Spot Productions experiences a 300 per cent increase in turnover with digital

Since investing in digital printing to complement its offset printing business, Queensland-based Spot Productions has experienced phenomenal growth, witnessing a 300 per cent increase in turnover in the last year alone.

Aiding the company’s growth is the 700 Digital Color Press, which has helped it to diversify its client service offerings while increasing the quality and turnaround of digital print jobs. With digital printing constituting 25 per cent of the business and page impressions doubling by the month, Spot Productions expects digital to represent nearly half of its revenues within the next year. 
 
Challenge: Existing technology stretched to the limit
Established in 2002 as a conventional offset printer, Spot Productions first entered the digital printing market in 2006 after acquiring a DocuColor 6075 II production colour printer. According to Simon Carmody, (pictured) managing director at Spot Productions, the company was averaging 15 per cent year-on-year growth at the time, but gradually started outgrowing its existing Fuji Xerox equipment due to increased demand for digital print jobs.    
 
“Our DocuColor 6075 II was being stretched to the limit, handling up to four times the volume of printing it was designed for,” says Carmody. “While the DocuColor 6075 II was able to cope with the high number of print jobs it was time to take the next step and upgrade our equipment to increase production capacity and job efficiency.”
 
Carmody says the company invested in the very latest digital printing as well as offset printing equipment in early 2009 as part of a strategic decision to grow the business and diversify its service offerings for clients.  It also relocated to larger premises and hired more sales staff at the same time. 
 
Today, Spot Productions offers a full suite of offset and digital printing and pre-press services, including envelopes, mail-outs, brochures, newspaper inserts, barcode and ticketing, access passes, and postcards.
 
Solution: Versatile and flexible solution to boost capacity
Spot Productions installed the 700 Digital Color Press in April 2009 to set up a strong foundation for a successful digital printing business, becoming the first commercial printer in Queensland to adopt the technology. The company also acquired a Document Centre 1100 production system to handle its black and white printing needs.
 
As the 700 Digital Color Press is an entry-level digital press offering high-end functionality, it was the ideal solution for Spot Productions to meet its full colour printing requirements at high speeds.  Carmody says the company was looking for a digital printing solution that was on par with the quality of offset prints, criteria that the 700 Digital Color Press was able to fulfil.
 
“Customers and companies are always time poor, so digital printing is becoming a more efficient and cost-effective way to handle printing requirements. With the 700 Digital Color Press, the quality of digital is on par with offset, so digital printing makes even more business sense.”
Carmody adds that he selected the 700 Digital Color Press for its “flexibility, reliability, image quality, as well as ability to load more paper and back-up register functionality”. 
 
“We have a strong understanding of our customers’ business needs and a highly experienced team, and we’re now supported by top-notch equipment to help us deliver high quality digital printing within tight timeframes.”
 
Benefit: Strong foundation for future growth
Since installing the 700 Digital Color Press in April, Spot Productions has been able to significantly boost its capacity to handle an increasing demand for digital printing, while complementing its offset business more efficiently.  In only six months, the press is handling double the volume of page impressions to support the company’s booming digital printing business. 
 
“We’ve gone from averaging 160,000 to 300,000 page impressions per month, and expect digital printing to constitute between 35 – 45 per cent of all print jobs by the end of this year,” says Carmody. 
 
With the 700 Digital Color Press, Spot Productions can also offer customers a more comprehensive range of services. “We’ve now become more of a one-stop-shop offering customers a range of printing solutions, and the 700 Digital Color Press is a key component of our success.”
 
Benefit: Improving on existing output
As the 700 Digital Color Press is able to handle the entire finishing process inline, Carmody says the workflow process is more efficient and results in less wastage. The company is also taking advantage of the flexibility and versatility of the solution, handling multiple print jobs at any one time, further increasing efficiency and productivity.  

“Our average print job is about 50,000 page impressions and we can now handle print runs that require a quick turnaround more quickly and efficiently.  As an Australia Post mail lodgement partner, we can also handle variable data printing requirements more effectively.”
 
Benefit: Cost and productivity savings
Carmody adds that the 700 Digital Color Press has delivered real cost and productivity savings to the company as the product can handle many printing requirements previously managed by its offset technology, maintaining the same high quality yet with faster turnaround times.  
 
“We’ve achieved real cost-savings and been able to pass the benefits on to customers because the press can handle multiple jobs at the same time. We’ve also saved on labour costs as our existing staff can handle both the offset and digital machinery.”
 
Carmody further commented that Fuji Xerox has provided the company with excellent customer service. “Equipment downtime can have a significant impact on our business, but both the 700 Digital Color Press and Fuji Xerox support team have proven to be very reliable.” 
 
Benefit: Quality on par with offset
To put the product’s quality to the ultimate test, Spot Productions hosted a Lithographic Institute of Australia (LIA) networking evening in May 2009, giving members of the print industry the opportunity to compare the image quality of digital and offset prints. After being asked to spot the difference between a digital versus offset print job, Carmody says that the majority of guests could not tell the difference.
 
“More than 90 guests attended the event and very few could tell which print was produced on the 700 Digital Color Press versus our offset printer. This proves that digital printing has truly caught up with offset in terms of image quality,” concludes Carmody.