Discussion

By Gordon Pritchard on Jun 30, 2021

Just a point of clarification. The Creo CtP technology was not Israeli. It was Canadian.

I worked in the output division at Creo and worked very closely with both George Kallas at Met and Dick Kouwenhoven at Hemlock in the mid to late 90s during the development of Creo's CtP. Two things had a significant impact at the time on those companies. First, Creo needed real world data about how presses performed (plates, inks, screening, etc) as most of what was available from books and/or "experts" was not correct. Second, we needed printing for our marketing literature that would showcase our technology and how it could allow our customers to differentiate their presswork from their competitors as well as reduce production costs. To do that we had Met and Hemlock do things with their presses that pushed the limits of performance in ways that they would likely never had tried without Creo being involved. Things like 10 micron FM, very high SIDs, and extended gamut. George and Dick recognized that they could leverage this capability to benefit their regular commercial work and were quick to bring their new knowledge and capability to market.
It's a great example of the synergies possible when a vendor (like Creo) works closely in partnership with their customers (Met, and Hemlock).