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| 98% colour accuracy you say? |
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| 4-colour 40” Mitsubishi waterless press |
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| A marriage of colour |
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| Laser Printing Press with Toner |
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| Jessica, Trevor & Godlin |
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| Feeling a little dehydrated |
Evaluation of a Printing Plant
Warren’s Waterless Printing Inc.
Warren’s Waterless Printing is a family owned business that provides environmentally responsible options against conventional offset printing. This process has proven to be cost competitive while delivering high standards in print resolution, and image quality.
Number of People Employed
Warren’s Waterless Printing is a very small printing plant compared to its competitors that use conventional print methods. Since its printing operations that began 15 years ago, the company ran with approximately 30 employees. These numbers have since fallen drastically by about 50% since the printing industry moved to digital processes. The company now comfortably runs with 15 employees with some employees cross-trained and cross-utilized over multiple departments.
Types of Products Printed
Warren’s will accommodate numerous clients all with varying requests and specifications pertaining to size, type of paper, design and content. These types of products include but are not limited to stationary, tourism, advertising, corporate communications and publishing. Stationary encompasses the production of notepads, postcards, envelopes, direct mail, labels and invitations. Tourism will offer prints which may include maps, post cards and travel guides. Advertising involves the production of posters, coupons, invitations, catalogues, and scratch and reveal promotions. Publishing refers to bookmarks, magazine runs, tickets, and calendars. Finally, corporate communications includes annual reports, brochures, business cards and newsletters.
Main Market
Since Warren’s is very environmentally conscious, their biggest customers are also equally devoted to the environment or are interested in correcting their environmentally careless habits.
True waterless printing means zero water. A conventional 40 inch printing press would use an average of 80 000 litres of water per year which will be disposed as a sludge waste product composed of inks, plate gums, alcohols and other harmful chemicals.
“if you were to have a large printing shop publication like a newspaper publication, and try to contain what they are putting down the drain, you could have a small lake. But you wouldn’t wanna swim in it” - Glenn Laycock
More companies are seeking out waterless as a preferred method of print especially when they have been known to do a lot of printing and wish to rectify this unfavourable portrayal.These corporations can prominently display the printing certifications and logos that Warren’s holds directly on their printed items - SFC, SFI and Bullfrog powered certifications. This company has also worked with Nature Conservancy Canada, ON Nature, World Wildlife Fund, Canada Department of Environment Conservation, and Toronto Parks & Trees Foundation and several other large and private businesses across Canada.
Number of Departments
The plant is divided into a number of departments. Glen Laycock is the supervisor as he oversees press operating bindery and cutting. He is also responsible for sales and marketing with some assistance from Shelly, the editor. There are 6 employees working together as press operators, cutters and bindery, 3 employees for the pre-press and premedia department, 1 employee for quality control in the artwork department, and 3 employees for plate processing.
Presses Used
The presses used by Warren’s are two 4-colour 40” Mitsubishi waterless presses. The minimum sheet size that it can run is 14” x 21” and the maximum sheet size is 28” x 40”. Those presses can run with a maximum speed of 16,000 impressions per hour.Warren’s also uses a digital printer with a built in stitcher for smaller jobs that offer cost competitive services to larger presses.
Press Limitations
The press limitations include the size of the paper where a press can print whereas the press can only print within its range of paper sizes as it cannot accommodate paper sizes that go over the maximum sheet size or under the minimum sheet size. Humidity can also be a limitation to a press wherein an environment that is too humid or dry can affect the state of the paper thus affecting the print quality. For example, on the day of the print, the plastic coated paper being used required a 50% RH in order to maintain the papers natural flat shape over an extended period.
Types of Paper, Ink, Fountain Solutions, Plates and Blankets Used and Reasons Why
Warren’s Waterless Printing is dedicated to using environmentally friendly methods for printing. Their paper, for instance, is genuine recycled paper which is certified by the FSC or SFI. However, they are not limited to just recycled paper; they still run other kinds of sheets such as coated, un-coated, synthetic and plastic sheets. As for fountain solutions, they are not used at all when working with plates. Instead, they use waterless plates layered with silicon. When the plate is being processed, the silicon is indented by water (which is reused in each process) and produces an image on the plate. The process is effective and environmentally friendly, which is why it is used at the printing plant.
Finishing Operations Carried Out
The press oversees the majority of the work. From the pre-press editing, proofing, printing and folding. They also do some of the in house bindery however they are very limited in this process and majority of the binding processes such as stitching and perforating are subcontracted to local bindery shops such as Tri-Tech Canada in the GTA.
Evaluation of Print Quality
Generally, Warren’s strives to print the highest quality images. The best tool for measuring quality initially, is the eye. According to Glen, the waterless process can achieve up to 98% colour accuracy for their prints and a much higher resolution than seen on most conventional prints. Where conventional printer prints 175 line screen on an uncoated sheet or 200 line screen on a coated sheet, Warren’s will print on both types of paper at a 340 line screen. Even for digital images, which tend to be soft, Warren’s will print the images extremely sharp and at a much higher resolution. Warren’s tries to maintain a consistent 300 dpi as their standards for quality, and will only re-size if the value is lower.
Items of Interest
There are a lot of printers that are using vegetable based inks and recycled paper while shouting the phrase “environmental printing!”. However they’re not realizing that environmental printing is about the type of plates used, water usage, and power drained to support industrial printing and their collective impact on the environment. Warren’s has therefore recently coined the phrase, “Environmental printing - It’s more than recycled paper”, to be their trademarked mission statement. The company strives to meet high standards pertaining to their environmentally responsible trademark and have proven year after year when achieving SFC, SFI and Bullfrog powered certifications. Bullfrog Power supplies non-profit, residential customers and businesses renewable and sustainable energy resources from low-impact wind and water facilities that has been certified by Environment Canada. Warren’s is hoping to bring more companies on board that carry the misconception that environmental printing results in higher printing costs which sadly is but a fallacy.
References
Warren’s Waterless Printing. Retrieved September 29, 2011, from http://www.warrenswaterless.com/index.html
