Prepress
Compose Systems Narrow Web Production Application GapFinder V2 Put to the Test
Thursday 10. April 2008 - - see it in action at drupa 08 - Hall 9, Stand D26-1
Compose System, an established developer of pre-press workflow and colour proofing solutions, will formally release an updated version of its proprietary GapFinder web production application at drupa 08.
This unique and easy-to-use application is specifically developed to provide significant production benefits to the traditional narrow web printing customer segment. GapFinder intelligently aligns print jobs against the printing cylinder, it re-arranges job images on the plate so as to optimises and eliminates the press cylinder gaps. The powerful features of GapFinder V2 reduce production errors, lower media wastage and press downtime.
Putting GapFinder to the test
Drukkerij Strobbe, a full service print house based in Izegem, Belgium, is the market leader in large volume printing of documents and business forms. Over the last 20 years, chain forms have been Strobbe’s core business and this offering has strengthened their market leading position considerably. “For many of our clients, chain forms still are the cheapest solution around – they provide the best secured solution for multiple forms that need to be signed,” explains David Strobbe, the Commercial & Technical Manager at Strobbe. The company has also developed a niche application in ticket printing.
David Strobbe is always looking for ways to further improve production and productivity, and does a lot of testing on materials like paper, ink and blankets. Recently he has put the new version of the GapFinder to the test. “Our plates need to be perfect the first time and machines like our new 8-color Müller Martini Concepta requires maximum uptime. Compose and the GapFinder delivered the right tools to make that happen,” explained Strobbe.
An efficient in-house prepress department is crucial to specialist printers like Strobbe. “We always need to check and analyse the files that we receive from our customers. In our business, it is almost impossible to send files directly to plate-making. You need to have thorough knowledge of what is happening on press, because it is the only way that you can optimize the images for continuous printing on our web presses,” said Strobbe. “By changing the position of the different printing cylinders we can, in many cases, overcome the cylinder gap which normally causes a break in the continuous image that needs to be printed.”
David Strobbe noted that all plates need to be imaged according to the specific press configuration for a particular job. The GapFinder has proved to be a huge productivity booster to his company’s workflow automation. “When we were still using film, our skilled prepress people could do the repositioning of the colour-separated film manually, but in a digital age we needed a digital solution that most workflows do not provide. Compose Systems GapFinder handles this process efficiently and accurately by automating this part of the digital workflow,” concluded David Strobbe.
Powerful new functionality
This new version of the GapFinder complements Compose System’s full-featured range of production tools that are designed to enhance its prepress workflow offerings. It is a perfect example of the company’s technical expertise in developing practical production tools that enable printers to fully utilize their narrow web presses. GapFinder analyses and re-arranges job image so that the white portion of the image falls on the gap of the press cylinder, thus extending the printing height to the maximum range of the web presses. By splitting and dividing a continuous image, images can even be printed on two separate cylinders and matched accurately as gapless images again in print.
Mr. Stefaan Vandermeersch, Compose Product and Sales Manager, commented: “Market research shows that web printers are still having trouble finding a digital solution for this part of the production in their prepress, this is where our GapFinder application can provide the answer. This application was previously only exclusively sold through our OEM, over the past year we have fine-tuned the GapFinder tools, resulting in an intuitive, user-friendly interface and a full-featured prepress solution. We are delighted to be able to bring this updated version to the market.”
GapFinder helps to ensure more economical print runs by simultaneously arranging print jobs over two press units and determining the best point to break up a job. It will automatically calculate the split point of a job then accurately combine a colour scheme as each colour is printed.
This new version of the GapFinder also supports automatic placement of different optical registration marks, such as timing, mark, registration mark, colour matrix mark, etc. Jobs created by GapFinder can be immediately used for printing on customers existing web presses.
“GapFinder has been designed to optimise workflows, not just Compose Systems Express WorkFlow, but most popular third-party workflows,” explains Mr Vandermeersch. “A customer can still gain the benefits of this application with minimal change to their existing workflow by using GapFinder to handle all non-standard jobs, We also have a strong complementary set of products to the GapFinder like the PlateController, Imposition and Visual Proof that can form a fast, transparent and very reliable total solution to the customers.”