Where printing worlds collide – magazine feature

The battle lines between offset and
digital printing have become clearer
this year as both sides roll out weapon
systems in the shape of highly-evolved
printing presses. The distinctive strengths
and weaknesses of the technologies
appear in sharper relief than ever
before.

Offset printing has become more
automated, focused on quick changeover
times between jobs in order to compete
for the shorter runs being demanded by
the market. Digital printing has solved its
quality issues and is rolling out serious
production machines capable of printing
a million sheets a month. We are entering
a defi ning phase of the confl ict for the
future of printing and the outcome is far
from certain.

It would be a mistake to assume
that one form of printing will triumph
by obliterating the other, winning
complete hegemony over the market.
Technology battles don't turn out like
that, or at least not in the short term.
There are many sectors of the printing
industry where the decision of digitalversus-
offset simply does not apply.

The release of the Heidelberg XL 105
fl agship press is a case in point. This
behemoth, the fi rst completely new press
built from the ground up by the leading
press manufacturer in over 30 years, is
a production masterpiece, capable of
running at 18,000 sheets per hour day
after day, week after week. At 105 cm
it is the widest press Heidelberg has
produced and can print on anything
from super slim 65gsm paper up to thick
board. Although initially targeted at the
packaging industry, its sheer productivity
enhancement is winning it fans in the
commercial market.

This is not a press that is ever likely
to be challenged by digital. Its 24/7
monthly output is over 12 million full-size
sheets on materials that not even the
most one-eyed supporter of digital would
contemplate putting through a digital
press. It will be operated by commercial
and packaging printers of manufacturing
clout, in big automated printing factories,
as far removed from hands-on traditional
craft printing as you can get.

The Heidelberg XL 105 is designed
to drive production by combining the
sheer muscle of offset printing with
the advanced automation of computercontrolled
manufacturing. Equally at
home running the same job until the
printing plates wear out-and then
some-or snap changing between
different short run jobs, it is a defi ant
statement that in its own sector offset
printing is unchallengeable.

The hero of the new age

The other side of the equation is best
exemplified by the Fuji Xerox iGen3-the
fl agship press from the leading digital
printing engine manufacturer.* At the top
of the largest range of digital engines
produced by any one company, covering
every production target and output
speed, the iGen3 is the spearhead of Fuji
Xerox's push into commercial printing
territory.

Rated at a one million A3 sheets
per month duty cycle, it challenges
any serious production printer to walk
away from its quality and versatility.
There is nothing in the cut sheet
commercial market it cannot produce,
plus it brings the unique advantages
of digital printing-personalisation,
'versionalisation' and push-button
operation.

The iGen3 is competing across a broad
range of offset work, a market where,
according to research fi rm CAP Ventures
in the USA, the average print run size
is sub-5, 000 copies and falling. It is the
assault tank of on-demand printing and
the totemic print-run of one.

In straight
economic terms it is competitive with
offset to around 1,500 -2,000 copies, but
it is pushing that border all the time and
many of the jobs running through the four
iGen3s that are currently in operation in Australia are well in excess of that
number. The advantages of a completely
digital production environment, with all
the ease and leverage that comes with it,
cannot be overestimated.

So where's the battle taking place?

At fi rst glance, offset and digital are
locked in battle with one another in the
same way that offset and letterpress
fought it out in the 1960s. But there are
differences in this struggle that indicate
the outcome is more likely to be a
negotiated settlement than an outright
victory.

Benny Landa, the inventor of the
Indigo press and widely acknowledged as
the 'father' of digital printing, famously
said, "Everything that can go digital, will
go digital." It was a watershed remark at
the opening of the digital printing epoch
in the early 1990s and one that has been
quoted uncritically for over a decade.

But
perhaps it's time to revisit it in the light of
experience to see if its prediction stands up.
There is no doubt that the digital
revolution has proved a lot slower in its
progress than was initially expected. The
early machines were a quality and
reliability nightmare that littered the
industry with failed entrepreneurs. Even
when the quality started to settle down-
somewhere around drupa 2000-successful
business models proved elusive.

One of
the most striking advantages of digital,
the ability to personalise every sheet in a
print run, stumbled over the failure of the
marketing industry to sanitise its databases.
In other fi elds, such as the famous
personalised wine bottle labels, the
demand never took off and digital press
manufacturers came to the realisation
that it was up to them to educate the
market, in effect to create the demand.

During this start-up period, the
printing industry was divided between
those who were prepared to have a go
and those who professed disdain at the
whole digital printing concept. But the
pressure was building on the traditional
offset printing sector, fuelled by the
expectations of on-demand printing and
shorter run lengths.

