CTP Changes Life at Med Center

WHEN THE Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center’s in-plant moved into the computer-to-plate world in 2000 by installing an ITEK 2430 polyester platemaker, everything changed at the eight-employee shop.

“Moving to CTP was a dramatic change for us and improved our productivity significantly,” says Dale Travitz, group leader.

The platesetter produced plates for the shop’s four presses: a two-color Heidelberg, an A.B.Dick T51, a Multigraphics 1250 with a T-head, and a Davidson perfector. Those presses printed the majority of the Hershey Medical Center’s materials—everything from brochures and flyers to newsletters and forms.

“But as demand for four-color printing continued to climb, we found that polyester plates were not stable enough to deliver the level of quality our users expected,” says Travitz.

The Move to Metal
The Hershey, Pa.-based print shop had been a long-time customer of Multigraphics and A.B.Dick, now integrated into Presstek. So Travitz turned to Presstek to determine what options were available to migrate to metal plates.

After learning about the Presstek Vector TX52 from his Presstek sales representative, Travitz believed the system would be a good match for his shop’s needs from a price/performance perspective.

“We felt the Vector TX52 would deliver the stability we needed,” he says. The in-plant added the platesetter about six months ago, and Travitz has been pleased with its performance.

“An added bonus was its small footprint and chemistry-free operation,” he says.

Environmental sustainability is rather important to the medical center, a clinical/teaching hospital and research center that is part of Penn State University.

“With the Vector TX52, we no longer have the hazardous waste to dispose of that was associated with our previous platesetter,” Travitz notes.

While there is routine maintenance associated with the Vector TX52, he adds, it is much less of a chore than the ITEK processor, which required activator and stabilizer to maintain a chemical balance, and a once-a-month cleaning that could be quite time consuming.

A Smooth Transition
Because the Vector TX52 uses the same Harlequin workflow the shop was already using with its polyester platemaker, Travitz says the transition to the Vector TX52 was smooth.

“Training was a non-issue for us,” he says.

According to Travitz, since printing is not a core business for Hershey Medical Center, budgets must be carefully managed.

“While we would love to purchase a four-color press with a coater,” he adds, “that is not likely to happen in the near term. Our objective was to be able to deliver the best possible four-color quality from our installed base of two-color presses, and the Vector TX52 is helping us do that.”

This isn’t the only piece of new equipment the in-plant has added. It recently installed a Xerox Docu­Color 7000 digital press as well.

Serving Central Pennsylvania, the Hershey Medical Center also has 10 University Physician Group locations across the region and provides a range of medical services. The Center takes pride in the fact that seven of its specialists are rated in the top one percent of the physicians in the nation.IPG