Bellak Color Cleans up Platemaking with a Presstek Compass 8030 and Aeon Plates

Located in Miami, Bellak Color was founded more than 50 years ago as a color separator. “The company saw an opportunity to move into printing while the color separation business was still strong,” says Oscar Gonzalez, Prepress Manager, “and we have been direct-to-plate since about 2000.”

Today, the company has 50 employees, an eight-color Mitsubishi perfecting press and a 6-color Misubishi press configured with an in-line full-color foil printing process that enables the production of short runs with in-line foil.

Bellak decided the time had come to upgrade its direct-to-plate capability. “Our existing system had been in place for more than a decade,” explains Gonzalez. “A great deal has changed in that time, and we didn’t feel it could keep up with today’s demands.” The violet system was also extremely dirty, according to Gonzalez. “We simply could not keep the system clean which resulted in daily cleaning.” In addition to the chemicals and down time, our platesetter was not imaging consistently, resulting in excessive remakes and a cost factor that was simply not acceptable. “We wanted to find a cleaner thermal system that could not only give us consistent imaging, but improve the quality our presses could deliver.”

Bellak performed a thorough market study to determine the best possible solution, including a review of offerings from its current vendor, one of the ‘Big Three’ in the plate market. Gonzalez comments, “We chose the Presstek Compass 8030 with Aeon plates. This was a business decision based on price and performance. But our decision was also influenced by the customer-centric approach we saw from Presstek. Of everyone we looked at—and we looked at everyone—Presstek was willing to provide us with the most service. It was clear that they really appreciated our business, and that we were more than just another sale to them.”

The company chose to use Aeon plates due to the abrasive nature of UV inks used in their in-line foil production process and added a post-bake oven to increase plate durability even more. In addition, Bellak took advantage of automation upgrades to the Compass 8030, including three input cassettes and an autoloader.

The new plates enable higher quality and more consistent printing with virtually no remakes, but plate throughput has increased dramatically. “The high throughput is due in part to increased uptime from the cleaner system,” Gonzalez says. “But it is also due to the fact that it is simply a faster machine. We generate about 10 plates every 35 minutes with little operator intervention. We just make sure the cassettes are loaded, and the rest is automated with the autoloader, and in-line processor and bake oven. Plates are ready to mount on press when they exit the system.”

“There are always bumps in the road when implementing a new system,” he says, “especially something as critical to the manufacturing process as a platesetter. Presstek worked hard to make sure everything ran as we needed it to. The people on site, as well as those on the phone, are there for us. “I had an operational issue after 5:00 p.m. one day, and Presstek guided us through the process so we could get back up and running.