The decision as to
when a job would be produced deserted
the printers and went over to the
customers. A market that was printing,
on-demand, full colour pages on its offi ce
and home desktop digital print engines
was not about to tolerate a commercial
printer telling them to come back in two
weeks time for its brochures.

Into the breech for offset printing

Heidelberg, as the leading light of the
offset printing industry, addressed the
digital challenge in two ways-it set about
automating its presses to deal with fast
changeovers on smaller jobs, and it went
into a joint venture with Kodak to
manufacture its own digital press, the
NexPress. The latter strategy came a
cropper due to the over-reaching corporate
ambition by Heidelberg to be all things to
all people-however there was, and is,
nothing wrong with the NexPress
technology, which is now back with Kodak.

The former strategy proved an
unqualifi ed success and is the reason why
offset printing, especially small offset,
has been so successful in holding onto
its traditional market in the face of the
digital assault. Many small offset printers
will now happily compete for runs of
less than 500 sheets, thanks to quick
changeovers between jobs and the use of
cheaper printing plates.

A wakeup call for digital
workflow

It now seems fairly certain that not
everything that can go digital will go
digital. Where both offset and digital
come together and where everything
has become digital, is in prepress, or
premedia as it is becoming known.

Printing files are created in digital
format regardless of how they will be
imaged at the end. The rendering of the
fi les, the ubiquitous RIP (raster image
processer), decides how and where the
pixels will be created.

Computer-to-plate
closed the loop between the analogue
offset printing process and the digital
creation. With automated plate changing
on the press there is no call for human
intervention.

CIP4 is the offset digital
standard that allows digital files to embed
all instructions for a complete offset
printing workflow. In theory it enables
offset printing to be created, transferred,
imaged, coated, cut, bound and finished
out the door in one sequential workflow.

Digital production presses have all
the diffi culty in interfacing with digital
fi les as the little inkjet printer on your
desktop-in other words, no difficulty at
all. Whether the output press is on the
same fl oor, in the same building, across
town or across country does not matter.
All that has to be decided is which press
and how many copies.

The situation at the frontline

In this battle of technologies, printers
are no longer spectators on the sidelines,
dismissing one or the other as not being
suitable for their business. Every imaging
business, large and small, will need the
capability of both offset and digital if it
is to remain a serious contender in the
market. Picking the right application is
proving more important than the right
technology.

Even though the market is
moving towards more niche operations
and specialised printing, most commercial
printers still get asked to produce a wide
range of jobs. Knowing what jobs are best
suited to which technology is half the
battle. Having access to the appropriate
technology, either in house or through
well-established alliances, is the other.

The frontline between the two is the
small offset market and it is constantly
moving, as is the steadily falling length of
print runs. What was a definite offset job
last year is no longer quite so definite and
vice versa.

Much of printing is proving
unsuitable for personalising. No one cares
whether their cardboard cartons are
addressed to them personally or not. While
the benefits of being able to address
marketing messages to an individual are
recognised, the downside of getting
someone's name wrong can be catastrophic.

Not being able to offer the service at all is
an even greater risk to customer confi dence.

Knowing when to move
The unrecognised influence underneath
all this is the investment cycle. Printers
have a lot of capital tied up in their
machinery, many would say too much.

Those offset printers who have moved
up to the latest generation of automated
presses are fairly relaxed concerning
the digital challenge. They can compete
across 80 per cent of the market, often
well below 500 copies. Those printers
still operating ten to twenty-year-old
offset presses, especially small offset, are
feeling the digital heat. There is no way
they can compete.

If they are to stay in the industry
they must invest in new equipment
and then the decision as to whether to
go digital or offset will present itself
in stark relief. It is not an easy choice,
especially for a company that may only
have a rudimentary digital workfl ow.

What is different now is that both
sides of the equation, Heidelberg and
Fuji Xerox especially, have in place
business development and assessment
programmes to not only help make the
decision but to assist in implementing it
and making it a success.

At the top end of the industry, the days
of box dropping are gone. Back-up and
ongoing partnerships are the essential
features of successful transactions.

Of
course there are those who want nothing
from their supplier other than the lowest
machine price. However for those who
intend to be around for a while it is
important to make a decision, not only
between digital and offset, but between
the price of the hardware and the level of
frontline support required.

In the long run, that will be what wins
the battle.

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* There are other suppliers on both sides
of the equation, such as HP Indigo, MAN
Roland and Shinohara, but for the sake
of drawing the distinction between offset
and digital this article concentrates on the
two leading manufacturers, Heidelberg
and Fuji Xerox.