Empire L.A. (Ville Mont-Royal, Québec) has become the first digital prepress and press-ready flexographic plate specialist in Canada to receive Best-in-Class certification under the new XPS Crystal Program from Esko. “We’re delighted that Empire L.A. is not just among the first of our global customers to have achieved this accreditation, but the very first in Canada,” said Julian Fernandez, Flexo Business Development Manager at Esko. “The program was developed specifically to recognize those platemaking businesses that consistently produce superior flexo plates, which lead to excellence in flexographic print quality.”
Since the founding of Empire L.A. in 2006 – when Empire Graphics joined forces with L.A. Graphics – the company has become one of the largest players in the Québec market serving a client base across Ontario as well as parts of the U.S. “Achieving certification under the Esko program is such great news,” said Mike Sheppard, VP of Operations at Empire L.A. “We are very proud of the work we do here, and through our success with the Esko XPS Crystal and our commitment to technology and quality, we are continuing to grow our business.”
The XPS Crystal Certification Program is open to all users of Esko’s XPS Crystal exposure unit that combines UV main and back exposure using LEDs that always emit consistent UV light. As a certified Esko partner, Empire L.A. also benefits from benchmarking and identification of best practices regarding quality control processes and production efficiency. Certification also enables the company to promote an extra level of quality assurance to customers, while communicating to customers the consistent quality of final printed products.