Copiers - A New Choice

The DocuTech is no longer the only choice when it comes to high-speed copying. New players in the market are now vying for customers.

Equipment choices used to be clear-cut for in-plant managers: High-quality and long-run reproduction went on an offset press. Shorter-run, quick and dirty black-and-white work went on a duplicator. Copiers were low-end, low-quality devices.

Not anymore.

Today's crop of black-and-white copiers offer true 600x600 dpi resolution, speeds of up to 85 ppm (with tandem or cluster printing magnifying that 12-fold) and, through digital technology, networking, printing, scanning and advanced finishing.

For instance, Ricoh's new digital Aficio 850 offers 85-ppm, 600-dpi output with the ability to electronically store originals for later touch-screen recall.

"It's very powerful—this is where we see big inroads," lauds Jill Brown, Ricoh's director of imaging products.

High-volume national manager Bonnie Tucci points out the lower labor costs of such copiers compared to offset presses.

"You can have five different kinds of throughput stapled, collated and done online," she says. "The 850 fits nicely into an in-plant. You can have six different stocks up to 11x17˝ for input, including tab stock."

With a price tag of under $50,000, the device compares very favorably to DocuTechs and similar equipment. Other manufacturers are also introducing 80+ ppm copiers. Used singly, they're poaching jobs from digital duplicators. Used in cluster printing configurations of up to 12 copiers, "you're directly competing with Xerox DocuTech," says Toshiba's senior product manager, Tony Venice.

Xerox itself promotes its high-volume 5900 family of analog copiers. Kevin Stephens, vice president of marketing for the departmental business unit, says these models range from 90 to 120 ppm and are rated at 400,000 pages per month.

"They can handle run lengths too small to be cost-effective on a printing press and the quality and reliability are similar to digital," Stephens points out.

The DocuTech is a complex high-end device that needs a dedicated operator, he explains. Customers who require high-speed production available in multiple environments—either manned or walk-up—can benefit from the 5900's simple interface. The 5900 family "leverages technology without requiring a week of training," Stephens notes.

Analog's Death Greatly Exaggerated

Though Ricoh's Brown declares that, "analog is dead—the question is when," most vendors feel analog still has a place.

"There's still a big need for analog," venice remarks. "People know a good value and choose analog if they don't need connectivity and [added] functionality." He observes that manufacturers who, a year ago, announced they would no longer sell analog copiers, are still producing them.

"They're not dying off as quickly as everyone thought," Venice notes.

Charlie Watts, Sharp's senior manager for product marketing for the network office systems group, notes that industry analysts pegged analog copiers at well over 200,000 units sold annually—still a sizable market. He says the company's 60+ ppm analog copiers are "very successful. They always have been," partly because the machines' ability to run paper from the feeder results in very few to zero misfeeds—an important consideration in a production environment.

User concurrency issues are one reason to stick with analog, according to Minolta spokesperson Deko Stone. Managing job queues to properly prioritize both simple copying and complex document assembly and finishing is "very complex and very challenging to pull off," Stephens says.

"Just because a digital device is faster, that's only the start of the conversation," he cautions. "faster doesn't necessarily mean more productive in the digital world."

For that reason, most vendors say, it will take years for digital copiers to make inroads on their analog cousins at the high end.

Digital Does It All

Still, digital copiers have taken the low- and mid-range markets by storm, accounting for up to 80 percent of the market, according to Dennis Amorosano, Canon's assistant director of the copier and networked office systems division. Better quality output than similar analog models with only marginally higher price tags for basic models has fueled the shift. So has a move toward POD.

"The shift in printing models to a distributed manner means companies can print forms, manuals and more in much smaller volumes and reduce expense," Amorosano explains, adding that putting such documents on the network enhances the speed factor.

Digital copiers can staple, bind, collate, create booklets, fold, saddle stitch and paginate from the desktop with output in finished sets—an advantage over analog's bin sorters. Image manipulation, variable data input, archiving and retrieval capabilities on digital copiers are unavailable on analog and boost productivity at in-plant operations.

Post-finishing insertion is now possible due to technology advances.

"Traditionally, this was one of the shortfalls in the copier world," xerox' Stephens says. "In the process of fusing, copiers would ruin the image. Now you can interpose a sheet or document without deteriorating the image."

Toshiba's Venice notes that the higher output quality of digital copiers has encouraged users to request more sophisticated post-finishing capabilities.

