Printers Develop an Eye for DI

Today's print buyers, seeking to capitalize on pinpoint marketing, proliferating brands, inventory turnover, and smaller and more focused ad campaigns—always carried out at the fastest possible speed—are pressuring printers to produce quality four-color printing, in short runs and quick turnarounds, at economical, competitive prices.

In response, more and more printers are taking a good hard look at direct-imaging (DI) presses, which image plates directly on press, for their promise of shorter makereadies and lower cost per page for small runs, all at offset-level quality. With DI technology, small and mid-size printers reason, they can utilize their digital workflows and electronic files to drive presses that are more or less conventional in nature, without having to buy either a computer-to-plate (CTP) system or a toner-based digital imaging device.

At present, some printers are buying the original two-up DI presses, others are opting for equipment with the new four-up format (soon to go to eight), and still others are looking at even newer systems that spray the plate image onto the press cylinder (for more, turn to page 38).

A study conducted last year by State Street Consultants, a Boston-based industry research group, reports that 17.9% of U.S. printers said they wanted to adopt DI technology this year, and 47.4% within the next two years.

Also, while only 200 DI presses were operating nationwide five years ago, a recent study from NPES The Association for Suppliers of Printing, Publishing and Converting Technologies indicates that next year more than 2,700 DI presses will be in use in the U.S. The developments in DI are expected to play a major role at the international Print 01 show to be held in Chicago in two months.

"At last year's Drupa event in Germany, there was a general awareness that the industry is rapidly going digital, and now we are seeing printers starting to look seriously into entering this market," reports industry consultant Andrew Tribute.

Tribute has been studying the DI market since its inception in 1991 with the introduction of the Heidelberg GTO-DI press that used for the first time patented imaging heads from Hudson, N.H.-based Presstek, Inc., which has a copyright on the term DI.

"I think we'll see quite an impact in the next-generation technology," Tribute continues, "particularly for the smaller printers who are looking for something that is smaller in format but indistinguishable in quality from offset. We'll see the bigger printers go for a mix between digital print and very automated CTP and offset."

Whereas Drupa 1995 had just two DI presses on exhibit, one of which was still in development, last year's Drupa—dubbed by the media as "The Digital Drupa"—had 16 DI models on display, including machines from Adast, Akiyama, Heidelberg, Karat Digital Press (KBA and Scitex), Ryobi, and Sakurai. Xerox, announcing its foray into DI printing, debuted its DocuColor 400 DI-4/5 at Drupa 2000, then launched its DocuColor 233 DI-4 at last fall's Graph Expo in Chicago.

Heidelberg accounts for the majority of DI presses worldwide, with more than 1,500 Quickmaster (QM) DI installations and about 60 20x29" Speedmaster 74 DI units in place. The latter product's official U.S. launch was at Graph Expo 2000.

"The convergence of Quickmaster technology to Speedmaster DI technology offers our customers a path to meet the changing needs of their business and be prepared for future success," explains Eric Frank, vice president of Heidelberg digital printing.

"The quickening of the DI business at Drupa served to spread the technology to a wider number of suppliers," says Efrem Lieber, vice president of sales and marketing for Presstek, whose plate imagers account for some 95% of the worldwide DI installation base. "Press manufacturers finally caught on that this was critical because it offers the ability to use a familiar device—a printing press—with modern digital technology. The driving factors are quantity, quality, and quickness."

By Presstek's estimation, the savings in makeready time from using on-press spooling technology is mandatory for optimizing DI profits. Spooling at each printing unit automatically advances plates into position for imaging at the start of each job. After printing, the used plates are automatically wound onto take-up rolls as the next job begins. The simultaneous change of up to five plates takes less than 20 seconds, says the company.

Founded in 1987, Presstek supplies its PearlDry imagers and plates to the large majority of DI-based press manufacturers, including Adast, Heidelberg, Karat, Ryobi, Sakurai, and Xerox. Last year, Presstek reported sales of $87 million.

The new Ryobi 3404DI, Xerox DocuColor 233 DI, and Xerox DocuColor 400 DI exclusively employ Presstek's spooled PearlDry Plus technology for automatic plate loading. Today, Presstek DI imaging heads are integrated into nine of the 16 DI presses either on the market or still under development.

Many of these machines incorporate Presstek's new ProFire thermal imaging system, which combines lasers, electronics, and motion control into one modular package.

The ProFire system uses an array of eight laser clusters, spaced at 2" intervals across the width of the exposure system, with each cluster holding four FirePower laser diodes, each of which records its own spot.

