The use of digital printing (on)

Keywords: Digital Printing, Perspectives, Status In 1994, Xeikon, Indigo, and Agfa (as Xeikon's original equipment suppliers) threw the wave of all-digital, four-color, on-demand high-speed presses. Since then, Scitex's Spontan, IBM's InfoCloor, Xerox's DocuColor and other company's products have joined the ranks of digital printing. How does this affect the traditional offset printing (if it has been called a traditional one after fierce technological and economic changes in the past 20 years?)
Mike Chiricuzio, managing director of the Sequel Division (a graphics consolidation department) of Hertage Graphics, said: “Digital printing will not have any loss for traditional offset printing, and it will be supplemented to some extent. Having an Indigo press enables us to Provide customers with more services."
There is no doubt that high-speed, on-demand color printing with appropriate quality development will bring permanent changes to the entire industry. But what kind of change will happen is still controversial. Will digital printing open a gap in the offset we know? How many business opportunities will it take away from traditional printing? Who will own the machine? Is the printer choosing between Komoris and Heidbergs machines, or is the prepress output center selecting large format color printers or color copiers according to customer requirements?
A definitive view New printer suppliers generally boast that their digital presses will become a technological trend - not to reduce the printing business. These digital presses allow customers to use color in advance where they are not sure whether it is worth color printing - less than 100 copies are allowed in this system - but it requires much better print quality than color copying.
On the other hand, many people do not report their optimism. They think that the unreasonable price of printing equipment will inevitably affect the color printing. Manufacturers have to replace them every day to keep them running to compensate for their costs. Are there enough markets for short-run color printing to pay for the investment? Those who are pessimistic believe that before a large number of technologies were discovered in this market, the printing press should stop shifting to about 1,000 print jobs - although this is very profitable for emerging printers.
It has been four years since the invention of the new machine and its application in North America, and they have achieved success in the industry—but quantification is almost impossible. In the past few years, the general growth of the economy was partly due to the development of the printing industry. According to the report of the National Printing and Offset Printing Association, the growth of the printing market in the first half of 1997 was not less than 4% compared to the same period in the past. However, digital printing has not yet appeared in the industrial team at this time.
Andrew Paparozzi of the National Printing Association and the Center for Economics of the Offset Printing: “It is sometimes a supplement to traditional printing, and sometimes it is a strong competitor to traditional offset printing.”
Even individual companies that introduce digital presses sometimes find it difficult to quantify their impact. The need for short-term printing for short-run printing is highly variable every month. Mark Fleming, industrial consultant for Strategies On Demand (Naperville IL), who was engaged in on-demand color printing research from the beginning, believes: “North American companies that have Xeikon and Indigos digital presses do not have a lot of production.” Color printing has begun to shift to digital processes, and most color printing does not. Fleming's recent research on the market shows that in the United States, the amount of print-on-demand printing in the United States reached 10.1 million U.S. dollars in 1996, and the electronic color separation reached 3.6 million U.S. dollars. The overall ratio has not changed significantly. According to his forecast, the total market demand for on-demand printing will reach US$ 17.7 million in 2001.
Fleming believes that color digital printing has not yet opened up a new market. He pointed out: "No matter what the total amount of printing you do, it will not change. It is only affected by the economy. Therefore, any number produced due to ultra-short printing will have an impact on offset printing to some extent. ”
In order to measure the actual impact of digital printing presses in the industry, we discussed with many digital printer manufacturers, and asked about the impact of new technologies in their offset printing business.
"It's the offset of traditional printing," said Bob Sacco of Lexington Press (a full-service printing company in Lexington). Sacco operates a Heidelberg GTO-DI four-color press and an Indigo E-PRINT 1000 digital press. Lexington bought digital presses in 1995—they were the first companies in North America to do so.
Sacco said that in order to compete with GTO-DI, Indigo provided him with the latest features of short-run color printing. He confirmed: "That was really useful, and it was not in the offset presses of the past and Heidelberg's presses. Mixing digital technology with traditional technology really brought new products and services to printers. First, short-run printing did Markets - The number of manuals, brochures, bids, and printouts ranges from 10 or 20 to 100. "Since we have used digital printing, our traffic has grown rapidly. "Sacco said," We are making color prints for all levels in Bangkok - it was impossible to make such a good manual five years ago. ”
Printers with digital printing machines can also combine offset and digital printing in new and feasible ways. Sacco pointed out that Ledington Press's Indigo also used manual and advertisements to test when it started mass production. (To be continued)