Digital Printing-Toner - Cut Sheet (Color)

EVEN AFTER installing an HP Indigo 1050 digital color press four years ago, San Diego State University ReproGraphic Services still found it challenging to reach portions of the four-color market. Longer-run jobs were not cost effective on the 1050, so the in-plant was using its aging computer-to-plate (CTP) system and two-color presses to produce them. It was not the most efficient setup. So in 2006, Leslie Rutledge, manager of the nine-employee in-plant, made the decision to install a Presstek 34DI direct imaging press. Life has not been the same since. The chemistry-free, waterless offset press images plates directly on the press, saving time, improving quality and decreasing costs.

According to a new study, the number of government in-plants using conventional printing equipment has declined steadily in recent years. Lithography now accounts for less than 30 percent of the printing produced in house.

INTERQUEST, a leading market and technology research and consulting firm serving the digital printing and publishing industry, today announced the release of Digital Production Printing in the Federal Government: Market Update.

Dozens of in-plant managers came to Philadelphia recently for the On Demand Conference. Here's a brief glimpse of what they saw there.

Philadelphia was the digital printing capital of the country this week, as the AIIM/On Demand Show brought thousands of printers and manufacturers to IPG's hometown. Among them were scores of in-plant managers from around the country.

IPG Editor Bob Neubauer ran into managers from Temple University, Penn State, The Hershey Co., Securian Financial Group, University of Delaware, The National Board of Medical Examiners, and many other organizations as he walked the show floor. Bucknell University brought a half dozen in-plant staff members on a bus from Lewisburg, Pa.

Pitney Bowes will now offer Riso’s HC5500 color ink-jet printer to U.S. customers. The HC5500 works in conjunction with a broad array of Pitney Bowes products, including its mail management software and inserters, to form a complete “print-to-mail” solution in a cut-sheet environment.

“Our collaboration with Riso is a natural fit with our integrated printing and mailing solutions,” said Mark Pollack, vice president, marketing, U.S. Mailing for Pitney Bowes. “The HC5500 offers our customers a high-speed, low-cost color ink-jet printing solution that can help increase operational efficiency and convenience with the creation and printing of documents in-house with a broad array of Pitney Bowes products.”

“OUR PRIMARY focus really is color,” declares Dallas Johnson, from his office at the University of California-Riverside. “We’ve moved away from black and white. We saw that as sort of a dying market…still see it that way.” With 35 years of printing experience to guide him, Johnson thinks he has a pretty good idea where the industry is headed. So when the director of Service Enterprises decided to move his in-plant away from the “dying” monochrome market and into the more promising world of color printing, he did it in a big way.

Michigan State University is “very picky” about quality and registration, says Dennis Seybert, manager of Print and Digital Communications. So when the in-plant’s Konica Minolta bizhub PRO C500 left the shop a little unimpressed, it decided to upgrade. In January, the East Lansing, Mich.-based in-plant swapped the C500 for a new bizhub PRO 6501 color printer.

WE’VE ALL seen impressive digital color printing statistics. For example, in 2006, for the first time ever, U.S. companies spent more on production digital color printing than on digital black-and-white, according to Caslon & Company’s 2008 PDP Market Analysis Report for North America. By 2008 the retail value of production digital color printing rose even further to $13.5 billion—65 percent more than digital black-and-white. In fact, while black-and-white volumes are declining, digital color printing is increasing at a rate so great that Caslon predicts the retail value will more than double in just five years.

Canon U.S.A. was once again ranked first in the overall page copier market in the U.S., according to Gartner’s Printer, Copier and MFP Quarterly Statistics Database for fourth quarter 2008. Canon had 21 percent of the market, according to the database.

“Canon remains dedicated to making investments in technology that allows us to deliver value with the most robust array of digital document imaging solutions on the market,” said Ted Nakamura, executive vice president and general manager, Imaging Systems Group.