Ace Scores New Color Gear

When the demand for color printing grew, Ace Reprographics took action. It installed CTP, color proofing and a new five-color press.

Up until last January, whenever Ace Hardware Reprographics produced four-color offset work, the 80-employee in-plant had to print it on a two-color MAN Roland press. As the amount of four-color work increased, the operation started getting overwhelmed.

"One of our biggest programs just continued to grow," says Rick Salinas, production manager, referring to Ace Hardware's two-year-old Helpful Hardware Club. Membership in this preferred customer program soared to three million, straining the in-plant's ability to continue producing quality promotional pieces for the program .

So in January, just minutes before a snow storm hit, Ace Reprographics installed a new five-color, 20-1⁄2x28-3⁄8˝ Sakurai Oliver 572EDII offset press in its 40,000-square-foot Downers Grove, Ill., facility.

And it didn't stop there.

The 25-year-old in-plant also added a new Screen USA PlateRite 4000 thermal platesetter, along with the Screen Trueflow workflow system and Spekta hybrid screening method. Also added were an Epson 7000 color proofer and a Western plate processor. All of the equipment was supplied through Fuller Grafix, a Midwestern Sakurai dealer.

The Sakurai press has done wonders for the in-plant, Salinas notes. He says its plate-changing system provides fast makeready times, and its dot reproduction is excellent.

"We were still able to produce jobs cheaper than four-color printers on our two-color press," says Salinas. "With a five-color press, we can aggressively pursue internal and commercial work. Producing a better product at a lower price is the ideal thing."

Passed The Million Mark

Since the press was installed in January, he says, it has done well over a million impressions. Salinas says the demand for Helpful Hardware Club products alone has swelled by over 300 percent. A second shift has been added to help handle all the work. The in-plant is now able to print three jobs per shift, Salinas says, compared to just one per shift with the old press.

The press has even brought in new business for Ace's in-plant.

"We are beginning to see some new projects that we weren't able to do before," remarks Salinas.

The new equipment caught the notice of more than just Ace employees. Yoshi Sakurai himself, owner of Sakurai Graphic Systems, recently paid a visit to the in-plant to see the equipment in action.

The CTP Switch

"We saw the need to first go to five colors. Then we saw the need to go direct-to-plate," explains Salinas. "The five-color press enables us to print Ace's true PMS color in a four-color job, rather than trying to create it from a four-color composite. To capture real savings, however, we felt direct-to-plate was the way to go."

The Screen CTP system is a big change for the in-plant, allowing it to go directly from computer to metal plates. Before the installation, Ace averaged $50,000 to $60,000 a year in outside film costs.

"We were having all of our film done on the outside and burning our plates in-house," Salinas says. Proofs were printed outside, as well. Now, the in-plant goes right from digital files to proofs and plates.

Ace spent seven months selecting the proper workflow. Representatives researched different prepress systems to find the right combination of speed and efficiency.

"We looked at every manufacturer who had a digital front-end system," says Salinas. "The decision really came down to who gave us the most features and value for our investment. Screen was a pretty easy choice."

Screen's Trueflow PDF workflow management system accepts and outputs standard industry file formats such as PostScript 3, PDF 1.3, TIFF and EPS. Trueflow's standard features include automatic job processing using a Job Ticket workflow, preflight checking, automatic trapping, imposition and RIPed PDF files output.

One of the key features of the PDF workflow solution is its ability to be accessed and managed via a Web browser interface. Operators can run a job or monitor its status from any networked computer or anywhere with an Internet or intranet connection.

"The Screen workflow ... is a major improvement in terms of cost and time because it gets us to press quicker," says Salinas. "Quality is enhanced because we're always working with first-generation files."

Very Busy Operation

Averaging upwards of 1,000 jobs each month, Ace Reprographics handles more than 85 percent of Ace Hardware's printing, including training manuals, postcards, point-of-sale displays, posters and trade show marketing pieces. On large projects, the parent company requires quotes to be submitted by three outside printers.

"We want to capture as much or all of [the work] if we can," explains Salinas.

The in-plant has an annual budget in excess of $10 million. Revenue from insourcing has grown considerably in recent years. Insourcing commercial work helps defray equipment costs and accelerates the return on investment.

Smaller printers often buy Ace's printing services. Ace prints newsletters, marketing materials and posters for the likes of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Bank One Corp. and Motorola.

Ace has three full-time commercial sales representatives. The company started with one full-time account rep two years ago and added two more last year. Salinas says Ace will continue to build the commercial component of its printing business. With annual sales of $8.5 million and 91 employees, Ace Reprographics was ranked number 31 in In-Plant Graphic's Top 50.

"With our range of equipment, there isn't much we can't do," Salinas observes. "We've had jobs ordered on a Monday that consist of 70,000 four-over-four postcards. The job needs to be printed, then run through a digital press to apply variable data, cut down, mail-sorted and shipped to the post office by Friday. If it can be done with a sheet of paper, we can pretty much do it."