Increase Speed and Profits with Computer-to-Screen

A contract printer shares the real-world experience of how this expensive, cutting-edge technology improved screen-making speed, print quality and profitability.
July 1, 2008

Once CTS screens are exposed, they are washed out in the traditional way. Mind's Eye staff members devised a screen mister system to speed up this process. At the bottom of the washout sink, they installed pipe with two nozzles that shoot water up onto the screens. This runs continuously to help soften emulsion before the final washout.

By Greg Kitson

Like many mid-size contract screen printers, my shop, Mind's Eye Graphics in Decatur, Ind., has faced numerous challenges in recent years that led us to rethink the way we do business. As average order sizes have dropped, it has become more important for us to work efficiently and complete orders as quickly as possible.

As we analyzed our business through time studies, we found that employees spend about 30 to 35 minutes making a screen. It may not seem like it would take that long, but when you figure a few minutes coating, another few minutes exposing, and so on, it adds up quickly. We also realized that screen making often was a bottleneck in our production. The bottom line: We needed to make screens faster and more efficiently.

Enter computer-to-screen systems, which let you bypass films, film chemistry, imagesetters and the like. As the name suggests, you output screen separations directly onto screens. This time-saving technology has been around in some form for more than a decade, but it has truly come into its own as a viable option in the past few years, overcoming the hurdles — including excruciatingly slow speeds and high prices — that it once faced.

For our shop, I found it made more sense to purchase a computer-to-screen (CTS) system in lieu of three to four additional inkjet output devices — the units we had used to generate film positives. Inkjet printers cost anywhere from $1,000 to $5,000 each. I considered other technologies, too.

A thermal imagesetter will set you back between $8,000 and $10,000. Chemistry-based imagesetters start at $50,000 and increase in price from there. And even though today's CTS machines do require a substantial capital investment — $50,000 and up — the return on investment of a complete computer-to-screen system makes the initial capital outlay compare favorably to these other technologies.

When we started looking seriously at CTS systems a few years ago, we were told we needed to do about 75 to 100 screens a day to get a good return on investment — and we weren't ready. About a year ago, however, it started to make financial sense considering the increased efficiency the equipment would provide. Our computer-to-screen system turned out to be one of the best investments we've ever made.

NUMEROUS EFFICIENCIES
Our art department used to have a staff of about 21/2 artists, some of whom spent a great deal of time babysitting our output devices. As a contract printer, we found ourselves getting suitable artwork from customers and outputting it to our Epson 3000 or 4000 — at a snail's pace of about six to 10 minutes per piece of film with an artist sitting there monitoring the output.

As you might guess, adding the computer-to-screen system eliminated this idle time, quickly reducing work hours and overtime in the art department. While this was initially a concern for our artists, who worried about job security, it turned out to be a huge benefit for them. They found that they had time to be creative and make images more production-friendly rather than staring at an output device.

Other cost savings of adding the computer-to-screen system were no more inkjet ink costs, no costs for film, and no time spent dealing with our carrier sheet-based preregistration system. We also did away with the need to let inkjet film sit as long as 15 to 30 minutes to optimally dry. Right away, in the art department alone, we shaved off an average of six minutes from our screen-making time. It's a win-win; the artists are happy to be potentially earning more money because they're doing creative, billable work, not babysitting output machinery. Greater productivity equals more money for our employees and the shop overall.

Storage. We also eliminated the need to store films. Most printers have hallways, rooms or warehouses filled with rows of old films, often organized poorly and taking up valuable real estate — not to mention the time wasted when an employee rummages through the old films for reorders, only to find that one of the films in a set of four has physical damage, putting the set out of register. With CTS systems, you store digital files. Thus, storage becomes infinitely easier and more affordable, requiring only hard drive space and a good data back-up regime.

Registration. Our shop's CTS system includes a built-in pin registration system, meaning we now take care of registration in the art department with much better results. Without a CTS system, pin registration requires a punched sheet or carrier sheet where you tape the film to the screen and registration is only as good as the person doing it. Press operators are doing a better job because the CTS holds very tight registration and our press set-up times have improved for staff members of all skill levels. Entry-level printers are setting up butt register spot three- to four-color jobs with no micro registration in nine to 12 minutes. Senior press staff can set up an eight-color simulated process job to the first approved shirt in 20 to 35 minutes with only two to three micro adjustments.

