CTP A Budget Review

by Molly Joss

Getting into CTP can be a learning experience, as panelists at the BookTech '99 session "CTP Part Two: Economic Issues Roundtable" explained. Session speakers, who shared their experiences in detail, included

--Jerry Charlton, director of customer technical services, Quebecor Books, Kingsport, TN

--Deborah Jones, senior production manager, McGraw-Hill, School Division, New York City

--Craig Yolitz, director, prepress department, the West Group, Eagan, MN

--Mark M. Krahforst, manufacturing manager, Rodale Press

Overall, panelists described the experience of venturing into CTP as a positive one. As speakers described their experiences, a unifying pattern emerged -- each company had moved slowly into it as the technology developed, and, currently, not all of any company's printing is done CTP.

However, each speaker had a different reason for using CTP and, thus, different feelings about the economics. In general, though, the speakers all said that they had expected a greater cost savings overall than they had been able to achieve at this point, due primarily to the fact that CTP plates cost considerably more than conventional ones.

Charlton said that about 20 percent of the company's work is done CTP and he has found it is most economical for reprints and four-color work. For jobs that don't require a lot of changes or revisions, the savings is in the imposition process, not necessarily in CTP.

Jones outlined how McGraw-Hill had recently used CTP for a fast turnaround textbook project and, due to technical problems, ended up doing only a few titles using CTP. The rest were done conventionally, she reported.

Yolitz said that the West Group was very interested in CTP because the company needed to move its publications to market as quickly as possible to make the most profit. So, fast turnaround was what the company hoped to achieve, and after a few years of experiencing problems, now all of the company's 7.3 million one-color pages are done on CTP equipment.