Own water pre-press room, CtP pre-press room - every we investment fitting starts with a cost-benefit comparison. The return on investment should be significant, and the benefits should give you confidence in this choice.
The decision to implement an in-house pre-press model is based on a comparison of external costs with an in-house pre-press and counts the return on such an investment. The calculation also addresses the issue of creating the additional FTEs that will need to be created to run an in-house pre-press at the printing house.
A simple calculation compares the cost of using an external pre-press with the cost of investing in an in-house CtP water pre-press. It takes into account all the elements that make up the cost of producing a finished printing plate in an in-house pre-press.
Print Systems technical advisors use all their knowledge and experience to support the customer in choosing the optimal solution. The customer chooses an equipment configuration that suits his needs and also allows for the integration of equipment he already owns. Machines can be differentiated by format, laser faster or slower, depending on the volume of production in the printing house.
Own water pre-press room - the individual configuration always includes detailed component items of the cost of opening a pre-press room in the form:
- the cost of individually selected machine configuration
- the cost of graphic processing (if required)
- the cost of printing plates
- personnel costs related to the operation of the pre-press room
- operating costs
- The cost of the waste generated in the self-preparation of the plates.
The collection of all costs is confronted with exactly how much the printer is paying so far for plates from an external CtP pre-press, and how much it could produce plates in-house. An additional advantage of the water pre-press model is the ability to use a DTP studio that operates within the Print Systems structure. At a time when there are legitimate concerns about the lack of specialized graphic competence in the printing house, appropriate software, proofers, etc., the use of a DTP studio as part of our model cooperation is an excellent solution.
An extremely important and hardly quantifiable issue is the waiting time for a matrix from an external preparation. Time that is counted not in hours, but in days. This is lost time that causes unplanned downtime and generates additional costs and ultimately losses. A separate issue is the cost of logistics between the printing house and the external prepress. Who, with such dynamics of orders, errors occurring frequently, can afford such losses? Pre-Press Room CtP on-site is the best solution.
Own water pre-press room - the calculation also shows a simple relationship. The greater the consumption of plates, the faster is the return on investment in your own pre-press. Based on general assumptions and individual customer requirements, we determine the equipment configuration of the pre-press. We also calculate those additional costs that the printing house can raise when its own pre-press is put into operation. Such additional costs are certainly waste. In the case of using external pre-press there is no such problem. There will also be additional personnel costs. Their amount depends on the number of people that are involved and is related to the amount of plate consumption.
A model of your own prep room?
The higher the consumption of the plates, the more workers need to be employed. As part of the calculation, we also take into account the costs of using the equipment such as energy, water - we calculate all costs associated with the operation of these machines per square meter of finished Printing plate. The result of the calculation is the answer to the question of whether, at a given level of consumption, current costs and necessary investments, the return on investment is attractive enough to realize it.
Under the cooperation model proposed by Print Systems, we have a lot of possibilities when it comes to configuring the parameters and costs of our own CtP pre-press room. For example, we can offer a smaller laser, a slower laser or a smaller processing device in a truncated version. Everything is a function of how many square meters of plate the printer really uses, taking into account seasonal production peaks. The price per square meter is very important but the key issue is the quality of the prints. The use of the new generation Cosmolight QZ plate is a guarantee of the highest quality and is critical to the final investment decision. That's why we test our model using just these plates, and it is clear that customers' expectations for the results in printing are always higher than the results they currently get.
The result of the calculations is the amount of costs associated with preparing printing plates in the in-house pre-press. This amount is comparable to the costs that the printing house currently incurs by purchasing plates in an external pre-press . The difference is the savings, which must be attractive enough to quickly cover the capital involved in the investment or the amount of the lease installment. Not insignificant in the decision-making are other aspects that are associated with opening your own pre-press. Own water CtP pre-press means increased efficiency, high flexibility of operation, full control of the printing plate preparation process, faster response to customer needs....
