Celebrating 70 years in business, Regehr’s Printing in Winnipeg has stepped up its quality and improved is productivity with the recent installation of a new Heidelberg Suprasetter A75 computer-to-plate (CtP) device.
Pictured with the new Heidelberg Suprasetter is (left to right) Mike Ferguson, prepress technician, Ren Regehr, owner and Danny Goovaerts, prepress technician, all with Regehr’s Printing in Winnipeg.
A general commercial printer offering design/prepress, printing and finishing, Regehr’s has 10 employees and operates a four-colour Ryobi 3304 (12 x 18-inch format) press and has in-house binding equipment including a Duplo bookletmaker.
The new thermal platesetter, equipped with an auto loading feature, represents an upgrade from imaging polyester plates on the Heidelberg QuickSetter the company had in place for about eight years.
"Our QuickSetter was starting to show its age," says Ren Regehr, third-generation owner of the printing company that has been in business since 1939.
The new CtP system, installed this past summer, is making a difference. "We get better water control with the metal plates," notes Regehr, adding that they’re up and running quicker so makeready times are coming down.
And the company is also taking advantage of quality improvements. "You don’t get the stretch that we did with the polyester plates," he says. And the shop is now running 175 linescreen or higher, as opposed to the 150 line they were running before.
The transition from polyester to metal plates hasn’t required much of a learning curve for the employees, and since the shop was already using Heidelberg’s Prinect MetaDimension workflow adapting to the new platesetter was quick for the prepress team.
The company’s other recent investment is an Epson 9880, a 44-inch wide inkjet printer for digital wide format output. It’s a part of the business that is starting to generate some interest, according to Regehr.
While many printing companies have found 2009 to be a challenging year, not so for this Winnipeg-area outfit. "It’s been a steady year for us, considering the economy," says Regehr. "Thankfully, we have a good client base that still requires printing."
