Spreading The Faith

Converting to electronic prepress is helping the Marians of the Immaculate Conception in-plant keep up with its ever-growing workload.

Keeping up with the needs of some 600 priests and brothers would be difficult for even a large commercial printer. But for an in-plant with a staff of 12, meeting the print production demands of the Marians of the Immaculate Conception—one of the Catholic Church's most successful religious communities—presents a challenge of Biblical proportions.

"We're getting busier and busier," remarks Charles Parise, manager of press operations. "The organization's growing."

Print runs for the Congregation's religious materials have increased dramatically over the years as the Marians—dedicated to Mary Immaculate—have grown and expanded internationally. Since these materials are among the Congregation's key communication tools, their quality must be top notch.

The Marians' in-plant is headquartered in the Marian Helpers Center, a modern religious publishing house in Stockbridge, Mass. The Center is also headquarters for the Association of Marian Helpers, an organization of over one million people who support the Marians in their work. The Center's 100-person staff, in addition to generating and shipping the Marians' printed materials, produces video and audio tapes, responds to prayer requests and maintains correspondence with the Association's members and friends.

The print shop does everything from writing, designing and printing to cutting, binding and shipping. Its projects include prayer cards, pamphlets and brochures, as well as monthly newsletters, monthly magazines in Polish and Spanish, and inserts for the quarterly Association of Marian Helpers Bulletin. The shop also prints greeting cards, enrollment cards and general information pieces.

"Producing religious materials for an active organization like the Marians is never ending," says Parise, who has been with the association for nearly 30 years. "The Marians' ministry is worldwide, and maintaining contact with its friends and associates all over the globe is constant; so the pace here never stops." His staff produces 700 to 800 jobs annually, he says, with print runs up to 600,000.

The Marians' growing needs have increased pressure on the print shop to step-up productivity, so three years ago management reviewed ways to speed up operations. One strategy that emerged was to replace the Center's two-color 36˝ Heidelberg press with a four- or six-color offset press. Parise is hoping to add that press—possibly a MAN Roland—next year.

"The press will help us stay ahead of our workflow," he says.

To get the most out of this press, though, Parise realized that the shop would have to convert to electronic prepress. With this in mind, he beefed up the shop's digital production equipment, adding six Power Macintoshes, a Silicon Graphics workstation, which functions as the network's server, and an assortment of graphic software packages, as well as an imagesetter.

"We saw electronic stripping as the real key to increased productivity, so we added an ECRM KnockOut 4550 imagesetter to help strip film electronically," Parise says.

The KnockOut 4550, an 18˝ (457mm) wide imagesetter that outputs film at speeds up to 21˝ per minute, has a powerful software RIP and built-in head and tail punches.

Originally, Parise wanted a drum imagesetter. However, once he heard about the KnockOut 4550, he grew curious. He was intrigued by the size of the imagesetter's imaging area, the benefits of its capstan design and its automatic punching capabilities, as well as its other technically advanced features. He also was excited by the imagesetter's cost, which was thousands less than a comparable drum recorder.

"Accuracy and speed were our biggest concerns," states Parise. "So we looked for an imagesetter offering superior capabilities in both areas. We also wanted an imagesetter reliable enough to withstand a heavy workload." The KnockOut 4550 was the answer to his prayers.

The in-plant installed the imagesetter about a year ago. "The KnockOut's built-in punches provides the accuracy we were looking for, and the software RIP was fast enough and powerful enough to handle our projects without a problem," says Parise. "In addition, the imagesetter's size and capstan design lets us vary the length of the film to meet our specific needs, which we couldn't do with a drum recorder."

Since no one at the Center had ever done electronic stripping before, Parise was concerned about how quickly his people would adapt. But the KnockOut's user-friendly design minimized the learning curve, so Parise's staff was able to come up to speed quickly.

"We've eliminated manual stepping on our small web press and cut stepping time in half on our larger press," he says. "We've also cut down on the number of plate re-makes, paper waste, and project time." Overall, the print shop reduced makeready by 30 to 40 percent, slashed production costs by 20 percent, and boosted productivity by close to 20 percent.

Later this year the in-plant will add a color scanner to its digital production equipment, says Parise, which will provide more control over projects. Archetype digital image management software is also on order to let the in-plant archive photos digitally.

Production runs on the Marians' printed materials probably won't get any shorter in the next few years, but with the addition of the in-plant's new digital equipment, keeping up with the Congregation's needs and maintaining the quality of printed pieces will be a lot easier.