Graphic Arts Magazine - JUNE 2020

Page 13

Cover Story

Print consumables update Paper, ink, plates, blankets, pressroom chemicals – at the end of your printing day, it’s all about managing these traditional costs while maintaining on-press performance, print quality and overall productivity. Yes, consumables do indeed “consume” – a great deal of your profits. It’s as if your primary press is bellowing every day: “feed me, feed me.” Let’s briefly review these necessities and examine how OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) are cutting the cost of consumables, improving their efficiency, and therefore adding more overall value to your operation.

Pressroom chemicals Pressroom chemicals are essential to the efficient running of any offset press. These can include fountain solutions and additives, roller and blanket washes, silicones, roller deglazers, alcohol replacements, specialty products and more. A common problem, according to Canadian pressroom chemical leader Unigraph International of Delson, Quebec, is that regular press maintenance checks are often overlooked. These can affect ink/water balance, drying times, colour consistency and the ability to have repeatable, predictable on-press results. At the end of your production day, however, the bottom line should also involve another too often overlooked factor – the final cost per printed page.

Mike Thibault (left), VP of Technical Services at Unigraph International, with Unigraph President John Thibault.

“Specializing exclusively in pressroom chemistry for nearly 40 years, our message has been basically the same – never buy consumables, especially pressroom

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chemicals, based solely on a lower up-front price,” said Mike Thibault, Vice President of Technical Services at Unigraph. “You must have a guarantee of on-press performance. For example, in some cases, just changing to a better fountain solution or alcohol replacement can lower a printer’s ink bill by at least 5% at the end of the year, while also reducing paper waste.” Corporately, Unigraph has kept every employee on its payroll despite the pandemic. But it did have to make adjustments. “Myself and two other technical reps were spending two weeks a month supporting our customers in the U.S.,” Thibault said. “When that had to stop, we reverted to tech support over the phone and with Facetime. We reached out to our clients and dealers and held technical webinars via GoToMeeting. We also partnered with other suppliers such as plate and ink manufacturers, and conducted seminars together. Finally, we are extremely proud that the Thibault family has been serving the print community for almost 100 years. Our grandfather Wilbert Thibault was a stone polisher in the early 1920s. It’s a privilege to serve this great industry.” While COVID-19 adversely affected its sales in April, Unigraph rebounded quickly and is still making progress in Canada and the U.S. after expanding its production facility four years ago. “We secured our raw material supply chain with our suppliers,” said Unigraph President John Thibault. “This has enabled us to maintain full production, albeit with new health and safety protocols in place. Also, a high percentage of our customer base fell into the essential services category – such pharmaceutical, food packaging, medical and label beverages. This helped alleviate the slowdown in other markets that we serve. Overall, our continued success in the U.S.

continues through our established dealer network who are doing a fantastic job.”

The company has even added to its line of fountain solutions by rolling out two new products to accommodate the growing variety of ink technologies. Uni Lithofount 2020 is a two-part fountain solution specifically formulated for UV/ HUV/LED inks as well as conventional inks. Uni Lithofount One is a one-step fountain solution introduced last year with tremendous success. The result was a much cleaner water system able to print huge solids while keeping reverse type exceptionally clean.

Printing plates

The three big players in this space are Agfa, Kodak and Fujifilm, who were forced to increase their prices 9% to 10% in 2018 due mainly to the escalating prices of raw materials (i.e. aluminum) and higher labour costs. However, the newest entry into this market in early April was Verico Technology’s Zahara Elite Waterless Plate for newspapers, sheetfed, narrow-web label, security printing and CD/DVD applications. The drop-in plate requires no exposure

GRAPHIC ARTS MAGAZINE | June 2020 | 13


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