As many New Zealand printers face spiraling costs and increasing pressure to remain competitive and flexible, staff members at Frontline Technologies NZ Ltd believe that the latest offering from Kodak is the most responsive product for a challenging industry.
Craig Gemmell, operations manager at Frontline, describes Kodak Thermal Direct as the only true process-less chemistry free plate on the market.The company states that it has been a worldwide success for Kodak, and now has a major share of the Australasian market.
Tasman Westside, a gold medal award winning print house, recently installed the system at its Auckland site. Gemmell says that substantially improved turnaround times between plate manufacture to press have led to significantly increased productivity at Tasman Westside, while perfect registration and super-sharp dots are reducing make-ready times and delivering saleable colour output faster than ever before, all of which translates into more capacity, less waste and greater profits.
David Bryant, Frontline southern region sales manager says that several companies have installed Thermal Direct including Wellington companies Milne Print and Valley Print, and Christchurch’s Griffin Press. Valley Print has run it for 18 months. He says, “Press sizes vary from six colour A2 to GTO’s. We now have a number of installs in New Zealand and the feedback has been exceptional. It’s one of those products that seeing is believing.”
Tony Negri, operations manager of the Greymouth Evening Star, agrees. He says, “The plates ran up like any other plate we have used, and best of all there was no processing. It delivered what we were told to expect, plus more. It’s a fantastic product.”
Frontline says that Thermal Direct plates deliver run lengths that far exceed the average for New Zealand, and the plate making cycle is extremely fast, delivering a stable, reliable result to short run, quick turnaround environments, and providing significant savings for both short and long run work.
The five key ‘must-haves’ for a plate are quality, resolution, accuracy, reliability and repeatability. Frontline says that Thermal Direct plates score highly on all of these core elements, and further enhance productivity and efficiency with several innovative features. The plate operates in a true daylight environment, and there is no need to apply gum, making roller glaze a thing of the past.
Thermal Direct addresses environmental issues by way of a lack of a plate processor, which leads to no plate waste, neutralization or pre-treatment procedures, and also means that post handling, waste, and disposal issues are completely removed.
Craig Gemmell concludes, “Now that has to be good for all of New Zealand.”
