CTP (Computer-to-Plate) is a technology of the prepress process in which a digital image is transmitted directly from a computer to a plate used on the printing press. It eliminates the need for producing film (negatives), light table colour stripping and the use of print down frames for burning plates.

Not only does the technology reduce costs and increase efficiency, it offers better consistency and higher quality because it eliminates the risk of human error since files are transmitted digitally to the plate material.

The chances of having mis-registration (colour offsets) is significantly reduced. The problem of dot-gain or loss from the pre-press is eliminated.

The machine minders (technicians) are there to man the machine and make sure a quality job is produced matching customer supplied colour guides in setting their inks correctly and making sure register is correct (fitting each colour on top of the other). These processes are done on the master console, which is the signal station for the machine.

High Calibre Staff

Mmegi prides itself of highly qualified printing experts who have operated similar presses elsewhere in the region.

Quality Assurance

This is the section that makes sure that the company’s products satisfy the requirements of the customer. A quality monitor (controller) is a person who understands the entire print production processes.

Quality assurance involves three main activities

l Checking that the production process is up to date. All the machines involved in the production process should be in good working condition.

l Subjecting the job to be printed as well as being printed to quality checks at

l Checking that the final product satisfies the requirements of the customer.

Mmegi quality assurance section, on the product side, checks the quality of print products by matching the colours against the colour guides provided by the customer or prepress department.

Maintenance Department

Mmegi has adopted a Total Productive Maintenance approach, which is simply a “deterioration prevention approach” to maintenance. It is a maintenance process developed for improving productivity by making machinery and equipment more reliable and less wasteful. To achieve this objective, preventive and predictive maintenance is adhered to, thereby moving away from the reactive approach to maintenance in a bid to minimise unexpected failure of the equipment.

To that end  the company’s highly skilled production team (machine minders) and the maintenance team work in tandem so that the press is always in good working condition. Most of the routine maintenance work is carried out by machine minders whilst maintenance technicians mainly focus on more complex problems on the machine. The reasoning behind this is that the operator has a better understanding of how the equipment works on a daily basis, and they can tell if there is a problem, and, can therefore easily avert any impending breakdowns.