In this short-run era, where a third of all jobs have run lengths of just 250 sheets, how are sheetfed offset presses faring? Industry observer Frank Romano offers his view.

By Frank Romano

Press spoilage averaged 850 sheets for the 1,000-poster press run, which was a one-third improvement over the 1998 waste factor (about 1,250 sheets). The best performers had low times as well as low waste.

Total manufacturing time ranged from 120 to 300 minutes, with an average of 180 minutes—a range of 25 to 40 percent improvements over 1998. Printers using perfector presses performed the best, and stochastic screening users also had a slight edge. A third of the printers had waste issues while another third had prepress issues.