"We got into the DI market for one specific reason: we saw the demand for quick-turnaround work intensifying every day and we didn't want to be just another printer with CTP," says Anthony Abunassar, president of Photo Effects, a 17-year-old high-end prepress shop that transformed itself into a digital printing firm four years ago.

"We were seeing a tremendous bottleneck for our clients when our jobs went to the printers," says Abunassar. "We thought that DI was a very simple entrée to get into print, ink on paper, where there wouldn't be a quality issue." Photo Effects became the first printer in the U.S. to install Heidelberg's Speedmaster 74 DI more than a year ago (it also runs a 13x19" QM 46 DI Plus amid a complete Scitex prepress system, and offers digital proofing services as well).

Abunassar estimates that average gross profit margins approach 35% for the Washington, D.C.-based firm, which handles average run lengths of 3,500 for its customer base of mostly high-end ad agencies, design firms, and corporate communication departments.

The four-up 74 DI, which Heidelberg started officially shipping at the beginning of the year, features five-minute automatic plate-loading capability using any processless thermal plate. Available in four-, five-, or six-color configurations, the machine's average throughput rating is 15,000 sheets per hour at a 200-line screen.

Last month, Print Digital installed the first 74 DI in Manhattan, reports Tom Fischer, who founded the short-run color shop five years ago using the Quickmaster DI. "As our customer base continues to grow, we can now deliver larger-format DI, in six colors, with in-line coating," he says.

Today's Graphics, a Philadelphia-based printer, also reports average gross profit margins of 35% with its new Speedmaster 74 DI and two Indigo TurboStream presses. Executive vice president Scott Elfreth, speaking on the virtues of DI as a panelist at the recent VUE/Point 2001 conference, reported that business had been "bonkers" since the printer merged with a prepress shop and bought a GTO-DI in 1994.

"Our customers are paying for speed, and we give it to them," testifies Elfreth, who cites average run lengths of 3,000 for jobs that are rarely in his shop for more than 72 hours. "Other guys are lowering their prices, but we aren't. We're charging what it's worth."

PrintTech, a 23-year-old print shop in Mountainside, N.J., became one the first digital printers in the country with the purchase of an ECRM AutoKan in 1992. Company officials say that the firm is now generating $60,000 to $80,000 a month with its Quickmaster 46 DI Plus, which was installed last July.

"We're very competitive in what I call the 'pleasing color' market, meaning not high-end color," says PrintTech partner Russell F. Evans. "If a customer is looking for a picture in a newsletter to have skin tones that are just right, we're not the ones for the job. But if they want a good picture that has color in it and makes someone want to read an article, that's us."

He adds, "There is a huge sector of the market now that doesn't need that higher level of craftsmanship, and it's getting bigger every day. People simply would rather see the cost-savings turnaround."

Evans, who refers to his firm as a quick commercial printer, notes, "If you think of the issue of obsolescence alone, some estimates say that 25% of everything that's printed gets thrown out before it's used. We feel that mid-size printers are going to see a real downturn in their run lengths, and we're investing heavily in that vision. Our immediate goal is to get enough volume to put another Quickmaster beside the one we already have."

At the same time that digital printing eliminates many prepress steps and compresses front-end time, thereby moving everything much closer to production, the market demand for customized printing continues to increase rapidly. Customized mailings, for example, have been shown to quadruple direct-mail response rates from 2.5% to 10% or more.

Here, versioning, shell printing, and personalization are well suited for DI printing.

At the hub of this new distribute-and-print and just-in-time digital industry are Internet-powered print management and workflow systems that drive remote publishing and proofing, digital libraries of print files, distribute-and-print strategies for worldwide marketing and communication, and just-in-time printing for inventory management.

"There definitely is an emerging market of printing that requires short-run, high-quality, quick-turnaround color, and DI presses cater to it specifically with margins that exceed those of CTP," contends Jim Carroll, executive vice president of Rastar Digital Media, a $10 million, 100-employee shop in Salt Lake City, Utah, that has both CTP and digital printing capabilities.

Rastar Digital Media houses two Xeikon presses, an Indigo TurboStream, and a KBA 74 Karat press, which was installed six months ago to "augment and add value to some of the relationships we've developed in variable printing," says Carroll, who estimates that his firm's profits from variable-data printing could double within the next 12 to 15 months.

"Print buyers are becoming very savvy about inventory churn," relates Carroll. "They've found that producing shorter runs on a quick, efficient DI-type press gives them a chance to respond to market needs, client expectations, and competitive pressures. They can get to market faster because they're moving collateral over and over with changes and updates. Before, they knew long runs would be warehoused, then thrown away when life expectancy ended."

