Commentary: Technology marriage between digital printing and offset printing (below)

Technology Alliance

Combining short-run, low-cost digital printing with high-quality offset and direct imaging presses can give full play to their respective strengths. Presstek once introduced the DI press in the 1990s, which is a solution to the shortcomings of the limited production capacity of digital presses with the high output of traditional offset presses. Until today, Presstek technology is still the core technology of many DI printers.

Digital press printing with toner is very similar to laser printer printing, while DI printers use ink for highly automated waterless offset printing. Like offset printing, DI printers require plates and inks, but unlike offset presses, the plates are already installed on the press before imaging. This can reduce the amount of prepress preparation time. Her high degree of automation also effectively reduces the chance of errors.

John Schlof, Kodak Polaroid's global deputy manager of digital printing, said: “The new generation of DI printers can bring people high-quality printing results in an efficient and profitable manner.” The DI printer is a short-run color printing job. Ideal choice.

Christian Cerfontaine, sales manager for Manroland North America, said: “The number of companies that use these two devices in combination is increasing. We believe that digital printing is the application of data directly to devices, not just based on whether you use color or not. Powder ink, or whether it has the ability to print with variable data.” Manroland's DICO web press uses Creo's square spot laser to cure the polyester layer directly inside the press The surface of the drum, and the effect of this polyester is the same as the image on the plate. The press has a cleaning device similar to the blanket cleaning unit of a conventional offset press. After printing, it removes the image from the roller. It takes only 12 minutes to complete the image removal, re-formation and fixation. You can use heat to fix more than 500 pages on the roller, and then print on the machine at 30,000 rpm.

Don Trytten, a promoter of the Ryobi DI printing press in the United States, said: "With the improvement of the function, this printer can meet various needs. We sell this printer to commercial printers, express printing centers, and trade shops. And service agencies. They can use it to produce all kinds of printable color brochures, newsletters and greeting cards." Joerg Daehnhardt, product manager of small format printing in Heidelberg (USA), advises people to consider the prices of used DI printers. Only half of the new machine. He said: “Only $150,000 is needed, and you can use a second-hand DI press equipped with the latest RIP. One of the benefits of the DI press is that you can always upgrade RIP to the latest version and enjoy its benefits.” ."

Cost and demand are the key

Obviously, both offset and digital printing have their own strengths. In addition to the high speeds in long-run printing, offset presses can print high-quality products on substrates of various sizes and textures using a greater variety of inks and colors than digital presses. Ganger pointed out: “Offset printing is still the preferred printing method for large projects. No one who is thinking well will use a digital printer to print 900 million books (eg, the newly published Harry Potter books). There is no doubt that."

Punch Graphix Americas' brand, Saikon, has established an unshakable advantage in the digital production market. In August of this year, sales of the Saikang 5000 exceeded the sum of 2004. The Xeikon 5000 is a 130-ppm digital color press with a print resolution of 600 dpi, dry toner, and unique One-Pass-Duplex technology. Expresscopy.com, a web printing company, recently introduced a Saikon 5000 press to produce 125,000 postcards per day. Lee Dietz, manager and CEO of Expresscopy.com, said: “The Xeikon 5000 and its X-800 digital front-end system form the core of our workflow. We have 90% of jobs that require double-sided printing, so One-Pass-Duplex technology is very suitable for our workflow."

Of course, the cost is also a key factor in choosing a press. However, there are still some different opinions on this point. Most people think that the best printing cost for each page is based on the entire job.

Mooney believes that the competition between offset printing and digital printing is mainly in the range of 3,000 to 7,000 prints. Less than 3,000 prints, people will certainly choose digital printing, and above 7000 prints, people will consider offset printing. For many years, people have been marking 5000 as a demarcation point. If a job exceeds 5,000 prints, offset printing should be selected, and vice versa, digital printing should be considered.

Daehnhardt said: “We think that digital printing machines should be selected for short print runs with 500 to 7,000 pages.” At the same time, Steve Sanker, North America sales manager for Presstek, recommends that people use DI printers in the range of 300 to 5,000 prints. .

Finally, Bracken said: “Printers can consider using digital presses or offset presses to print jobs with between 1,000 and 5,000 prints. This wide variety of answers also proves how difficult it is to choose the printing method. The answer to this question is ultimately determined by the type of job, the time of transfer, the type of digital press or offset press under consideration."

Sales Technology

TrendWatch is a market research organization that specializes in printing vendors. Dr. Joe Webb, its consultant and founder, thinks technology is important, but it should also focus on sales. He said: "There is a disconnect between the printer and its opinion of itself and the perceptions of the buyers of the prints and their opinions on the printer. The printers often do not understand that they should be within the range required by the buyers of the prints. The nature of sales. Printers who value the connection with print buyers are often more likely to succeed than those who do not."

PrintManagement is a printing company located in Ohio, USA. It succeeded in its positive response to the market. They started with a five-color printing press, four dual-color printing presses, and simple finishing and binding equipment. In 2003, a Xerox DocuColor 6060 digital color press was purchased and a digital printing contract was promptly received from an original customer.

Recently, the company replaced its original five-color printing press with a Xerox iGen3 digital production press. Brian Frank, executive deputy manager of the company, said: “Some vendors are shocked by the changes we have made. But this is very good for customers. They are excited to have short-term high-quality printing capabilities.”

PrintManagement also enables customers to manage their own orders, create a complete mailing campaign and create different brochures based on different market characteristics with the help of web-based Xerox solutions. From the customer's point of view, they can create customized materials and orders on their own company's internal site. In fact, they communicate through a PrintManagement server.

PrintManagement also offers a full set of delivery delivery services that can send materials and receive response records. Frank said: "As far as I know, digital printing has not destroyed our traditional offset printing services. Instead, customers have increased the demand for digital products."

Observers in the printing industry have reached a consensus that we are experiencing major technological changes. The quality of digital printing has been improved and opened up a new world beyond offset printing. The printers still need to take pains to optimize their marketing methods and begin to learn to predict customer needs.