Digital Color Presses: If Only They Had Known...

To be fair, all the managers we contacted were pleased, overall, with their digital presses. Their responses to our questions here should not be viewed as complaints, rather as helpful tips for others about to embark on their own digital journeys.

What would you do differently if you were buying a digital press today?

Smith: I wish I had acted to install the digital press earlier. I knew for three years that this was a necessary move to meet the changing demands of our customers, but I was hesitant to spend the money. Also, I found it difficult to find a clear choice or winner from the various vendors supplying these machines. Each has its own advantages and drawbacks. I was able to objectively pick the machine I thought best for us, but I took too long to do so. I could have begun selling work on the press much earlier, if I had it installed. I find it a nice, and necessary complement to an offset environment.

Harty: I believe we would have upgraded the front end to get a more robust system. This would help in processing large variable data files in printing.

Anonymous: I would have probed vendors more about upcoming equipment/new products. That would have led to probably a smaller, more cost effective device—available now but not then. Xerox released a smaller, less expensive device four months after we evaluated our equipment. This would have been a better financial fit for us. They knew, they just could not say anything.

How would you have evaluated equipment differently?

Rigby: The only thing we didn't test well enough was how well the ink adhered to the sheet when going through the postal system. The HP Indigo 3050 is weak in this area.

Smith: I wish I had asked for statistics on average down time and average waiting times for repairs.

Harty: We would have had more difficult print tests for the vendors to produce. Solids and heavy screens of a single color file would be helpful, to see if there are incon–sistencies.

What have you have learned after using your digital press for a while now?

Smith: In an offset environment, you are accustomed to running overs/extras. That same mentality in digital will cost you and sometimes make the difference between a loss and a profit. You must add some overs to your charges when calculating a digital job.

Anonymous: Setting up substrates is very time consuming and paper wasting. Startup sheets are required on every job, another paper waste.

Wise: After the first couple of years of trying to use our existing house stocks (offset paper) on the iGen, we switched to Xerox paper specifically formulated for use on the iGen. It was more expensive than offset stock, but did indeed run better on the iGen. And we were able to get more impressions off the photo–receptor belt and extended developer life after our switch to Xerox paper stocks.

Sarantakos: You can't match offset litho blacks with digital blacks. The digital black sits on top and is much denser. Also, when glossing, the sheets are incredibly slick and are hard to feed through a folder. And you have to have a letterpress score device to prevent cracking of spines.

Harty: The only thing unforeseen is the cost of retraining new employees on the digital press.

Have you gotten the type of work and the volumes that you expected?

Smith: We got more work than we had expected. We began to find applications for digital that we had not thought of or marketed toward. The press brought us more short-run color work than we had predicted, and it took less work from our offset area than we had expected. We actually began to get jobs we would not have received before the digital press was installed. That said, it takes quite a volume of work to pay for the press.

Harty: We purchased the HP 3050 press, which at the time was more press than we could handle. It was a great move from the standpoint of productivity. However, we have never reached the productivity levels that HP indicates the press can print. In hindsight, I would have made that decision just the same.

Rigby: The volume of work actually surpassed our expectations, especially after our huge open house.

Anonymous: We received less work in the first six months than we expected.

Have you done as much variable data printing as you initially expected?

Harty: No. The campus has been slow to embrace this, much slower than I had hoped. Money and the amount of preplanning needed to make this happen seem to be the biggest problems we face.

Anonymous: We picked up variable data from Admissions that was previously sent out. While we have it well in hand, there are many unseen technical issues getting VDP to work seamlessly. There's a big leaning curve, but once mastered, it works well. But it's not as easy as the vendors make it out to be.

Rigby: VDP did not go as planned. It was not HP software but our own limitations that held us back.

Smith: We have done variable data work since the press was first installed. We didn't expect to do so much variable data so early in the process. We sent personnel for training very early in the process, and we are glad we did. You need more than one person trained to prepare the data for the variable applications. It is difficult to calculate costs and know how to price variable data jobs.

Wise: Overall, variable data work has not lived up to our expectations. We are doing just as much color variable data as we had expected. We are doing more work than expected with black-and-white variable data, however. With some of our color variable data jobs we've had difficulty getting exact matches for color on pieces produced both digitally and on offset presses.

Any unexpected installation issues that you encountered?

Smith: Our press required an outside vent and a chiller. Although we were clear on that going in, the costs and delays were a hassle.

Anonymous: It took six weeks to get everything working correctly and some major repairs on the new equipment. The ECS module was bigger than we had thought and required the installation to be rotated 180 degrees to make it a better fit. Substrates were a major stumbling block getting set up. On-site setup of software and input of startup items with our operators left something to be desired (their trainer was the problem).

Harty: It went smoother than expected

Other big issues that came up?

Anonymous: Textured stocks, which they say can run, are a huge problem. Perfect binding does not stick if it is a two-sided print on the cover. We run one side on a competitive machine to make it work. We could change glue but choose not to. We have had some problems feeding our house papers. Of course they want to use "certified" paper but that is one of my gripes; it should run just about anything. Training is very intense, and chosen operators have to be above average in computer skills and have a high degree of analytical ability. You can't just train anyone.

Rigby: The HP 3050 ink is a little soft when going through the bindery. We can get a lot of scratching if we are not careful.

Sarantakos: When cutting, you have to limit the number of sheets you can cut at one time to about 1 inch. If you try to cut 3 or 4 inches at a time, the blade gets too hot and it melts the ink and the papers fuse together.

Smith: Paper is an issue, although it is downplayed by the vendor. Paper approved for our press sells at a premium because there is a captive audience of users.

Wise: In the first year after our installation, we ended up having to replace our heating and air conditioning unit (for a larger one) in the production area where the iGen3 is housed.

Any service-related issues?

Smith: We have had more down time than we anticipated. Digital presses are complex and there is much to go wrong.

Harty: There's been a constant turnover in the service tech position. This has been up and down with HP, but I somehow suspect that the others are in the same boat.

How about customer-related issues?

Harty: We became so good about meeting fast delivery times, our customers began to expect us to perform these miracles daily.

Smith: We used the "if you build it, they will come" approach, and that worked well for us. I'm not sure we would have had much success at pre-selling the press or its capabilities. Our customers wanted to see it in action first, then discuss applications for their business. Also, we did not clearly understand or imagine the capabilities of the press until it was in and running. At that time, we began to brainstorm new opportunities as we saw what it could do.

Wise: Since we offer both offset and digital printing, we have had to contend with higher customer expectations regarding print quality on the iGen. This is especially true of reproducing solid panels with some colors in particular.