When Paul Coyle, managing director, took over operations of the family company from his father, he brought to it a fresh perspective from outside of the printing industry with his studies in biological sciences, marketing- and direct-mail marketing.
Coyle says servicing the fundraising sector has its own inbuilt challengesas it is an industry with strongly defined cost ceilings. “The requirements of the not-for-profit market are fast turnaround, competitive pricing and creativity,” he says. “We don’t sell ourselves as a printer to the not-for-profit or fundraising market but as a service agency providing fast, professionally prepared material.”
Coyle decided three years ago the time was right to switch to computer-to-plate as film output was becoming too expensive, he says, with the upkeep of an imagesetter, processor and film.
With the buy-in price of a platemaker still quite high at that time, the strategy was to outsource platemaking to two bureaus. Yet while that kept costs down, Coyle knew there was a faster, better way to service his customers.
Bringing plate processing into the Classic Press production flow within three years of changing to CTP was his plan -and late last year, the company was able to fulfill that plan with the acquisition of an ECRM Mako 4 four-page plate maker supplied by The Currie Group.
Coyle says he chose the ECRM Mako 4 semi-automatic platemaker for a number of reasons, preferring the stability and quality output of metal plates, which are easy to handle, particularly with pre-punched loading, and which keep set-up times to a minimum.
“Waiting for plates is now a thing of the past. While we were happy with our service bureau, there were timeframes that even the best outside agency isn’t able to meet. Now we simply process our plates when we need them and they go straight onto the presses,” says Coyle.
“By gainfully employing my prepress staff and reducing my outsourcing to zero, I’ve been able to develop a profitable inhouse business making my own plates.”
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