Eede, Netherlands – By choosing to install a Xeikon 8500 web-fed digital printing system, DOCUsystem GmbH, based in Rödermark near Frankfurt (Germany), made the transition from sheetfed to web-fed digital printing. The new system was installed in spring 2015 to address production bottlenecks that were occurring on its single-sheet printers and pressure from customers who wanted reasonable costs but were not satisfied with the full-colour quality of an inkjet printing alternative. At DOCUsystem, which prints exclusively with digital technology, the majority of jobs are invoices, letters, statistical reports, marketing mailings and other commercial jobs – and, more recently, photo wallpapers.

"We chose a Xeikon digital printing system because the ratio of cost to performance was perfect for a business of our size. We also worked with Xeikon to develop our workflow from scratch, and their expertise in that realm gave us a feeling of confidence," says Jürgen Scheer, managing director of DOCUsystem GmbH. Together with Xeikon, his team developed a JDF workflow that met the requirement for a dynamic switch from simplex to duplex printing within a PDF print data flow without any impact on throughput and and without the need for conversion to another data flow format. Previously, conversion was always required because PDF does not support the embedding of this type of dynamic print control. The JDF workflow also ensures that sheetfed presses can still be integrated into the workflow system as a backup should they be needed for certain time-critical documents. "We're now one of the first service providers to be able to print PDFs with the full range of options on a truly native basis and without loss of time," Scheer says.

Digital printing creates new opportunities in niche markets

The jobs printed by DOCUsystem on the Xeikon system are mostly personalised, highly individual documents that are stacked ready for insertion. These documents are usually a combination of simplex and duplex print. On the sheetfed printers, these mixed jobs caused a significant slow-down, but the Xeikon system now operates consistently at rated speed. "The throughput we achieve with the Xeikon press replaces three sheetfed printing systems!" Scheer exclaims.

At the beginning of the year, DOCUsystem added photo wallpapers to its product line. In collaboration with its customer, a leading German wallpaper wholesaler, DOCUsystem and Xeikon developed a solution that produces finished wallpapers printed to a high quality standard on a nonwoven material. As a result, wallpapers can be printed profitably on demand with a job size of a single roll, eliminating expensive warehousing of preprinted wallpapers for the wholesaler. 

"The Xeikon 8500 allows us to exploit a market niche we could not have addressed before,” Scheer concludes. “We can offer exceptional quality new products while still carrying on very economically with our bread-and-butter business of commercial mailings. In addition to the exceptional quality and productivity of the press itself, the Xeikon X800 front end and all the options it comes with help us to exploit unusual opportunities," Scheer concludes.