Venlo, The Netherlands, – Océ, an international leader in digital document management and delivery, today announced that the German printing business Hofmann Druck + Medien has recently installed an Océ ColorStream 10000 Flex and three Océ VarioPrint 6250 Ultra printing systems with integrated postprocessing. Hofmann Druck + Medien specializes in the printing of low-volume manuals and books that are sent out with manufactured products.

Just-in-time, ship-to-line, worldwide distribution
"In Print on Demand for production-related printing and books on demand, our most important future growth market, we developed expertise that puts us successfully ahead of competitors," says Georg Lindner, CEO of Hofmann Druck + Medien. "Just-in-time, ship-to-line and worldwide distribution using our own logistics center form part of our company strategy – as is this powerful digital printing solution from Océ."

The main client of Hofmann Druck + Medien in the digital printing field is the Traunreut company Bosch-Siemens-Hausgerätewerk (BSH), which produces daily around 10,000 kitchen ovens, cooking hobs and microwave ovens. Hofmann produce is the assembly and operating instructions that accompany every BSH unit shipped – in A4, with double spine stitching and ranging in length from 12 to 120 pages.

Language version printing as part of the production process
Hofmann prints around 150 million A4 pages a year for BSH. In spite of the huge volume, the manuals are mainly produced digitally. One reason for this is that numerous model variants are sold in different countries and these must be delivered with brochures in the specific language of that country. Another reason for this digital workflow is that updates to the manuals can be implemented very quickly.

"We decided in favor of the Océ ColorStream 10000 Flex because we can print up to 1,425 b/w pages a minute on the new system," explains Lindner. "This enormous production speed ensures not only reliable printing of the BSH manuals but also gives us enough capacity to handle our publishing house business." A further criterion for the investment in the Océ ColorStream 10000 Flex named by Lindner are the maintenance of registration when perfecting printing, all in a single system, and the outstanding print quality.

"Digital printing offers significant cost advantages over conventional methods for printing short runs," observes Sebastian Landesberger, Executive Vice President, Océ Production Printing. "This is due to the relatively low fixed costs. It permits last-minute changes and permits short production times. We are happy to see how Hofmann Druck + Medien manages to melt all these advantages effectively into their production process."

Recipes, reprints and personalized books
This digital print solution is supplemented by three Océ VarioPrint 6250 Ultram systems, two of which are equipped with integrated postprocessing for online stapling and perfect binding. On these Hoffman prints, for example, recipe books for BSH in the various languages using the high degree of flexibility of the cutsheet systems in a combination of offset and digital printing: Envelopes and colored inside pages are inserted from the paper drawers and stapled or glued online together with the digitally printed b/w pages.

Books on demand is the most important strategic growth area of Hofmann Druck + Medien. Lindner sees in this one of the largest potential markets of the future: "The publishing business is changing rapidly. The number of titles increases almost continuously, while the size of the print runs gets smaller and smaller. This challenge cannot be met through traditional book production in offset alone."

Potential enough to meet future challenges
Hofmann aims to offer publishing houses and authors new perspectives and freedom from the "diktat of the print run". Lindner notes, "Whether preprinting, special editions, reprints or personalized books – the Océ digital printing solutions combined with classic offset printing permits us to produce even the smallest runs inexpensively, in high quality and quickly. This opens new and profitable outlet markets for both the publishing houses and ourselves." With digital printing, efficient and economically meaningful print-run management can be offered as a service to publishers.

Georg Lindner is convinced that the Océ Digital printing solution is also eminently equipped for the future: "The systems deliver quality that is absolutely compatible to that of offset printing. They all offer simultaneous perfecting printing, important for high productivity and reliability. Moreover, the Océ ColorStream 10000 Flex, which is at the moment installed as a pure b/w system, can be upgraded to a full-color system. This means that not only is our investment safe, it can bring us a decisive competitive advantage in future in the areas of technical documentation, book printing and mailings."