Platesetter Downtime

[prepressdork]

Hi everyone,

Suppose your platesetter goes down and a few days of downtime can't be avoided. What do you do in the meantime to keep your presses running? Do you have a relationship established with another printer that will image plates for you? Any other creative ideas?

Thanks,
pd

 

[dabob]

Well . . . theres another printer about 45 miles away that has the same CTP system we do . . . they were down the other day to process plates - their processor died - but when another local shop went out they had the same setup we did and we bought it for 10,000 bucks - we thought it was a great idea and price

 

[prepressdork]

Anyone else? I'm sure everyone here has experienced platesetter downtime at one time or another.

pd

 

[QualityPrint]

We actually bought a backup platesetter. We have a magnus as our main unit and a trendsetter is our backup. The magnus is rarely down... but when it is it hurts. We use both most of the time and are amazed at how close the print is.

 

[gordo]

Anyone else? I'm sure everyone here has experienced platesetter downtime at one time or another.

pd

Some cities have a service bureau/prepress shop that provides CtP plates for the smaller print shops that cannot justify the cost to have their own.

 

[PeterW]

This may help with reducing your downtime. Try to find a local service organization with competent engineers and buy a service contract for your CtP. These type of organization would usually have a quicker response time and less expensive service rates when compared with manufacturer. Check their references with local printers.

Peter Warzecha
Viprofix
[email protected]

 

[prepressdork]

Although I have a service contract on my platesetter, I am looking for ideas/solutions for 'what if' scenarios where the machine could be down for longer than two days.

Thanks,
pd

 

[dabob]

Find a local "friend" and make sure that their processes will work for you even to the point of making sure they have the correct size plates on hand for their CTP and even test a few plates to make sure they will get the job done . . . . other than that there aint much you could do IMHO

 

[wonderings]

We are currently making plates for another local print shop. They use the same plates, different CTP. We have had another shop do plates for us in the past as well when we were transitioning from our old Presstek CTP to a Screen device. Having a good relationship with local shops can be very helpful in times of need.

 

[gregbatch]

It's always good to have a relationship with another printer for situations like this.