Two associated Italian printing companies recently switched to Agfa’s Azura TU. The chemistry-free printing plates complete their Agfa solutions and signify an ecological transformation.
Baroni & Gori, located in Prato, is one of the leading and best-known printing plants in Italy’s Tuscany area. Driven by their continuous strive for quality improvements, higher production flexibility, and maintenance reduction, they recently extended their partnership with Agfa to span the entire prepress process, introducing Agfa’s chemistry-free Azura TU printing plates in addition to their Apogee workflow and automatic Avalon N8-30 CTP system. The result is a true ‘green’ revolution.
Cartografica Toscana, located in Pescia in the province of Pistoia, specializes in food and non-food packaging. Its expertise ranges from print jobs for commercial purposes to institutional print jobs, point of sales projects, as well as various kinds of packaging printing, and bookbinding. The company is divided into two production lines: typography and packaging.
Cartografica Toscana logo
Just like for Baroni & Gori, the introduction of Azura TU printing plates completed the Agfa offering, which already consisted of workflow software and a CTP system, and allows the company to manage its prepress production in an ecological way while achieving higher quality and repeatability.
Agfa has set up a five-year collaboration with both (associated) companies that allows them to be more competitive and perform better in order to meet the current market needs. The transition from the use of (non-Agfa) thermal plates with a processor and chemical products to Agfa’s Azura TU chem-free plates, has significantly simplified production management and reduced process variables – resulting in high quality without compromises, both in the prepress environment and on the press.
Agfa’s ThermoFuseTM technology, which lies at the base of the Azura printing plates, is characterized by particles in the coating of the aluminum layer that melt together and bind to the metal when the plate is exposed. The obtained image enables consistent quality and repeatability and does not suffer from the variables of a ‘classic’ process with a processor and chemistry.
Azura plate & platesetter
In addition, the chem-free solution features a clean-out unit that uses gum for both the plate rinsing process and applying the final protective layer, thus offering an environment-friendly solution that does not interfere with the printing process and the maintenance of printing presses.