Exposure and wash out. We previously used a high-end, 7,000-watt exposure unit that did two screens at a time, but we still could do only about 16 screens an hour or a set of two screens every four or five minutes. Then, when the exposure was complete, we still had to wait for the unit's vacuum to release, then remove and protect the films. The $600 light bulb was only good for about 8,000 screens before we would replace it. To create an exposure unit for our new CTS system, we pulled a 3,500-watt unit out of storage and screwed some lumber to the wall. By the way, it's now got a $200 light bulb and no vacuum time to consider.

Our CTS system has boosted exposure rates from 16 screens an hour to 50 an hour. Further, there's no chance for undercutting, no pinholes because of dirt on the film or carrier sheet, no vacuum draw down time, and no real expensive bulb replacement. It's amazing.

Labor. If we hadn't purchased a CTS system, the path to increased production would've required another employee. With the CTS system, the need for additional help was eliminated, and as mentioned previously, our production time actually decreased considerably, meaning lower labor costs. In fact, we've experienced such efficiency and increased screen throughput that we're considering purchasing a second CTS system if we continue to grow at our current pace.

QUALITY CONSIDERATIONS
Besides all of these quantifiable benefits, our CTS system also has improved our final print quality. When we take the same files that we used to send to film, and send them to the CTS system, we see image detail that previously wasn't there. We get highlights and shades in the halftones that we didn't even know existed. If our customers were happy before, they're ecstatic now. In fact, thanks to the increase in quality, we increased our prices at the same time the CTS reduced screen-making costs as much as 30% to 35%.

In many ways, screen printers are really screen makers. After all, if you do a four-color job for four dozen shirts, it may take only five minutes to print on an automatic press, but it will take 16 minutes to set up the job. In other words, the production bottleneck for most printers — and the production costs — occur during the screen-making time. That said, if you're searching for production efficiencies in your screen printing shop (or screen-making shop, more precisely), you owe it to yourself to consider a CTS system. If you're doing fewer than 40 screens a day, you probably want to look at other ways to increase productivity. But if you're doing more than that, a CTS system is a no-brainer.

Computer-to-screen systems have an obvious benefit that screen printers can plainly see: They save money by eliminating the need for film. What's much more important, however, is the considerable savings in time that CTS systems offer over traditional screen-making systems. That's a critically important point because while money is your most important tool, time is your most important asset.

TIME SAVINGS
By reclaiming time and then allocating it to other revenue-producing processes, you can add to your shop's bottom line without increasing overhead. In other words, with a CTS system, your shop's throughput goes up, meaning profits go up too. Here's a look at the time savings that a CTS system can provide at the various stages of the production cycle.

ARTWORK PREFLIGHT
There's no real impact using CTS vs. the traditional method prior to the artwork preflight stage, where the artist verifies colors, size, position and special requests from the customer. At this point, though, things start to differ dramatically.

The traditional way. The artist loads film into an inkjet printer, feeding the coated sheets into it one page at a time. (Roll feeders are available, but our shop had difficulty using them.). This means that rather than using this time to create artwork, artists are babysitting an output device. Once the film prints, it takes 15 to 30 minutes to dry.

Each film, which represents a color, is then assembled using a pre-registration system. The film is taped to a carrier sheet that has prepunched holes at the top. The holes are used to place the carrier sheet on a matching pin bar on your exposure unit, ensuring that everything is in perfect position. The stack of films resembles a sandwich and also is referred to as "stripping" together the positives.

This stripping process is ultimately only as good as the eye and technique of the person doing it. Any skew, or slight twisting of the X/Y axis, on a single piece of film leads to registration issues with every other piece of film in the "sandwich." When you're doing butt registration (side-by-side films), dead-on precision becomes even more critical.

Once the artist has built the sandwich, he does a final check. If there are problems, it will have to be restripped, adding another 15 to 20 minutes to the process. In our shop, we then have another preflight check with the production manager or his assistant, who verifies that the sandwich has the right number of films, the artwork is the right size and so on. If everything is correct, the films go to the screen-making stage. During this stage, each carrier sheet is registered to the screen using a pin bar as mentioned above.

The CTS way. Because you're using a printer to image the screens, all preregistration and image placement occurs in the computer, during the artwork preflight stage. With a traditional screen-making system, an operator takes the imaged film, lays it on a screen, and uses a ruler to measure, for example, 4 inches from the top and 5 inches from the right. In other words, you can place the artwork on the screen so that it falls where you want it — but when you're imaging directly to screen, the artwork must be in the right place, starting at the software stage. This means you'll need software templates for various placements — left chest, full front, sleeve, etc. It also means you've all but eliminated the possibility of human error in artwork placement.

