The Future Of Offset

Will toner-based printing make offset obsolete? No way, say the offset experts. Offset will transform into a more user-friendly, more digital process.

With the final year of the 20th century now well underway, offset press venders are beginning to turn their thoughts toward the future—and it's not as far off as you might think.

For some time, the industry has been beset with hushed voices forecasting the potential demise of offset due to intense competition from digital printing. Not so fast, offset venders insist. The next few years, they say, will bring about new generations of presses so technologically advanced, convenient and attractively priced that successful printing operations will find it difficult not to incorporate them.

"We're looking at a totally automated machine, with a redesign of the inking and dampening system, whether it shifts to waterless or we stick to conventional inks and chemicals," reveals Jon Surch, press products manager at Sakurai USA.

"I think the last holdout of the old offset press will be the inking and dampening system," he continues. "For the longest time we had manual plating, then automatic plate changers, then we went to automatic perfector changeovers and automatic washing systems. Now the basic design of the press has to change in order for the technology leap to make it to the next level."

Rudy Valenta, manager of corporate sales at MAN Roland, agrees.

"The press of 10 years from now will have higher speeds—maybe the same amount of automation, but you'll see a lot of voice recognition," he says. "You will also see total networking, especially with in-plants, where all the files could be sent right to the in-plant."

Such forecasts may initially seem like a haphazard glance into the crystal ball. Most venders, however, note that it's more like a natural progression necessary for the industry to maintain its success than a venture into the realm of Nostradamus.

"If you look what businesses are doing, it makes logical sense that once people have digital infrastructures in place it becomes almost a necessity, not a luxury," says Kenneth Newton, vice president of worldwide marketing at A.B. Dick. "There's really two technologies out there that are evolving and developing: digital print and digital presses. Some say digital print will migrate out and steal the business out of the commercial marketplace. My answer is no. It has always stolen some because of the black-and-white work, but when you get into color printing the properties of ink versus the properties of toner are incredibly important to the value of printed work."

Particle Politics

In fact, some suggest the level of quality afforded by ink may at this point be offset's saving grace.

"Once someone figures out a productive way to make a variable data ink device, you're going to have something, because the limitation of toner is that there's a particle involved, whereas with ink the particle is microscopic," says Ron Kendig, marketing director of direct imaging products at Heidelberg. "You have a much higher quality with ink. Will offset go away? It's hard to say, but obviously we don't think so. There's still a huge market for things that have long runs and high quality."

And in the end, notes Sakurai's Surch, "you just cannot replace squeezing ink onto a piece of paper versus battering toner on it. Ink will always produce a higher quality image, and with a digital press your first sheet costs as much as your last sheet, whereas with an offset press the cost to produce that sheet of paper always decreases as the run length continues. Even if we're in a 100-sheet run, on an offset press that's automated, we can be competitive, and the customer will see the benefits of an offset press."

Speeding Up The Process

Press speed has long been an important issue to printers, but some manufacturers feel that the increase in short runs may have obviated the need for speed.

"The speed of feeding and printing has reached its peak," proclaims Tom Nishimura, president of Hamada of America. "Nobody needs 12,000 iph or higher for a run length of 5,000 to 20,000 sheets. Larger run lengths are only 13 percent of the total process color orders, and it's getting less in the future."

Instead of making faster presses, Nishimura says, manufacturers are now concentrating on cutting setup time.

"The war on productivity is now on reducing makeready time," says Nishimura. "The average pressroom spends about 50 percent of the operator's time on makeready and about 50 percent of the time laying ink on paper."

No one argues that's a ratio that needs to change.

"The whole thing is to automate," says Newton, of A.B. Dick. "Clearly the industry is moving to digital press technology. You look at imagesetters right now: There's really no logical reason that somebody should buy an imagesetter now that all the direct-to-plate systems are out there, because it's an elimination of a costly step. Well, in another seven years you're probably going to have a hard time making a rational argument as to why you should buy a platesetter because, again, that's a costly step. And if that can move directly to press it gives me the benefits of getting rid of costs, [and] allows me to improve the process and take out some of the error in production.

"The whole idea is, if we can get steps out of the process, it's going to make it more cost effective, we're going to get more productivity per unit and capacity planning is going to be easier."

To that end, technologies focused on automating ink control, running registers, plate changers, paper size changing sequences, and blanket and cylinder washing systems will all undergo intensive research and development in the next few years.

The Advance Of Digital Printing

Perhaps the most notable example of a reaction to the popularity of digital printing is Heidelberg's 74 DI, which makes its own plates and features a larger sheet than the company's four-color Quickmaster DI.

"The [Quickmaster] DI created the market in 1991, but the creation of the 74 DI is definitely a response to customer needs," says Kendig. "Customers said they wanted a bigger sheet, more color, a coater and a dryer, all the things that exist on a conventional press. So why not take a Speedmaster and put the imaging on it and make it a DI?

"I believe the 74 DI is a harbinger of things to come, and I believe the printing plate itself probably has a limited life. Why make a plate? Why not just image a cylinder?"

But with three general size categories of printers—less than ten employees, less than 50, and more than 50—along with a variety of market niches, the real question is how quickly direct imaging on a press will truly become a reality for the majority of printers, many of whom are budget-strapped. Kendig says the 74 DI may prove one way to gauge how quickly the technology will spread.

"The 74 DI will give us a real good indication when it starts going to market," he says, "but when an operator pushes a button and three minutes later there are six plates finished and registered, it's pretty dramatic. You're eliminating a production step, and any time in any production process that you can completely eliminate a step, it's very difficult not to make money at it."

The deciding factor, Kendig says, is whether the technology becomes a necessity rather than a desire.

"It's just like if you were to ask me 10 years ago whether every press will have Autoplate," Kendig says. "Ten years ago, everybody said, 'Autoplate, that's no good because the guy's got the presses with the old plate punch, he's got seven presses, he'll never replace all those.' Well, you try to find any printer who doesn't now have Autoplate on their presses. I would equate it to that. It's skipping a step in the process. Autoplate made it easier for people to get plates onto the press and put them in register, and now you're talking about a way to eliminate making a plate at all."

Merging Chips And Iron

Most feel the continued merging of chips with iron will be the offset world's key to remaining competitive with toner-based machines.

"Digital printing is going to be a dynamic growth business for our industry, and the breakout will probably occur in 2001, which is when it will not only be a luxury but a necessity to have digital printing capabilities," says Newton. "It's one of those things that will take on a life of its own."

For in-plant managers, that means doing some extra homework before each major press purchase, to ensure that whatever you buy will be compatible with the coming technology formats. As MAN Roland's Valenta says, "the digital equipment you want is an operating platform that will let you take advantage of either a dry offset environment or a wet environment."

The changing technology will not occur in a vacuum, however. The marketplace is expected to evolve, as well, with some predicting that the packaging business will consistently account for the lion's share of offset jobs. Nishimura cites a recent NPES study suggesting that offset printing will account for 80 percent of publishing, printing, duplicating and copying dollars in the year 2005. Alternative media, including the Internet, will also change the dynamics of the business.

"The way Heidelberg views that is that alternative media will grow at a much faster rate than what we know today as printing, but at the same time, printing will grow, just not at the same rate," says Kendig.

But ultimately, everyone agrees, offset will be a vibrant business throughout the coming decade.

"The paperless society will not exist," insists Surch. "The science of the offset press will change in the future, but the basic premise of squeezing ink onto a sheet of paper will not change."

by DAN CRAY