A New Year and a Different Attitude:

At the Print 2001 trade show, it looked like the digital printing world was basing its lack of growth on the fact that there hadn’t yet been an arrival of the “silver bullet” application that would drive the market opportunity for digital printing and the sale of new digital presses. Variable data pegged to the individual was some how going to arrive with a magic formula – somebody only had to make it easy, affordable and necessary on a grand scale. A year later, we see that some digital color providers are doing very well in this personalization arena, but now it isn’t seen as the only answer.

Mark Fleming, President of Strategies on Demand, LLC has written that press manufacturers have sold too much digital color capacity that has yet to be used. Thin print provider profit margins in the color segment are the result. Fleming believes it is becoming increasingly clear that personalized color printing alone will not fill this capacity as quickly as the vendors had hoped.

What else is poised to fill the gap? Fortunately, there are already digital printers and their “creative” customers that are seeing valuable uses for what we’re going to call “personalized short runs.” These target segments of the marketplace down to a class of individual perhaps, but not necessarily are printed with an individual’s name. To really make this work pay, however, they need the manufacturers to help them, not just in reducing per page costs, but with full print solutions and marketing help/expertise, rather than just selling them presses/printers.

In traditional offset, print buyers know that it is no longer necessary to print in volume to get lower cost per page. Digital presses have become quite efficient at short runs, and at the current prices for “digital ink/toner” there are competitive prices for very short run color. With this cost-effectiveness test marketing and very targeted marketing become not only possible, but also required. This is what The EAGLE refers to as “personalized short runs.” As discussed further below, even sophisticated finished products that used to require long runs, such as those requiring die cutting, should be able to be effectively finished at lower volumes – bringing new short run personalized marketing opportunities to a wider range of finished goods.

Only the crudest finishing capabilities typically accompanied small format digital presses. You know the look of the typical A-size book (or smaller) off of a sheet fed digital printer, right! If something more interesting is necessary, the “printer” usually has to move the unfinished book over to the “offset” side of the house to achieve professional finishing. Now digital print finishing product manufacturers are producing equipment for fancier booklets and for lamination, but they aren’t rushing to fulfill the unique finishing needs of more interesting and broader types of shorter run applications.

One of those finishing processes is die cutting. Screen print, Flexo and offset presses that specialize in the print of materials that require die cutting, such as labels, odd shaped business cards, badges, and packaging boxes/cartons typically are produced using an inline cutting machine that finishes the materials at the same speed they are coming off the press. At Graph Expo, we noticed one such machine attached to an HP/Indigo press. HP was proudly showing off its ability to produce short runs of boxes for perfume, and other such products. This machine was almost never running because the short run efficiency of the press (nicely matched to the need for runs of up to a few thousand where digital is superior in price to flexo/offset) never really requires the speed and volume capabilities of a finishing product built specifically for high volume press production finishing.

From discussions with HP/Indigo, The EAGLE understands that they are now embarking upon a major effort to “sell” the Fortune 3000, as well as the print for pay community on the broad benefits of short run digital printing. By trying to push print sales towards HP’s own customers, as well as Indigo’s base, they are looking to increase sales and keep customer loyalty. However, another consequence of these actions is to require HP to help these customers do more with finishing than they have before. HP’s standard finishing products applied nicely to narrow format printers but don’t fit many of the potential HP/Indigo press users’ needs, and many of these users do not have traditional finishing equipment (or even finishing expertise) even if it could be useful for short run applications.

With solutions in mind, at Graph Expo, The EAGLE found both HP and Xeikon personnel out looking for more information about roll and sheet feeders, cutting and creasing systems, laminating, weeding, bar code readers and other finishing solutions that would solve more of their digital print customers’ needs for complete solutions.

One place they were seen was at Mikkelsen Graphic Engineering, Inc. (MGE), a company with many years of experience in the use of cutting systems with over 300 systems in the field, showed a perfect example of an off-line solution for short runs of odd shapes, such as required with prototyping and/or test marketing. A knife-based cutter solution with the ability to read transfer cutting parameters from the printer software and read job codes printed on each job, was busily “cutting” sample boxes, decals and shaped business folders non-stop from rolls and sheets that had been previously printed (while sharing the HP/Indigo booth at MacroPak 02 in Utrecht, Holland, or by existing HP/Indigo and Xeikon Digital press customers).

Both roll printed goods and sheet printed goods were automatically delivered, scanned with a camera, and accurately guided so that they could be positioned, cut (including kiss cuts), scored and stripped with various solutions from MGE that are based upon productivity needs, width and material types. Such as system can handle even thicker cardboard materials and those pre- mounted to foam core.

Current offline finishing products do not run at “press speed,” an issue often criticized by potential buyers. However their flexibility, accuracy and price is attractive for shorter and even for longer runs where every job off the press is different and all jobs do not require this specific type of finishing.

Although off-line, the system eliminates the time necessary to order a die, setup, print extras for setting up and more, while the system sets up automatically, is more versatile in allowing closer cuts, and makes no errors.

To Be Continued Tomorrow... WITH PHOTOS