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Process-less or process-free plates – the quiet winners With digital printing taking up most of the oxygen in news coverage in the graphic arts world, we tend to lose sight of other critical developments in our industry. One remarkable silent evolution has been the gain in importance of process-less plates in offset printing. Simply put, in a process-less plate production process, the plate goes straight from the image platesetter to the printing press, bypassing the plate processor. The plate coating is subsequently removed during the start-up of the press. Although process-less or process-free plates have been commercially available since the beginning of the new millennium, it took until approximately 2014 that we saw the first uptick in the adoption rate of this technology. However, it’s only in the last couple of years that the technology has really gained traction. The three major players in this field – Fujifilm, Agfa and Kodak – have consistently invested major R&D dollars in the development of their respective processless plates. Recent introductions include Fujifilm with their Superia ZD line, Agfa with their Eclipse and Azura lines, and Kodak with their next-generation Sonora line. These R&D investments underscore the importance that these OEMs are paying to this technology. As we take a closer look at reasons why process-free plates are gaining popularity, we believe that there are four interrelated factors driving their adoption: technological improvements, cost benefits, environmental benefits and business trends. The coalescence of these four complementing factors is accelerating the adoption rate of these plates.
1. Technological Improvements There’s no doubt that the initial releases of process-less plates encountered some challenges that jeopardized both quality and productivity, which slowed their adoption rate. Shortcomings in quality were reflected in elevated sensitivities to scuffing and scratching,
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fingerprints, and unintended light exposure. Residue build-up on the press required frequent cleaning, degrading print quality during a run which then triggered reprints. Shorter run lengths limited the types of jobs that could run using these plates. UV inks also caused major issues. The latest technological improvements exemplified by the most recent product releases by Fujifilm, Agfa and Kodak have drastically elevated both quality and productivity levels for both web and sheetfed presses. These technological improvements have now pushed the adoption rate of process-free plates past its lethargic early-adoption phase into the mainstream.
2. Cost benefits Substituting conventional plates with process-less plates eliminates a critical step in the prepress workflow, shortening the time from platesetter to press, thus gaining productivity. The technology also eliminates the need for the plate processor itself – which in turn cuts out its related high usage costs of water and electricity. Removing the platesetter also eliminates its utilization and maintenance costs and creates the opportunity to redistribute labour elsewhere within the production process. Lastly, it also frees up costly floor space that can be repurposed. Combining all these cost benefits is another factor that drives the adoption rate. Although process-less plates might demand a slightly higher
up-front price, the price differential is more than offset by cost savings and their overall production benefits.
3. Environmental advantages Over the last several decades, the graphic arts industry has made major strides in responding to environmental challenges – and the introduction (and evolution) of process-free plates is yet another important step in that awareness cycle. The environmental benefits with process-free plates are self-evident. The elimination of a plate processor not only saves a production step in the pre-press workflow, but also sharply reduces the use of water and electricity while eliminating a multitude of chemicals. There’s no doubt that this technology drastically reduces an operation’s overall carbon footprint. And as mentioned before, the physical removal of the plate processor also saves real estate in the prepress department.
4. Business trends Next to the factors already stated, there are underlying business trends in our industry that are making the case for process-less plates. As I mentioned earlier, most of the news cycles are focusing on digital printing while under-reporting advances made in conventional printing. Although conventional lithographic offset still produces the lion’s share of printed pages by far, the changing demands for shorter runs and faster
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