for a repro company." is how East Central One Media managing director Alan Harbison describes the KBA 74 Karat his company has ordered for an August installation. The press arriving will be the first to appear in the UK with inline coating and will be the London EC1 repro specialist’s first venture into printing. East Central One is a wholly owned subsidiary of TAG (The Adplates Group), created in March 2000 when Adplates purchased Alan Harbison’s Watford based reprographics company Alan Graphic Ltd, which he founded in 1986. "Here at EC1 we are fanatical about quality and colour and we have great confidence in the Karat technology to deliver both The concept of DI plates, combined with extremely wide gamut inks and the Gravuflow printing process is fantastic. Adding this to our extensive workflow knowledge will produce some fabulous throughput." TAG first saw the Karat at Drupa 2000 and then carefully noted its potential. "We are fully aware of the 74 Karat’s teething problems" Mr Harbison confides. "However, we have watched this KBA development very closely and given the press exhaustive consideration. Now, two years down the road, we believe the press has true commercial viability." He adds : "We believe the 74 Karat will deliver consistent, sharp, accurate and, most importantly, predictable results. This will give our clients print to match the highest standards of reprographics they have come to enjoy." KBA UK managing director Christian Knapp comments. "KBA is using the demanding UK market as a benchmark to help us continually improve our service. Obviously the results have been good since customers are rewarding our UK efforts with one Karat order per month."