Sterling Digital Print Increases Sustainability with ECO3

Sterling Digital Print is a provider of print manufacturing resources for the financial industry and successfully serves a broader, national, and international business community. The Long Island, New York-based company is driven by its mission to produce the highest print quality rapidly and cost-effectively.

With advanced digital and offset technologies, Sterling is an ideal resource for the most time-sensitive printing needs and delivers the most demanding assignments on time and on budget. Uniquely, Sterling operates on a 24/7 basis and is a trusted service provider to manufacturing, distribution, retail, institutional, service, and nonprofit sectors.

Print quality and ink savings

At the suggestion of the professionals from ECO3, formerly Agfa Offset Solutions, the Sterling team learned about Spir@l Screening, which replaces the traditional ink dot with more efficient shapes such as spirals. Spir@l Screening offers ink savings, improved print quality, and no expensive CTP or printing press upgrades.

“We looked at Spiral for ink savings benefits,” explains Dominick Yannotti, Sterling Digital Print’s Prepress Director. “But seeing the actual print, it’s more than that. I’ve never seen details so vibrant and crisp on offset stocks.”

Spir@l Screening requires less ink to represent the same tonality, thereby reducing image slur and delivering brilliant colors. Heatset and coldset presses run faster with less ink, which improves speed and productivity while reducing energy and overall costs.

From 500 to 100 makeready sheets

"In addition to quality improvements, we’ve reduced our make-ready from 500 sheets to 100 sheets with Spiral screening," Yannotti stated. “We are increasing production and might get 2 or 3 additional jobs per shift, depending on the types of jobs.”

Customers confidently choose Sterling to produce time-sensitive printing assignments with excellent results. During a press check, one of Sterling’s wall-covering catalog clients noticed striking details in the output.

Yannotti recalls, “On the same sheet, in line with one another, were dark, light, intricate, and metallic swatches with all different textures. With Spir@l Screening, we didn’t have to sacrifice one wall covering to make the others look better; we hit the color mark almost immediately. We had the client’s approval in about four minutes instead of working it out for a half hour.”

In pursuit of greater efficiencies

“When looking to upgrade our workflow, we decided to explore everything on the market,” stated Yannotti. “We have a trusting relationship with ECO3, so we looked into Apogee and found it visually user-friendly, adaptable, and efficient. The Impose module is the greatest benefit; it gives us the flexibility to change specs and move from one press to another without having to redo everything. Apogee also easily creates hot tickets that streamline our production."

Apogee workflow controls every phase of the print production process from a single user interface. Jobs that consist of multiple parts are processed in one flow. The Impose module calculates optimal imposition schemes with minimal time, errors, and paper waste. Integrated into Apogee, switching between programs is unnecessary, leading to a faster and more intuitive prepress process. It supports various algorithms to lower production costs, including multi-order imposition and cut-and-assemble.

Faster and environmentally-friendly

Tighter environmental constraints combined with local policies on Long Island led Sterling Digital to add ECO3’s new chemistry-free printing plate to their press operations. Adamas, designed to handle print runs of up to 350,000 copies, matched Sterling’s sustainability needs and quick turnaround requirements.

Yannotti pointed out, “Not only is Adamas a lot faster, but it also meets our environmental criteria."

Adamas is a robust plate that replaces chemicals with a gumming solution and eliminates rinse water, decreasing waste and disposal costs and delivering a safer working environment. It offers photorealistic image quality up to 240 lpi Sublima screening and 20 micron, depending on the platesetter.

A protective overcoat prevents oxidation and eliminates ablation for superior durability and low maintenance. Adamas’ scratch-resistant surface allows for easy handling, while strong image contrast supports simple visual inspection and quality control. This ensures plates are mounted on press correctly, preventing costly mistakes.

Outstanding outlook

Sterling Digital is a leading print manufacturing innovator with a sparkling future. With great partnerships like ECO3, they will continue to access the latest technology advancements that meet high production, exceptional quality, and environmentally friendly requirements.

Few shops have a word-of-mouth referral business as strong as Sterling. By focusing on providing its clients with excellent print products and delivering jobs on time and cost-effectively, Sterling is realizing its goals while making print manufacturing look easy.

Source: ECO3