Saving with an on-site prepress operation

PAT E. JENSEN is production director for Walnut Creek, California-based Diablo Publications.

Diablo Publications has been paying less and getting better production management since its prepress vendor set up shop in Diablo's building.

As printers move to computer-to-plate workflows, they are increasingly pulling prepress in-house to establish all-digital workflows. At the same time, publishers are taking more control of the process of prepping files for final output, including handling digital ads. Both approaches reduce the number of times files are handled and sent between vendors, making the workflow more efficient. But while the extremes of prepress options--one-stop shopping at the printer or full, in-house prepress by the publisher--are both viable for publishers, there is a third alternative that allows Diablo Publications to realize economies of scale and take better control of the production process.

Our prepress provider has stationed its own people and equipment right at our company. They have literally placed a satellite shop in our building. This kind of facilities management (which a number of service bureaus provide) allows us to realize our strategic goals. When we went out for prepress bids, we knew we were going to be expanding, and we also wanted to establish a smoother workflow in managing production for the custom titles we create for clients and for our traditional books. A look at our assessment shows the benefits and risks that partnering with our prepress vendor offers us.

Add up the benefits

When we began considering the move two and a half years ago, we had nine titles, some traditional, some custom. We counted all the pages we had done in the past year, adding the costs of such things as scans, ad film pickups, silhouette work and retouching. We wanted to see just how much we had been paying for film output, proofing--everything in prepress--on a per-page basis. (Incidentally, by listing our page costs by month, I was able to give owner/publisher Steve Rivera a complete summary of our production workload, showing how and when we spent our money.)

At the time, we were working with two prepress vendors. We allowed them and two other vendors to compete for our work. This gave us a wide range of candidates and capabilities to consider. Our candidates had to be able to provide a better level of prepress services for the same cost--and decreasing cost as we added titles.

We forged a contract with the candidate that could give us the best deal, and that we trusted would be there for us when we needed them. By contract, they pay their own rent, pay staff costs, and buy their own equipment--including a drum scanner and two image setters. They make color overlays, bluelines, film and proofs, all onsite. They also threw in an asset management system, which allows us to find text and images at our fingertips. We are not currently printing GTP, but we anticipate that we will, and asset management will handle digital ad pickups effectively.

Included in our contract was the provision that we would be responsible for trapping jobs. Our cost assessment showed it would be cheaper to handle trapping ourselves, since we already have the jobs open, looking at them and placing artwork. Instead of having our vendor open up every page just for traps, we took on trapping--including the cost of software and training.

Today, our vendor has three people across the hall who work with our three production people. We have eliminated film and proof deliveries by car or by mail, reducing production cycle time by up to two days per book. If something comes up at the last minute and we need one more page--as is common, especially with our custom clients--within an hour we'll have a film-based proof in our hands. We put into the contract that as we grew, our perpage price would fall. Per volume, our perpage price has dropped by 25 percent. All these savings have helped us grow our stable to 36 titles.

Along with the cost savings, we have gotten better quality. The prepress vendor knows our publications and our designers, and can tune in to our needs better than a provider that has 10 anonymous scanner operators, for example. If we have output questions, our vendor's people are, in effect, in-house consultants.

Cover the bases

Of course, any long-term relationship presents risks, especially when partnering with prepress companies, which are in a shrinking industry. To ensure that our vendor keeps up with technologies and expertise, our contract allows us to leave the relationship if they do not meet our quality standards--especially for color. Color is, of course, a subjective issue, and we had our attorney help us draw up the final contract language. Our contract also gives us full rights to things like our digital assets, which sit in our office on a CD jukebox.

We are currently talking with our prepress vendor and our printers to establish viable CTP workflow partnerships. For now, our relationships are proving to be beneficial for both our vendor and for us.

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