Little-Known Plate Supplier Poised to Expand

Most printers, especially those in North America, are not yet aware of a 32-year-old plate manufacturing company in Italy that is already the world's fourth-largest supplier. This year, the company will likely account for nearly 13% of the total business for analog and digital metal presensitized plates—achieved without serving Japan and North America, two markets that consume nearly half of the world's output of printing plates.

But if Lastra Group S.p.A., headquartered in Manerbio, Italy, can carry out an aggressive plan to expand its production capacity and its market reach, including a network of dealers in the U.S. and Canada, it aims to double its output within three years, which would then be a serious challenge to any or all of the three leaders in the plate field on a global scale.

Says Roberto Ziletti, son of the founder of Lastra and now managing director of the privately held company, "People who aren't familiar with our company are usually surprised to learn that our present yearly capacity is about 50 million square meters [approximately 540 million square feet], our annual turnover $225 million, our employee count 600, and that we have a worldwide network of about 1,000 independent distributors.

"But, most important, we point out that our sole product is printing plates. Yes, we do manufacture some chemicals and auxiliary equipment—processors and exposure frames—but the vast majority of our business is simply analog and digital plates, which we ship to 115 countries."

At present, Lastra Group operates nine plate production lines in four plants, including three in Italy and one in India. By the end of this year, the company will have installed a new, high-production line in Italy and another in India; next year, another two lines are to be added in Italy, followed in 2004 by two additional high-capacity manufacturing lines, also in Italy.

Ziletti says computer-to-plate (CTP) technology is a high priority for Lastra. "We've concentrated on thermal CTP plates and have more than doubled our production every year since 1998. This year we hope to produce five million square meters of thermal plates."

This output rate got a boost a few months ago when Lastra began producing CTP plates on its newest manufacturing line, which was part of a $22 million capital improvement program that also included factory upgrades, energy-recovery equipment, and environmental control systems.

The line, located in the Manerbio plant and started up last summer, is about 500 feet long and up to 20 feet high. It is designed to accept 8,000-lb. aluminum coils at one end and, in a continuous and complex process extending more than 800 feet (attributable to stacking of processes in doubleback configuration), produces plates that are grained and anodized, coated, finished, inspected, cut, counted, and stacked, ready for packaging and labeling.

The coils of aluminum can be up to 60 wide; a special splicer allows nonstop production.

"Nearly everything on the new line is automated so that this very large piece of processing equipment can be operated by as few as four people to produce a finished product in a single pass," says Ziletti. "I've visited other plate manufacturing plants that are semiautomated; in other words, they may have high-speed graining sections or coating sections, but then they're required to collect the product, to be put on a separate line for further processing.

"Our philosophy is to capitalize on a single, continuous, nonstop process, which we can carry out at very high speeds. Up to now, a typical plate manufacturing line could produce 4.5 million square meters of product each year. This line produces up to nine million square meters, and the new designs now underway would increase this output to more than 10 million square meters per year, which is what will allow us to double our present capacity by 2004 by adding just half as many more machines."

Lastra Group manufactures plates in four plants. The company's original site in Manerbio is located near Brescia, east of Milan. On three manufacturing lines, it produces some 22 million square meters of plates each year, or just about half of total output.

In nearby Verona, the Plurimetal plant (acquired in 1991) produces about 13 million square meters of product on three lines.

Two manufacturing lines are in operation in the Lastra plant in Sulmona, which is located in a resort area about 100 miles due east of Rome, in the central part of the country. There, about eight million square meters of plates are produced each year. (Lastra bought the Sulmona facility, known throughout Italy as the "Diaprint" plant, in 1997 from 3M, which had acquired it in 1989 when it was still manufacturing plates; 3M has since left the field.)

Lastra built the plant in India in Mumbai, near Bombay, in 1996 as part of a joint venture. The facility, which has one line and output of about two million square meters of plates, is to add a second new line this year.

It's clear that Lastra's plans for growth are focused on overseas distribution.

As export manager Franco Fontana notes, while Lastra has 50% market share in its home country, exports already account for 80% of its business. Nonetheless, says Fontana, "About 43% of the worldwide plate market can be found in two major market areas, North America and Japan, where we're not well known. We've set up Lastra America [located in Brookfield, Conn.], headed by Barbara Eden, Jay Faulkner, and Tom Saggiomo, who are well on their way to developing a network of dealers in the U.S. and Canada. Eventually, we will need to develop the Japanese market as well."

Saggiomo, who gained domestic and global experience in the plate business as a marketing executive with Eastman Kodak, Polychrome Corporation, and Kodak Polychrome Graphics, is president of Lastra America; he is charged with developing the North American market.

Saggiomo says, "In just five months, we've signed up a core of about 30 strong dealer organizations that are already turning in good results. We've been deliberate in developing this program; we looked for a few great dealers that wouldn't just be order-takers but were willing to be real face-to-face advocates on behalf of Lastra brand products and the special value they deliver to printers."

Saggiomo adds that, while analog plates have already been selling well in North America, Lastra is looking to digital plates for its biggest growth. He says, "I'm convinced that CTP plates will represent half of Lastra's business in this market by, say, 2003. We think we already have a jump on the market: at the Drupa 2000 show in Germany, about 20 manufacturers announced thermal plates but only four—including us—are able to consistently ship product. Most people don't know that we were the second manufacturer to commercialize thermal plates; in fact, we're on our second-generation product."

Antonio Milauro, who is product and marketing manager for CTP plates, reports that digital plates represent Lastra's fastest-growing product, especially accepted in Italy and Germany, but with "enormous" potential in North America and Asia.

According to Angelo Bolli, group manager of the 16-person research and development department, Lastra is spending 80% of its R&D effort on thermal plates today, utilizing laboratory research as well as state-of-the-art platesetters, to develop third-generation technology and processless plates that can be exposed in the 830-nm wavelength range.

Mario Ziletti founded Lastra in Manerbio in 1969 as a result of observing that many printers, obliged to grain their own plates, were using processes that were neither consistent nor cost effective.

Ziletti, who had a talent for developing and perfecting manufacturing processes, devised a way of plate graining, first using ball graining and then electrochemical graining, that ensured consistency and standardization.

"My father expanded our trade platemaking business in the Manerbio area, then the Lombardy region, then northern Italy, and eventually outside Italy," recalls Roberto Ziletti. "It was a fairly small operation until the early 1980s, when we began to expand capacity and look for acquisitions."

Roberto Ziletti says Mario, who still serves as chairman although he is much less active today, built the plant about a quarter-mile from the family house. Ziletti explains, "From the beginning, my father developed a very close relationship with his employees, which is a custom that we continue today."

For proper training for his succession, Roberto Ziletti spent several years learning operations in all major departments, from sales and marketing to manufacturing, research, and dealer relations.

He explains that lastra is the Italian word for plate.