Fujifilm XMF and 'lo-chem' plates boost production and reduce costs for UK Hydrographic Office

With the installation, the government department, which produces a range of electronic and paper nautical charts for the Royal Navy and to support world shipping, has not only been able to streamline its workflow, but has also expanded its capability to cater for increasingly shorter runs.

Paul Kelly, production manager at UKHO, explains: "We often print two to three jobs per hour, producing around 400 plates each day. Our CTP device was due an upgrade and, as we were close to full production capacity with our previous equipment, we decided to evaluate our whole pre-press process to ensure we could cope with increasing volumes."

The UKHO assessed all the options on the market and opted for Fujifilm's XMF workflow and low-chemistry offering. "We looked at all the options that would allow us to increase our productivity.  But, as we were also keen to minimise our chemistry usage, we only considered suppliers that could help us do this as well. Fujifilm's low-chemistry option ticked all the boxes and, not only does it allow us to minimise waste and chemistry usage, it saves us money as well, as the total cost of ownership is minimal," continues Paul.

"Also, Fujifilm's XMF Workflow, which replaced the bespoke system we used previously, gives us the ability to accommodate soft proofing and will greatly improve our internal approval processes in the future."

Fujifilm's XMF Workflow is unique in being built from the ground up around JDF and the Adobe PDF Print Engine. With Fujifilm's image processing, imposition and intelligent automation technologies built-in, XMF improves the control of quality across multiple print processes, increasing efficiency and productivity, ensuring colour consistency and optimising print production.

The FLH-Z is a CTP plate processor designed primarily for use with Fujifilm Brillia HD LH-PJE and HD LH-PLE positive working thermal CTP plates. It incorporates Fujifilm's latest intelligent ‘ZAC' microprocessor control system which helps to achieve consistent, high quality plate production with minimal chemistry usage.

"The installation is very new and we are still getting up to speed with XMF, but Fujifilm's input to help us to get up and running as soon as possible has been great," concludes Paul. "Fujifilm has been very quick to respond to any initial teething problems that we've had, and we are confident that we've made the right decision to invest with them."