New software from Sharp will allow documents from any application—word processing, spreadsheet, graphics or presentations—to be combined on the desktop and output to digital copiers.

"You can take any format and integrate it directly with a hard copy, either copied or scanned," declares Sharp's Watts.

Sharp offers a dual controller strategy, with lower-cost print controllers for less graphics-oriented environments. And through a partnership with EFI, Sharp offers controllers for high-volume, graphics-intensive situations.

At Your Service

Though vendors admit copiers can be service-intensive, they're aiming to ease the pain. New internal diagnostics have made it easier to assess service requirements, while component upgrades have shortened service calls.

Some copiers now allow users to see from their desktops if the copier is out of paper, offline, has a misfeed or is currently processing a job. Utilities are also available for network administration and remote diagnostics. Venice explains that technicians can dial into a machine that has reported error codes or preventive maintenance alerts, making service calls more efficient. Service modules have reduced the time for parts replacement to 30 minutes on black-and-white copiers, down from a previous average of three to four hours, he says.

Brown, of Ricoh, notes that vendors need to have aggressive costs for after-market maintenance and supplies. "Cost of operation is extremely critical at in-plant environments," Brown says. "Not all vendors are capable of providing 24/7 service support."

In addition to reliability, dealer education is an element copier vendors have been striving to enhance as copiers have evolved into de facto network printers.

"The critical point is connecting to the customer's network and driving better performance and added value," remarks Canon spokesperson Roberto Lebron.

Increased technical and application knowledge is necessary at the dealer level, according to Ricoh's Brown. She touts Ricoh's experience (the company is on its 12th digital engine) as a plus in supporting its distributors and customers.

Scanning The Horizon

Vendors say the networking capabilities of digital copiers have led to print jobs migrating from slower desktop printers—and the next frontier is scanning. Network scan servers were introduced this past year. Scanned files can now be faxed, e-mailed or sent to a workstation or server with document repository and management.

Minolta spokesperson Stone says scanning to file, introduced this past year, paves the way for scanning to PDF format. Xerox recently added scanning direct to electronic network repositories with OCR editing capability. Canon's Lebron says future universal send functions would allow scanned data to be sent to multiple database servers, e-mail addresses and Internet fax locations in a single, simple operation.

Other future enhancements vendors predict are I-P addresses for copier access through the Internet by remote workers, Linux compatibility, NT-based print servers, wireless printing and input and output anywhere.

"We've got all the bells and whistles you need for copying, but you'll see more and more functions in scanning and document management," Venice says. "and the price will continue to drop relative to functionality."

Amorosano sees a greater demand for more integration into networks and enterprise management software, as well as many customers with unique applications. In coming years, customers will be able to pick the applications they need to bundle with the hardware. He stresses such custom development "is the future in the next two to three years."

Duplicators Still Going Strong

Copiers may soon be able to do everything short of pouring your coffee for you, but that doesn't mean they've totally eclipsed tried-and-true technologies. Digital duplicators still have a strong niche at in-plant operations.

Vendors say duplicators bridge the gap between copiers and offset presses by economically handling medium-size runs. Simple architecture with a straight paper path, no moving parts and no heat means greater reliability and lower maintenance costs than copiers. Cost per copy can be as low as a third of a cent (with no premium for spot color) and digital duplicators can handle a variety of stocks, including paper bags and 110-lb. card stock, at up to 120 ppm.

"There's a tremendous amount of printing that goes on in between the handful of copies usually output on a copier and the long runs associated with offset," says Anne Barrett, manager of marketing services at Riso. Typically, duplicators are used on jobs with one or a few originals. Letterhead, newsletters, menus, invitations, tickets, posters, postcard mailers and forms are ideal applications.

The use of ink cylinders rather than toner means no VOC emissions. Color changes can be accomplished in 30 seconds or less, making spot color production on short and medium runs a breeze.

Nancy Yip, advertising and promotions manager at Duplo, feels color is very cost effective.

"There's practically no downtime and no wash-up as with offset," she explains. Manufacturers provide up to 18 standard ink colors with unlimited custom colors available.

With new digital duplicators offering 600x600-dpi output, the machines are no longer relegated to jobs where quality is secondary.

"They handle halftones very well," Barrett notes, which means the machines can satisfactorily output more of what is designed at the desktop.

"They're very acceptable for a huge amount of applications," adds Barrett. "Duplicators add a lot of color impact without the price."

—Janet R. Gross