SUCCESS STORY

Analytic assessment service helps printers drive
greater efficiency, productivity in prepress
For printers, CTP devices are one of the mostimportant components of a smooth and productive
prepress operation. Ensuring optimal CTP
performance can improve operational efficiency
in the plateroom and beyond. Owners of KODAKMAGNUS Platesetters now have a new tool to help
them optimize CTP performance: KODAK Optimized
Performance and Uptime Services (OPUS) Uptime
Discovery, an analytic assessment program that uses
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and benchmark
data to find opportunities for driving greater
utilization and prepress productivity.

Validating processes at Flower City Printing

The program provides a thorough, on-site review
that observes the customer’s plate room operations
and examines the health of the MAGNUS Platesetter,training needs, preventive maintenance procedures,and the potential for upgrades. The analysis andresulting report recommend improvements thatalign with the customer’s overall business directionin areas such as system uptime and performance
optimization, production capacity, prepress
processes and maintenance routines. For printersthroughout the United States and Europe, theprogram has proven to be extremely valuable.

In December of 2016, Flower City Printing had
Kodak’s service team in to perform Uptime Discovery
on its 10-year old MAGNUS Platesetters as part ofan overall review of the printer’s operations. Directorof Manufacturing Craig Brothers explains, “Whatreally enticed me about Uptime Discovery was thetrue audit of all our processes. We print very well,
but we’re trying to get even better, and are currently
auditing of all our processes within the company toimprove our Color Assurance Program. Our goal is todrive consistency on every job.

Established in 1970, Flower City Printing, Inc. hasgrown to become one of the biggest graphic service
providers in North America. With over 350,000
square feet of production space and an incredible
array of printing and finishing technologies, Flower
City Printing has become the supplier of choice
for several Fortune 500 companies. The company
is a long-time Kodak customer, and currently
images approximately 4,000 KODAK TRILLIAN SP
Thermal Plates per month on its two MAGNUS VLF
Platesetters.

I’m validating inside, but I’m looking for technicalpeople outside to assure that we’re going in theright direction. We looked to Kodak to verify that
we are doing everything we should be doing in theplate room.”
Kodak’s Service team came in for three days toobserve, evaluate and speak with everyone fromplate operators to pressroom supervisors and themanagement team, in what Mr. Brothers described
as a “seamless” process. Kodak’s analysis provided
just what Mr. Brothers was hoping for. “The Kodak
Service team found that we’re doing all the rightthings,” he notes. “All our operators are doing thesame thing. There is repetition from shift to shiftto shift. We run our operations twenty four hours aday, five days a week in the plating room, with oncall people during the weekend, so this was very
good news.”“It’s nice to have somebody you
trust from the outside give you anhonest opinion. It’s a very goodthing to validate that we’re goingin the proper direction.”		

Trusted advisor
Flower City Printing has a long and productive
relationship with Kodak, with the same Kodak
technician making weekly calls for years to maintainthe MAGNUS Platesetters. To Flower City Printing,an interesting aspect of the Uptime Discovery
assessment was Kodak’s evaluation of its own
support program. Mr. Brothers explains, “Kodak was
not only validating what we were doing. Kodak wasvalidating what they were doing, and I think that’s abig deal. It gave me a lot of confidence in the alliance
we have with everyone at Kodak, from the sales teamto the local maintenance guy.”
He concludes, “We’re always striving for perfection.
What we have to do is make sure we’re doing thesame thing day in and day out. It’s nice to havesomebody you trust from the outside give you anhonest opinion. It’s a very good thing to validatethat we’re going in the proper direction. That’s what
happened with this OPUS Uptime Discovery process.
It was very candid. It was very truthful. And that’svaluable to us.”

Craig Brothers, Director ofManufacturing

The Uptime Discovery report also confirmedthat Flower City Printing was “doing everythingas efficiently as possible. There was room for
improvement by adding automation options likeplate punchers, loaders and stackers to our current
MAGNUS Platesetters.”

Eastman Kodak Company 343 State Street Rochester, NY 14650 USA+1-866-563-2533 in North America. Produced using Kodak Technology.
©Kodak, 2017. Kodak, Magnus and the Kodak Logo are trademarks of Kodak.
Subject to technical change without notice.
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