Why Color? Why Not?

No longer a luxury, color imaging products are becoming crucial pieces of equipment for in-plants.

by Bill Barrick

Today's color imaging products run faster, are more reliable, give users more capability and cost less. The question is no longer whether companies can afford to outfit their in-plants with dedicated digital color imaging devices; the question, in this competitive economy, is whether they can afford not to.

The power of color is beyond debate. Years of industry research (and common sense) confirm that color nearly always has a more powerful effect on readers than black-and-white. According to color expert Jan V. White's "Color for Impact," readers:

• Perceive color presentations and printed publications 60 percent better than black-and-white.

• Reduce visual search time by up to 80 percent with color coding.

• Pay attention up to 82 percent longer with color.

• Understand presentations 70 percent more when color is used to highlight the pertinent details.

• Increase recall by 60 percent in color educational materials.

• Identify brands 70 percent more effectively when color is added.

In his book "The Persuasive Properties of Color," industry expert Ronald E. Green notes that color visuals increase willingness to read by up to 80 percent. Green also asserts that the use of color can increase motivation and participation by up to 80 percent. Those advantages translate into more prospective customers, leading to more sales. This puts color document production by the in-plant in a more favorable light.

Increase Sales With Color

"Color sells," says Sandi Siegel, senior graphics designer for IVAX Corp., a pharmaceutical firm in Miami. "Every month we put 15,000 full-color sell sheets in the hands of our sales staff at trade shows. These sheets are completely customizable, so when our staff attends the shows, they have the most up-to-date and impressive collateral to share with prospective customers. This would be impossible without a dedicated high-volume color printer."

Despite this evidence, many in-plants still view dedicated color peripherals as more of a luxury item than a business necessity. Color peripherals are seen as too expensive and not worth the cost. It's less expensive to outsource, they think.

This is no longer the case. We are now at a point where, in many cases, purchasing and maintaining a dedicated color imaging device is more cost-efficient than outsourcing color jobs.

Prices Dropping

For one, the cost of color imaging equipment has dropped precipitously over the past decade. The general office environment is the fastest-growing market segment for color, according to International Date Corporation (IDC). As such, color product manufacturers are competing with one another to serve that exploding market, resulting in lower prices, faster products and imaging technology that produces vibrant color at a fraction of color's perceived cost.

At one time, the fastest color copiers (producing seven to nine pages per minute) were technologically less sophisticated and—at $35,000—quite expensive. Color peripherals continued getting faster by two or three pages with each successive generation, but the machines hovered near that prohibitive price point.

In recent years, however, the cost has begun to drop. Today, high-quality color imaging equipment retails for approximately $20,000, a nearly 45 percent reduction in cost. Per-page production costs have followed a similar path. In-plant managers might once have outsourced at approximately $1.25 per standard PowerPoint page; today they can control production and spend less than 17 cents per page.

Better Technology

As the price has dropped, the technology has improved. For a long while, color peripherals' reliance on single drum multi-pass technology resulted in a speed barrier of approximately 11 to 12 pages per minute. Single drum technology has now been replaced with Multi-drum Color Processing (similar to a printing press) that is automatically synchronized with a "video laser clock" and housed within a standard office-friendly frame.

This breakthrough has shattered speed barriers: the newest machines can now produce up to 27 full color copies or prints per minute. In addition, multi-drums only rotate once per image, improving reliability and allowing higher volumes. High-tech image stabilization systems, utilizing advanced process control and sensors that detect minute changes in humidity, can handle the faster print speeds and control image quality more efficiently, thereby producing more consistent output.

According to Sandi Siegel, the question is not actually color versus black-and-white, but color versus nothing at all.

"Over the past 10 months, we've produced 150,000 pieces of color collateral," Siegel says. "If we had been forced to go out of house, we simply wouldn't have produced them—it would have been too expensive. In addition, out of 150,000 pieces, we only had two jams, total. That's a level of efficiency that simply wasn't possible a few years ago."

In-plant graphics departments are charged with the task of producing high-quality material—collateral marketing documents, labels, packaging and more—while keeping a close eye on the bottom line. Today's economy makes this even more imperative. The demand for high-quality collateral continues to rise alongside the demand for budgetary restraint.

Color imaging equipment is ideal for managers looking to trim costs and improve productivity. A dedicated copier/printer gives users the ability to execute high-quality on-demand jobs in color. It allows users to avoid the significant upcharges associated with outsourced vendors.

Color imaging equipment lets graphics departments produce predictable, low-cost color proofs at each stage of a page layout and document design. It keeps expensive, inefficient ink-jet cartridges from smearing your bottom line. These advantages improve in-plant performance and cost-efficiency, which can resonate throughout a company.