A.G. Edwards Makes Investment in Quality
CTP has revamped the prepress department at brokerage firm A.G. Edwards.
By Bob Neubauer
WHEN A.G. Edwards' print shop fired up its new Presstek Dimension 400 and Mitsubishi Silver DigiPlate computer-to-plate systems in the spring of 2004, it was a monumental change for the St. Louis-based operation. Up until then, the 35-employee shop had been using its camera to shoot film.
"We knew from an efficiency standpoint that [CTP] was where we needed to be," says Sue Weiss, vice president of General Services.
This was never more apparent than when the in-plant tackled one of its most cumbersome jobs, a directory of company departments and employees. The 119-year-old investment and brokerage firm employs nearly 7,000 financial consultants in more than 700 offices, so that directory fills between 200 and 300 pages.
"We were shooting it," Weiss says. "You can imagine the length of time that took to do."
Producing plates, in fact, took about 60 production hours.
Then the company introduced a new two-color logo with tight registration and a very fine screen. At first the in-plant experimented with producing plates from film.
"It looked O.K., but we knew it could be better," Weiss says. After all, in a company whose philosophy is "the client should always come first," it stands to reason that the in-plant would feel the same way about its in-house customers and want to give them the best service and quality possible.
CTP Business Case
So the in-plant started building a business case for upgrading to CTP equipment.
"We looked at...one of the biggest products that we consistently print the logo on," Weiss says. This was the company letterhead and envelopes. Comparing the cost of printing these items outside with what it cost to print them in-house, the shop quickly realized how much it would save over time by moving to CTP. It was able to show a payback of less than 12 months.
"In the end it was a pretty easy sell," she says.
The in-plant installed not one, but two computer-to-plate systems:
• A Presstek Dimension 400 metal platesetter, with an automatic plate washer.
• A Mitsubishi Silver DigiPlate Eco1630II roll-fed paper/poly plate device.
In addition, the shop added Agfa ApogeeX workflow software, Creo Preps imposition software and an Epson StylusPro 7600 proofer.
The biggest issue the in-plant faced after getting all this equipment was the learning curve, Weiss says. Also, customers had to be trained to submit jobs in the right formats.
"We started with the biggest customer first," she says. "It does take some time. It doesn't happen overnight that you get everybody on board."
Once the process was ironed out, though, the difference in quality and speed brought by the CTP equipment was remarkable. Registration has been excellent, Weiss says.
"The plates line up beautifully," she says.
And productivity, compared with the cut-and-paste days, is amazing.
"There's an extreme difference in time savings," notes Don Carroll, graphic arts tech. He cites one job, a 20-page internal newsletter called "Inside Quote," that used to require an entire eight-hour shift for plate production.
"After getting the new CTP system, we're able to shoot that out in two hours," he says—including proofs. And plates for the company directory, he adds, are now produced in just 20 hours. With man-hours reduced to almost nothing, prepress staff can now move on to other tasks once they paginate the file and send it to the platesetter.
"It certainly has made it easier to make a good product," remarks Duane Hughes, manager of printing.
The in-plant added two different platesetters so it could handle runs of all lengths. On the Presstek unit, Carroll says, "we run anywhere from 10,000 to 100,000 [impressions per plate]."
These metal plates are used on the shop's two Ryobi 662 two-color presses. The Mitsubishi Silver DigiPlate creates plates for shorter-run jobs. It outputs poly plates for envelope jobs printed on the two Halm Jet presses, as well as paper plates for other jobs.
A.G. Edwards has consistently been named one of Fortune magazine's "100 best companies to work for in America," a designation evidenced by the lack of turnover in the in-plant. The company provides employees with a clean, comfortable working environment and surveys them for suggestions on how to improve the operation, says Hughes. In return, he adds, employees are committed to producing quality products and keeping costs down.
