Spread across six days in October at the adjacent premises of IFS and Apex Digital Graphics in Hemel Hempstead, Print Efficiently gave rise to a renewed conversation about the relative cost effectiveness of digital and litho printing.
After seeing the argument begin to move away from them in recent times, there are those in the litho side of the industry that believe offset technology can start to win the economic upper hand again for short to medium runs. Bob Usher, managing director of Apex Digital Graphics, is having these conversations with customers, and since Apex sells Konica Minolta digital presses as well as Ryobi offset presses, he is a man without an axe to grind either way.
At Print Efficiently, the now established open house event spread over six October days that Apex shares with IFS (Intelligent Finishing Systems), Mr Usher spoke to Digital Printer about what he described as ‘the advantages of going back to litho’ – this being fuelled by the LED UV drying technology on the Ryobi presses, and the low-cost Cron CTP from China that Apex also sells.
‘A B3 customer that bought a digital press and is using litho less and less is more likely to buy digital again. Their destiny is set. Those looking at a Ryobi are the ones with a 7-year-old press and no spare floor space because the sheets are drying. With the LED UV, they can get rid of all the sheets on the floor and suddenly they realise that they don’t have to move premises as they grow – they might even fit another press in where they are.
He went on to explain the numbers. These customers, which have major production grade digital kit, are on a click charge or a huge maintenance charge. The Cron CTP is very accurate and produces a plate (or a set of four?) for £3. They can make ready in four minutes and then run up to 16,000 B3 sheets per hour, at a cost of 0.5p per sheet (including consumable and maintenance costs), which Mr Usher compared to a typical click charge of 2.5p per click. Neither calculation includes the cost of the paper, he said. After five years, the digital press is worth nothing, while the offset press retains some residual value.
‘This has been our customers telling us this,’ he added. ‘They have done the sums and seen the advantages of going back to litho.’
It should be pointed out that Mr Usher is well aware that these calculations and factors do not necessarily apply to the situation faced by every printing company, and that digital print has its own distinct advantages in certain situations. It is, however, an interesting perspective.
Around the rest of Print Efficiently, there were plenty of digital printing systems to be found, not least the Konica Minolta bizhub 1060, which was launched last year. It has a suction feed unit, a fuser for envelopes and an on-board densitometer for colour critical printing, helping to match output to litho. The latest version (version 6) of Konica Minolta’s JT PDF workflow tool was also showed at the event.
On the wide format side were systems from Fujifilm and Epson (SureColor printers but not the latest models discussed in Digital Printer October 2015). Fuji’s entry level Acuity LED 1600 UV is now an eight colour system, with light cyan and magenta, white and clear. It is a hybrid machine that can print roll-to-roll or on rigid up to 13 mm thick. Martin Burton from Fujifilm said the key to the Acuity was its flexibility: ‘Typically, people have a water or solvent-based printer in wide format and they have to mount things if they want to do outdoor. This is outdoor safe and directly onto rigid materials, so it is quite an attractive stepping stone when someone is looking to move into that market.’
Joint host IFS was showing technology from its latest agency with Tecnau, which operates in much the same field as Hunkeler in terms of high speed unwinder/rewinders, splicing and perforating systems. New recruit Dawn Kelley is putting her 26 years of industry experience to good use selling the technology, and said of Tecnau: ‘It’s a highly engineered company that will make bespoke products for customers, and it is really geared around the applications. There are new products such as the 20-inch splicer that means you don’t have to stop the press to change the roll.’