Rastar Digital Media represents the first U.S. commercial installation of the new 74 Karat. "We were drawn to the 74 Karat for a lot of reasons: its own patented inking system, speed of makeready, predictable color, and user friendliness," says Carroll. "When we show clients the Karat and tell them we're still just dropping their files on press, it's a very easy sell and the value proposition stays the same in their minds."

The 74 Karat, which most U.S. printers saw for the first time at Graph Expo 2000 last September, features a reported makeready time of 17 minutes, same-edge paper feed and delivery, a three-segment common impression cylinder, and a piston-driven ink supply with sensors inside the dispensing units.

Unique to the 74 Karat is its Gravuflow keyless, self-calibrating inking system that integrates inking systems from other printing processes, including the doctor blade from gravure technology and the anilox roller from flexography. The inking system uses just one form roller to ensure that each time ink is transferred from the rubber blanket-coated form roller to the plate, it is freshly charged and is of a uniform thickness for consistent, predictable print results.

Last month, Karat supplier KBA of Germany signed a global alliance by which httprint Europe's German operation would furnish customized software to integrate the press into an Internet and e-commerce scenario at users' premises. Modules include color management, data control, preflighting, high-speed data transfer, and remote proofing.

Worldwide, KBA adds, it has sold upwards of 40 of the 74 Karat presses, of which more than 30 are in operation.

Installing a 19x25" Adast 705C DI press not only was part of Astoria Graphics, Inc.'s campaign to expand its capabilities, it was with the growing recognition that its customers, many of whom are in the financial services area, wanted reduced quantities for smaller inventories and lower costs when making changes.

"Clients who normally print twice a year now can reduce quantities and print four times a year, making the necessary changes they need without feeling that they're going to get killed every time they come back to reorder," explains Ron Koff, co-president of Astoria Graphics. "Not using film helps us reduce costs, and we're passing along the savings."

The 85-year-old commercial printing firm recently moved its operation in New York City to a new 30,000-square-foot facility. Koff says that the Adast press, installed just three months ago, is being used to produce sell sheets, brochures, and financial covers.

Adast's 705 DI series comes in two-, four-, and five-color configurations; uses Presstek's Pearl DI technology; and features job management, imaging control, and ink key profiling.

Among other DI press introductions at Graph Expo last fall, Xerox debuted its DocuColor 400 DI and DocuColor 233 DI as co-branded product with Presstek, which is responsible for the plates and imaging.

The DocuColor 400 DI was shown at Drupa 2000 as the PAX (Presstek-Adast-Xerox) and sold as a four- or five-color unit. The DocuColor 233 DI is a two-up, four-color common-impression-cylinder press offered as competition to Heidelberg's QM DI 46-4. Presstek's PearlDry Plus plates are stored on rolls inside the two plate cylinders.

Sakurai's 29" Oliver 474EPII DI press, now available with four, five, or six colors, can be run either using Presstek PearlGold process-free plates or conventional plates.

At the beginning of 2002, Screen will make available its new 29" TruePress 744 four-up, four-color DI press to add to its current TruePress family, which includes the TruePress 544 (a two-up, four-color press) and the TruePress 742 (a two-color single printing unit).

The press chassis for the 744, which uses two 742 units in series, is built by Sakurai, while the imaging and printing units are built by Screen. The imaging system, taken from Screen's Tanto imagesetter, comprises a 660-nm, 120-beam infrared laser that moves across the plates as the press cylinders rotate during plate exposure.

"Everything is the same as a conventional press except for the imaging head, and everything can be done by one operator," explains Screen (USA) marketing manager Yukiyoshi Tanaka. "All the operator has to do is transfer the data and then put in the inks."

Doug Schardt, system product manager for Komori America—which is poised to enter the DI realm next year with the commercial release of its 40", eight-page Project D press—says the most significant advantage of going DI is the level of automation achieved since all those intermediate steps of the prepress department are eliminated.

"For example," he explains, "digital imaging eliminates the register step altogether since all the images are exposed in register, which saves a lot of waste. Also, in the CTP process, if you need to expose one more plate for one job while another set is in the queue, you'll probably have to wait, which means that a typical cycle takes a lot longer than eight minutes. With DI technology, there's no waiting at all."

Schardt calls the Project D press, which is equipped with Creo-Scitex plate imagers, a fully versatile machine that allows printers to mix and match. Thus, one unit can print using a conventional plate, the next can be DI.