The CTS system's software uses X/Y points to place each screen's artwork, ensuring precise registration. As far as placing the artwork correctly on the screen, the templates make accurate placement a much easier process. For instance, if you're doing a left-chest logo, you just drag the artwork and place it according to the template. The templates also let us designate areas where the squeegee flood bar assembly goes — in other words, non-printing areas. (You should probably create templates for each press size — one set for your large automatic, and another for your smaller automatic, for instance. This upfront time investment will pay off big in the long run.)

Instead of looking at and approving films, the production manager looks at a full-color inkjet proof of the template page; what he sees on the printout is what he'll see on press. If everything looks good, the screen is loaded into the CTS unit using our pin registration or a three-point registration system, the ripped file is loaded, and you hit print. Our CTS unit averages 25 imaged screens per hour, about two to three minutes per screen.

An important time saver here is that the artist just sends the image to the raster image processor (RIP) and is then ready for the next job. This means artists can be artists instead of output device babysitters. Instead of creating films, he's working on artwork and sending it to a RIP to handle the rest.

Another plus: The artist can use the CTS software to look at the image at the individual dot (raster) level. In other words, you can see the image in much more detail than you could ever see with film, allowing you to catch problems easily. For example, you could look at the digital separation in the RIP preview software to check your job's light blue. You might see that you don't even need the light blue plate because you could throw it into the gray plate.

EXPOSURE STAGE
The traditional way. The exposure stage takes up much more time than you probably realize. The vacuum pump has to draw down the screen, and there's a "UV filtering effect" from the glass; the bigger your exposure unit, the thicker the glass must be, and the more powerful and expensive the light source. The light literally must pass through glass, film, and the screen, which acts like sunscreen on your body. Part of the UV light is blocked by this sandwich layer that is not UV transparent.

With a traditional system, our cycle time was three to four minutes. We put the screen in the vacuum unit, turn it on, draw down the vacuum, the integrator turns the light on, does the actual exposure, turns the light off, and releases the vacuum. Even if you have only a 10-second exposure, that's about a three-minute cycle, depending on how fast and how old your vacuum pump is. Also, if the vacuum doesn't pull down consistently, it can introduce another variable of up to 1/1,000 of an inch; that may not sound like much, but across eight pieces of film, it can cause problems.

The CTS way. Instead of a traditional unit with glass and a vacuum, we have 16" x 2" x 4" pieces of wood screwed to the wall, and we hang the screens on them. While this may sound crude, it's actually three to four times faster than the traditional exposure process because we're not waiting for the vacuum to draw down and release. We went from 16 screens an hour to 50 screens an hour; now that's fast. There's also no risk of undercutting due to uneven vacuum drawdown, where light gets in between the glass and film, causing gain or loss in the printed image. You also eliminate the problem of the light having to pass through the glass and film. So the quality of your image is much higher.

WASHOUT STAGE
At the washout stage, you also have time savings using CTS.

The traditional way. During this stage, you have to be careful not to get films wet; if they're vellum or non-waterproof film, water will ruin them. This means you should have to walk the films more than 10 feet away from the sink to put them on a table that's out of the spray zone. Then you're ready to wash out your screens. Generally, we were always waiting for the exposure to finish and the vacuum to release after screens had been completely washed out.

The CTS way. Since there are no films, there's no time wasted getting them out of the way. We're imaging screens so fast now that the washout booth is our current bottleneck. We've added a screen mister and we're also considering an additional washout sink to speed things up.

TIME EQUALS MONEY
What's important about the time we save using a CTS system is that it translates directly into greater business opportunity for us — and opportunity leads to higher profits. Simply put, the time we saved can now be spent doing more and different jobs. Prior to installing our CTS system, we had all but given up adding new contract customers for one reason: the bottleneck in our screen making department. Now we've reduced the time spent in a screen-making cycle by 28%. With this dramatic reduction, we're free to pursue new contract work.

Another way to look at the savings is that we're taking overtime and converting it to regular time. We were often making screens late in the afternoon and into the evening, at an overtime rate. By getting that work done at straight time, we reduced our overtime costs. But no matter how you look at it, the result is the same: a CTS system frees up valuable time in your shop, allowing you to reallocate that time to profit-generating activities.

Greg Kitson is founder and president of Mind's Eye Graphics in Decatur, Ind. For more information or to comment on this article, e-mail Greg at greg@mindseyeg.com or visit mindseyeg.com.

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