Controversy: The Battle of PK Between Digital Printing and Offset Printing (I)

In 1994, Xeikon, Indigo and Agfa (as Xeikon's original equipment suppliers) set off the trend of full digital, four-color, on-demand high-speed printing presses. Since then, Scitex's Spontan, IBM's InfoCloor, Xerox's DocuColor and other company's products have joined the ranks of digital printing. How does this affect the traditional offset printing (if it has been called a traditional one after fierce technological and economic changes in the past 20 years?)

Mike Chiricuzio, managing director of the Sequel Division (a graphics consolidation department) of Hertage Graphics, said: “Digital printing will not have any loss for traditional offset printing, and it will be supplemented to some extent. Having an Indigo press enables us to Provide customers with more services."

There is no doubt that high-speed, on-demand color printing with appropriate quality development will bring permanent changes to the entire industry. But what kind of change will happen is still controversial. Will digital printing open a gap in the offset we know? How many business opportunities will it take away from traditional printing? Who will own the machine? Is the printer choosing between Komoris and Heidbergs machines, or is the prepress output center selecting large format color printers or color copiers according to customer requirements?

Affirmative opinion

New printer suppliers generally boast that their digital press will become a technological trend and will not reduce the printing business. These digital presses allow customers to use color in advance where they are not sure whether it is worth color printing. In this system, fewer than 100 copies are allowed, but the print quality is much better than that of color copying.

On the other hand, many people do not report their optimism. They think that the unreasonable price of printing equipment will inevitably affect the color printing. Manufacturers have to replace them every day to keep them running to compensate for their costs. Are there enough markets for short-run color printing to pay for the investment? Those who are pessimistic believe that before a large number of technologies were discovered in this market, the printing press should stop shifting to about 1,000 print jobs, although this is very profitable for emerging printers.

It has been four years since the invention of the new machine and its application in North America, and they have achieved success in the industry—but quantification is almost impossible. In the past few years, the general growth of the economy was partly due to the development of the printing industry. According to the report of the National Printing and Offset Printing Association, the growth of the printing market in the first half of 1997 was not less than 4% compared to the same period in the past. However, digital printing has not yet appeared in the industrial team at this time.

Andrew Paparozzi of the National Printing Association and the Center for Economics of the Offset Printing: “It is sometimes a supplement to traditional printing, and sometimes it is a strong competitor to traditional offset printing.”

Even individual companies that introduce digital presses sometimes find it difficult to quantify their impact. The need for short-term printing for short-run printing is highly variable every month. Mark Fleming, industrial consultant for Strategies On Demand (NapervilleIL), who was engaged in on-demand color printing research from the beginning, believes that “North American companies that own Xeikon and Indigos digital presses are also not producing large quantities.” Printing has begun to shift to digital processes, and most color printing does not. Fleming's recent research on the market shows that in the United States, the amount of print-on-demand printing in the United States reached 10.1 million U.S. dollars in 1996, and the electronic color separation reached 3.6 million U.S. dollars. The overall ratio has not changed significantly. According to his forecast, the total market demand for on-demand printing will reach US$ 17.7 million in 2001.

Fleming believes that color digital printing has not yet opened up a new market.

He pointed out: "No matter what you do, the total amount of printing will not change. It will only be affected by the economy." Therefore, any amount due to ultra-short printing will have an impact on offset printing to some extent. .
In order to measure the actual impact of digital printing presses in the industry, we discussed with many digital printer manufacturers, and asked about the impact of new technologies in their offset printing business.

"It's the offset of traditional printing," said Bob Sacco of Lexington Press (a full-service printing company in Lexington). Sacco operates a Heidelberg GTO-DI four-color press and an Indigo E-PRINT 1000 digital press. Lexington bought digital presses in 1995—they were the first companies in North America to do so.

Sacco said that in order to compete with GTO-DI, Indigo provided him with the latest features of short-run color printing. He confirmed: "It is indeed useful, and it is not in the past offset presses and Heidelberg's presses. Mixing digital technology with traditional technology does bring new products and services to printers. First, short-run printing does Markets - The number of manuals, manuals, bids, and printed documents ranges from 10 or 20 to 100. "Since we have used digital printing, our traffic has grown rapidly. Sacco said, "We are making color prints for all levels of Bangkok - it was impossible to make such a good manual five years ago. ”

Printers with digital printing machines can also combine offset and digital printing in new and feasible ways. Sacco pointed out that Ledington Press's Indigo also used manual and advertisements to test when it started mass production.

The Graphic Express printing company in Boston purchased Agfa's color press (Chromapress) in August 1995 and recently printed four-color folders on heavy-coated paper. Inside the folder is paper that can be sold separately in full color on Chromapress. Skip Dyer, the company’s manager, said: “Chromapress, a color press, offers customers another service that can respond quickly to other needs.” He sees digital printing as a supplement to traditional printing technology, not Instead of. He said: "The reason we are developing this new market is to use new technologies to attract new customers."

Craig Gagliano, managing director of the DigitalDirect branch of ST.Joseph’s company in Toronto, agrees. "There are many resources allocated to digital applications, but there is no real transformation between current trends and traditional printing. They are still a new trend," he said. DigitalDirect used IBM's InfoColor color printing system and recently introduced Heidelberg's Quickmaster direct imaging press.

“The digital press did not reduce the work of traditional offset printing,” said the deputy general manager of Mary-Lee Schneider R.R. Donnelley’s large printing technology company. “For us, our impression is the opposite. It is a substitute for traditional printing. "Donnelley produced a large number of digital color prints for direct mailing companies, published directories, advertisements for special markets, like HMOs and other health-conscious factories.

Schneider explained: "One factor is that Donnelley is a company that is mainly responsible for web printing. We didn't do short-run color business before we had a digital press, so digital printing opens up new markets for us." In fact, the general number Printing customers are generally not generally interested in the economic price of short-run printing.