We can imagine the printing industry that has completely adopted digital technology. In fact, this is easy to implement. Looking around at the sheet-fed press booth at the IPEX exhibition, we will see that most booths display digital presses. We can say with certainty that manufacturers who have not introduced digital presses today are either developing digital presses or they may ask themselves why they do not manufacture digital presses.
Bernhard H. Schreier, president of Heidelberg, said: “Digitalization is the future direction of our printing industry and our company. Digital printing machines and offset printing machines will be equally divided in 5-10 years. We are moving in this direction. We have worked hard and have not forgotten the needs of traditional customers.†He believes that in the future, printers will use offset printing and digital printing technologies together, because they want to become suppliers to provide customers with a variety of print solutions. But this is not to say that 50% of printers are using digital presses in 2010, because ordinary presses are not replaced so quickly. When printer manufacturers no longer roll out non-imaging presses, the situation will change dramatically. The exact time is unpredictable, but at least not yet. Komori's Lithrone S640 press and KBA's Genius press proved this.
10 years ago Heidelberg introduced the first direct imaging GTO-DI lithographic printing press. Direct imaging presses today have reached a very high level of technology, but the number of sales is not as good as that of conventional presses. Ten years ago, computer-to-plate technology was just introduced, but it is now growing very fast because the technology can be applied to traditional presses. Since the 1998 IPEX International Printing Exhibition, the development of computer-to-plate technology has brought printers all-digital workflow. In the past, printers thought that mastering computer operating technology was a matter for prepress printing companies and had nothing to do with them. Since computer-based plate making technology is actually used, computer direct printing technology is not at all a significant technological advancement.
In the next 5-10 years, today's press users will need to change their printing equipment. The choice for printers is to continue to use the off-machine technology or to use on-board imaging technology instead. Although direct imaging presses are more costly, turndown preparation time is short, start-up speed is fast, and wastefulness is low. Presstek's vice president of sales, Efrem Lieber, said: "The computer to plate technology will reach the peak of application, and then printers must find a better way to increase productivity. When they replace a common printing press, they will use a direct imaging press. Instead of computer-to-platemaking technology."
Direct imaging presses have all the advantages of traditional presses in terms of speed, quality and range of substrates. Therefore, a direct image printer can completely replace the traditional printer.
Mr. Lieber said: “The direct imaging press is very practical and truly economical. So in the downturn of the industry, printers should invest in direct imaging presses. Fully variable printers tend to have slower print speeds, and the types of substrates they use And the thickness is also limited, the number of prints is generally less than 400, but this is only a small part of the printing market; only 1-3% of the jobs are variable-printing jobs. The growth momentum is reflected in the number of prints Within the range of 5000. The printable range of the direct imaging printer is between 500-2000 copies."
Mark Clark, head of digital large-volume printing equipment at Heidelberg in the UK, said that the NexPress 2100 press has a printing range of 500-1000 copies. However, if you consider the links, personalization, version patterns and other links, it will involve a variety of factors.
The general range of printability Mark Clark said: “Although the above links are very important for live jobs, there is no print limit for ordinary offset presses. Some users of Indigo and Xeikon presses stated that they are printing different versions of prints. The number of prints reached tens of thousands."
Mr. Fred DeBolt, product planning manager of Xerox iGen3, said: “The number of initial prints that are more economical from digital printing to offset printing is increasing. There are up to 1000 copies using DocuColor 2000. The print range of iGen3 is between 3000 and 5000. (This depends on the type of print.) This is similar to the range of prints in direct imaging presses. Direct imaging presses can increase the printing efficiency of offset presses, but we believe that in order to add new printing businesses, we must use variable printing technology. .
To use a variable-format press, one must look for a new job that benefits from this kind of printing efficiency and that is economically viable. However, personalized print jobs are not readily accepted by people. Mr. DeBolt said: “The reason why printers are willing to use direct imaging presses is because direct imaging presses are offset presses, and printers are familiar with offset printing. The variable printing market has not been developed for two reasons. Although printers can find a living source, they are not familiar with database technology. Second, the customer's sales department does not see the practical effect of one-on-one advertising."
Personalized printing has only a small market area, and printers can effectively disseminate information within this range. The more mature, personalized printing market, which relies on database technology, requires the use of inkjet technology for overprinting on preprinted substrates, or on-line printing of color offset prints.
Digital presses have a short setup time and are better suited for printing short runs. Mr. Peter Croft, Head of Impressions Direct, headquartered in the City of Westminster, pointed out: “We use laser printing technology to print some of the lower cost jobs. Belier Printing Company stated that 80% of its jobs are printed on the DocuColor 2060 digital press. It is a variable print job. Posters and New Year's card printing websites are often established by printers with digital printing machines.This is no coincidence, but many commercial printers believe that the advantage of fully variable printing machines is that they can print pre-provisioned The pages are printed, and when the short-run job is printed, the job is replaced very quickly, and often a small number of digital storage jobs are repeatedly printed.(To be continued)