Hudson Printing (Commercial Printing)

Rewards of Automation - Using It To Win Back Customers

Hudson Printing in Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S.A. is proof positive of the benefits of transitioning a business accustomed to an older way of doing things to newer methods. Born over 100 years ago and reborn in the 70's, Hudson Printing had to patiently school its customers and 200 employees in the ways of CtP. Now that they understand those benefits, Hudson is reaping the rewards.

Hudson Printing

Hudson Printing primarily handle regional publications, including real estate listings and other local publications. They also print direct mail pieces and corporate collateral materials. In order to effectively serve its clientele Hudson Printing realised some changes were in order.

Waiting it Out

About ten years ago, Hudson was doing manual table stripping. At the time, the company decided it was best not to waste time investing in the expensive proprietary solutions available. Rather than begin re-training the staff on a system it was felt would not work well for its customers, Hudson decided it was better to eliminate its prepress stripping operations and instead out-source the film work.

"Many of our customers found their own sources for prepress work. For those that didn't, we had local companies that we knew well to which we could outsource that part of the business," says Paul Hudson, co-owner of Hudson Printing. For a while, that worked well, but then along came Agfa and its CtP ways of doing things. Hudson saw that, and was sold.

"It wasn't until CtP options became viable that we got back into doing prepress. We got back into it five years ago, doing full-sized imposed film workflows. Some of our customers stayed with the prepress providers they found while we were out of that business, but many came back-about 70% returned to us and that work is all direct to plate."

Doing it Right

Getting back into prepress did pose a problem for Hudson: those who came back had different workflows that needed to be handled easily and efficiently. In order to handle all that new work that was steadily coming back, Hudson says the decision was made to go to Agfa and get a :Galileo with the Agfa :Apogee Series2 workflow system.

One of the things :Apogee has helped Hudson to do is make the operation more efficient, via the automation :Apogee provides. With this new level of automation, Hudson can offer his customers a little something extra, which they all appreciate. Those who submit properly created PDF, PostScript or DCS2 files, get discounts.

Automation Pays

"Customers who are willing to do that and follow our guidelines, we reward," Hudson says. Hudson uses :Apogee Create to help his customers submit properly created PDF files. This assists in the company's automation process.

"Since PDFs from Create are tailored to the :Apogee system, people who use Create get a further discount off of the already discounted PDF page price. We like Create and we have used our licenses for additional copies to give it to a few key customers who have wanted to partner with us in creating a seamless workflow."

Behind Apogee, Hudson benefits from automation with the :Galileo. "We liked the :Galileo for the automatic plate handling, which was unique at the time," Hudson says. "We output over 3,000 plates each month with about four different plate sizes. We knew we needed to get that done automatically to make it work for us. The automation has been very good for us."

Particularly enjoyable is the level of control that Hudson now has over its plates. "The automation makes everything quick and easy. Following the learning process, our people have become very adept at getting the plates made in a hurry." So good, he says, that he is hoping to go 100% CtP someday. "We find that we have people in the plateroom with a lot more time on their hands than they used to have," he adds.

"It was easy in terms of our :Avantra 44S Imagesetter, plus we use :Apogee PrintDrive. We could have gone with the Creo Trendsetter, but it was easier to go with what we knew would easily integrate with our Agfa digital front end."

"When we went to Series2 every-thing got much better. We do lots more work with the same amount of people. We get everything to the plateroom faster. Digital proofing on the :Sherpa 2 has been a tremendous help there, too."

"Everyone is excited about CtP make-readies. Plus, we have seen an increase in activity and we are wasting fewer plates. In the old days, seven percent of our plates would be wasted. Today, with the :Galileo, we're at less than two percent," Hudson adds.

As Hudson continues to lure back the prepress business, those employees will be happy to know that they are spending more time working, and less time waiting.