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Coating Excellence International reduces costs and improves quality by bringing prepress in-house
Coating Excellence International reduces costs and improves quality by bringing prepress in-house
Kodak prepress solution for digital flexo delivers quality, speed, savings
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Name: Coating Excellence International
Established: 1997
Number of employees: Approx. 320
Location: Wrightstown, WI, USA
Services: 10-color wide web printing, adhesive lamination and extrusion coating and lamination
Markets served: Flexible packaging, ream wrap, food packaging, industrial and release market
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“Our costs have been significantly reduced. At the same time, we’ve experienced a 75% improvement in uptime for our presses.” Louann Mueller, Vice President of Printing Coating Excellence International
Coating Excellence International (CEI) is a specialized extrusion coating and printing company. Although relatively young, CEI’s unwavering focus on quality, innovation and customer service has made it a fast-growing player in wide web converting. For its first nine years, the company relied exclusively on outside vendors to supply prepress and platemaking services. This changed late in 2005, when CEI built an in-house prepress department using a fully integrated suite of digital flexo solutions from Kodak.
Louann Mueller, Vice President of Printing, notes that, “by bringing prepress in-house, we’re able to support the growth that we’re realizing. We felt we were large enough that we needed to be able to control, both from a cost and quality standpoint, the prepress and plates that we were putting out to our presses.”
According to Graphics Manager Melissa Warnecke, “We chose Kodak because they oered a 100% integrated solution from the start of proofing to the end of final platemaking. They are proven in the industry, and we had a good history of experience with our suppliers using Kodak products. We also found local support for all the equipment we purchased.”
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Full prepress capabilities in just 30 daysIn early November 2005, CEI began installing equipment and software. Within 30 days, the new prepress department was up and running. Prepress Specialist Dave Schrader notes, “After completing training on the Kodak Prinergy Powerpack workflow system in Vancouver, it took us just two weeks to get everything running and to start making sample plates. We also had a great Kodak trainer on-site, helping us set up and master the Kodak Approval NX digital color imaging system. The installation went really, really well.”
A mere five months after installation, CEI is producing an average monthly plate volume of 362,000 square inches of photopolymer material through its Kodak ThermoFlex Wide CTP platesetter, which feeds the company’s six presses.
Improved control saves time and money
The decision to internalize prepress was driven largely by the fact that lead times have been steadily shrinking. Ed Ebben, CEI’s Pressroom Manager, comments, “In the past, we were working with two to three weeks. Now, we’re often expected to turn jobs around within one week.”
Digital workflow leads to higher quality
Not only is CEI saving time and money, but as Louann Mueller adds, “we’ve seen significant improvement in print quality.” Her team has observed that the plates they’re making print much better than the plates they were buying, and sees two reasons: CEI’s newfound ability to fine-tune prepress to optimize press results, and the performance of the Kodak flexo prepress solutions. The ThermoFlex CTP device “is very reliable,” says Eric Huth, Platemaking Coordinator. “Image repeatability from plate to plate is excellent.”
In addition, “Screening technology is a big advantage of the Kodak solution,” notes Dave Schrader. “We’ve had great success. Kodak DigiCap screening software has really helped us with our densities. We used to screen our solids, but it’s a lot easier now to apply DigiCap software and build it right into the workflow. We’re able to print fine type that is nice and crisp, as well as large solid areas with better density.”
Print quality opens up new opportunities
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CEI is also capitalizing on an unforeseen benefit of Kodak Maxtone hybrid screening and Kodak HyperFlex resolution enhancement software. These screening solutions help improve detail and recover tonal range that otherwise would be lost due to resolution limitations with flexo printing. “We ran a job the other day with HyperFlex software,” relates Dave Schrader, “and had no minimum dot, which is a rarity.”
This level of quality will, as Louann Mueller explains, “allow us to compete against printing that’s historically been rotogravure. We’ve also done trials to compete against oset printers. We brought prepress in-house to increase control and reduce cost, but we’re realizing it’s allowing us to go after new customers.” Dave Schrader sums it up, “Kodak’s prepress solution for digital flexo has given us a huge advantage over our competitors.” CEI intends to make the most of it.