Can In-plants Support Digital Color Printers?

In-plants that have installed high-speed digital color printers have had tremendous success—and a few disappointments along the way. We got their stories.

by Cheryl Adams

On September 13, two days after the World Trade Center attack, administration officials at Arizona State University, in Tempe, placed a call to the school's Design Print Services center. Bruce Whitehead, DPS manager, answered the call and took the request for 2,500 "No Hate" posters that would be put up across campus.

"We have a lot of international students on campus, many of whom are Muslim," Whitehead explains. "The university administration was concerned about hate crimes and didn't want anything like that happening on campus. They asked how quickly we could produce the posters."

The call came in around 8 p.m., Whitehead says, "and by 8 o'clock the next morning, the posters were done. We did it within 12 hours."

Thanks to the in-plant's Agfa Chromapress, which uses a Xeikon engine, the job was a snap.

"That's the beauty of the Chromapress," adds Robert Lane, assistant director of Document Production Services at the university. "The press really helps us get the word out to the university. For those types of projects—the quick ones, the urgent ones—other commercial printers couldn't turn it around that quickly. And if they could, there would be a premium involved."

That alone is a great reason for in-plants to have digital color printing capabilities: Providing convenient, low-cost color printing will guarantee a steady flow of customers into the in-plant. Plus, with the growing need for personalized printing, in-plants with digital printers are in the perfect position to take on this new business.

Not Always Perfect

Still, despite the ample benefits, in-plants with high-speed digital color devices have learned a few hard lessons, too:

• Older digital color printing equipment had quirks that required—and still requires—constant maintenance.

• Printing needs changed and the older equipment was no longer well suited.

• The variable data work in-plants had planned to run on the machines never materialized.

Some in-plants that bought Indigo presses years ago have since moved on to other color devices from Xerox and Canon, with excellent results. Other in-plants that went with Xeikon now worry about the implications of Xeikon's bankruptcy filing. (In recent weeks, Punch International NV has agreed to acquire Xeikon's digital color printing assets.)

Still, digital color printing technology is marching steadlily forward, with Heidelberg's NexPress 2100 and the Xerox iGen3 being the latest products to hit the market. The World Bank's Washington D.C.-based in-plant recently installed a new Heidelberg NexPress 2100, and Jane Bloodworth, business manager of the Printing, Graphics and Map Design unit feels it will help build her in-plant's capacity.

"The new generation of digital devices will help us to achieve what we've always wanted to do: provide quality digital color at a competitive cost," she asserts. "Up until now, that's always been the issue with the high-end digital presses. But, with the NexPress and other new digital technologies, the cost isn't so prohibitive. The cost barrier has come down. It's very affordable color." (See the full story elsewhere on this Web site.)

That's what ASU's Bob Lane thinks. Describing the Agfa Chromapress, which was installed in 1997, as a "color copier on steriods," Lane reports the 1,400-cph machine "saves an incredible amount of time. Try to do 2,000 color copies on a regular machine; it would take you all day."

All day is not an option for many of the urgent requests that Design Print Services receives. The "No Hate" posters, from concept to finished product, took only 12 hours. Other jobs require even less time.

Consider the "Play of the Game" posters distributed during a recent game between ASU and Arizona University.

"It was the hot game of season," explains Lane. "We had a high-power digital camera in the stadium and took shots, during the first half. The digital pictures were sent to us at the in-plant, and, by second half, we distributed the posters to the fans. Also, using variable data, we sent all luxury box ticket-holders 'Play of the Game' posters with their names on them."

The Chromapress, with its variable data capabilities, is helping meet the university's needs in other ways. Whitehead cites a routine example.

"With so many international students, we have to be able to print material in different languages," he says. "With the Chromapress, we use the same template to keep the design, but use variable data to translate the message."

Another strength of the digital, web-fed Chromapress is its ability to reproduce photos at 300 dpi.

"Photos look great," declares Whitehead. "You have to get a loop out to tell if it's offset or toner."

And when those photos are reproductions from the Hubble telescope, a 12-foot print of the New York skyline, or a baseball card of Eddie House (former star of the ASU basketball team and a 2000 PAC 10 record-setter), he emphasizes, the quality had better be top notch.

What's more, the product had better cost between 30 and 50 percent less than the commercial competition.

"Jobs come in from other digital printers in town, but with the Chromapress, we're usually 30 percent cheaper. Depending on the job, sometimes we're 50 percent cheaper," Lane contends. "And, we're always the quickest one in town. If you need it right now, we'll turn it around in an hour. That's the beauty of the Chromapress."

The Indigo Blues?

While the Chromapress at ASU is still going strong after nearly five years, other in-plants have not been so successful with their initial digital investments.

Some companies report that their first-generation digital color printers (circa mid-90s) have become antiquated, and newer digital technologies have since taken their places.

SAFECO Insurance, Graphic & Printing Services, based in Redmond, Wash., installed an Indigo digital color press five years ago. The machine did a good job while it was running—but it didn't run as much as expected.

"The work we had planned for the machine never materialized," says Stephen Benzon, manager of G&PS. "We were planning on doing lots of personalized work for our marketing department, but it never happened. Consequently, we've had to pay for that piece of equipment—and it's very expensive to run. You have to have work to put on the press in order to pay for it. And we didn't get the work.

"Costs for operation were disproportionate for press materials and maintenance. Plus, the service contract was very expensive. And, in terms of labor, someone had to manage the files for it, which meant one staff member paid for operating the machine and running the department," acknowledges Benzon. "It didn't make good business sense to keep it up and running, so we shut it down."

With $7.6 million in sales last year, the in-plant is "lean and mean," Benzon says. "There's not a lot of fat in our operation. We're very efficient." Which is one of the reasons the Indigo had to go.

To compete with other printers along the I-5 (Interstate 5) corridor, which runs from Canada to Mexico, G&PS is committed to updating and upgrading its equipment, Benzon emphasizes. That's why a Canon 5000 digital color printer was added to the Redmond/Rainier facility a few months before the Indigo was unplugged.

Benzon was disappointed in the pricey performance and upkeep of the antiquated Indigo, but thrilled with the next-generation digital device that replaced it.

"The color on the 5000 is awesome. It's very high quality," enthuses Benzon, noting that the 5000 is not as fast as the Indigo, but fast enough for the type of work produced at the in-plant.

"It does the job we need it to do. Plus, the quality is as good as the Indigo. So close that, if customers didn't know there were two processes, they wouldn't know the difference. The 5000 does the same quality job at a better price than the Indigo. It just makes better business sense."

Too Much Maintenance

Other in-plants that installed Indigo digital presses years ago have reported similar difficulties as time went by and their needs changed. One large Midwestern in-plant, which did not want its name used, purchased an Indigo in the late 1990s.

"It was a good machine for us. We got our payback in the first few years," says one of the managers. "But as time went by, other products came on the market that were less expensive to use. Their quality rivaled the Indigo, but required a lot less maintenance.

"With the new model Indigo, they've supposedly eliminated a lot of that," he adds, but his in-plant opted to go with a Xerox DocuColor instead.

"Special skills aren't necessary to operate it. The DocuColor is more like a copier. You have to know the front end, but you don't have to know all the intricacies of operating the Indigo.

"With the Xerox, maintenance is rolled into the monthly leasing cost along with operator use, and that made it a much more attractive package than upgrading to the newer model Indigo."

As for the older Indigo machine, he says it's still hooked up and ready to go, especially if any variable data work comes in. However, the in-plant doesn't get that many requests for color variable data (most variable data work is done in black-and-white).

The company did not purchase the press specifically for variable data work, he notes, so lack of utilization in that area has never been an issue.

"When we bought the Indigo, our idea was not to bring in a new type of work; we didn't want to go out and sell our variable data capabilities," he explains. "Rather than doing that, our philosophy was to take some of the work from our sheetfed press and move it over to the Indigo. We were looking at taking existing business and doing it more efficiently.

"And we were able to do that," he contends. "We moved a lot of the real short runs to the Indigo, then we were able to put the right type of work on the sheetfed. It's fairly costly to do short runs on an offset press, making the film, etc. By putting the short-run work on the Indigo, we were putting the right work with the right machine."

The Indigo was a solid machine, he says. It served its purpose, paid for itself, and was replaced with a Docucolor 2060 in the summer of 2000. The in-plant used the 2060 to print everything from training materials to short-run books.

With speeds of up to 60 ppm, the machine not only fulfilled print requests, but opened up both the digital and sheetfed offset presses to take on more capacity.

Still, he advises in-plants to be cautious. "It's important to make sure digital color is a quality that your customers will accept. Digital color has come a long way, but it's still not offset quality."

Digital Dead End?

Buying a high-speed digital color press is not always the right move. One large West Coast in-plant that also did not want its name used installed a Xeikon press two years ago. The press worked fine. It just wasn't very busy.

"We didn't capture the work we thought we would," says one of the in-plant's managers. "We thought we were going to get more into variable data, which is a strong part of the machine, but so far we haven't been able to capitalize on it.

"We hoped there would be more work within the company: For example, graphic designers who needed variable data products. But, as it turns out, we didn't have that need—at least, not as much as we were hoping for."

Of course, it doesn't help that Xeikon recently filed for bankruptcy protection in Europe.

"You wonder what caused the problems, how the bankruptcy developed, why it happened—and how it's ultimately going to affect your product. We're watching to see what happens, and going as carefully as we can.

"You can study something to death and still not make the best decision," summarizes the manager. "Technology changes so fast. Equipment becomes outdated. Companies go bankrupt.

"We believe digital printing is here to stay. We see a need for digital printing here. But before we make another technological move, we're going to study the market a lot more closely."