DI Presses Find Their (Sweet) Spot

Direct-imaging (DI) sheetfed presses remain a niche market within the niche market of digital printing, even as short-run color printing takes off at a fast clip.

These machines—which image printing plates directly on a sheetfed offset press using either Presstek, Creo, or proprietary imaging technology—compete with off-press computer-to-plate (CTP) technology in the high-volume market, and with toner-based digital printing on the low-volume side.

According to Presstek, Inc., worldwide installations of DI presses total 2,700. In its most recent study on digital printing, TrendWatch Graphic Arts estimates that within the U.S. there are 755 establishments that own 874 DI presses.

By comparison, for digital presses such as those from HP-Indigo and NexPress, worldwide installations total 11,471, according to Frank Romano, Fawcett Professor at the Rochester (N.Y.) Institute of Technology School of Print Media. TrendWatch reports that total U.S. market penetration for DI presses is 1%, compared to 3% for digital presses.

The growth of short-run color printing seems to make the case for DI presses.

"In the market from 500 to 10,000 impressions, DI offers much better profitability than competing technologies," says Stan Najmr, worldwide marketing director for Presstek's On-Press Business arm. "In this range, it offers the lowest cost per page, even lower than a conventional press used with CTP technology."

Says Najmr, another advantage that DI presses have over toner-based machines, aside from offset-quality output, is the variety of print applications and substrates they can accommodate.

"You don't have to use specific papers or inks; you use what is available," he says. "Variable-data machines require that you use the same-size paper, which then needs to be trimmed for different applications, such as envelopes. With DI presses, you can adjust the feeder to run envelopes and labels."

Recognizing the need to help its customers retool their promotional strategy, Presstek launched Club DI, a multifaceted program that includes ready-to-use marketing and sales templates, an on-line meeting place, and seminars designed to help customers increase their businesses.

But, says Jörg W. Dähnhardt, direct imaging product manager for Heidelberg USA, the challenge for DI press manufacturers is changing the mindset of the printing industry as a whole, which tends to adhere to the traditional way of selling printing and accruing profitability. "In the short-run market, you make money by having a fast makeready," he says. "You don't make money with the printing itself, but by changing jobs as quickly as possible. You want to run as many jobs as possible in a limited time."

Currently, manufacturers offer DI systems in three size categories: two-page (Adast, Heidelberg, Kodak Polychrome Graphics [KPG], Ryobi, and Screen); four-page (Adast, Heidelberg, KBA, and Sakurai); and eight-page (Komori).

The most recent entry in the marketplace is KPG's DirectPress 5034DI system, which was launched this past spring. Based on a two-page, four-color Ryobi platform, the DirectPress features Presstek's ProFire imaging and thermal plate technology. KPG's move into the DI press market is in direct response to customers' needs, says KPG worldwide staff vice president John Schloff.

"There are now three primary digital avenues: CTP, digital toner-based presses, or the DI workflow," says Schloff. "It is important for us to work with our customers and/or prospect base in an unbiased fashion. Because we now have offerings in all three categories, we are able to objectively listen to customer needs and work along any or all three of those avenues. We have no vested interested to push our customers in any one direction."

Says Schloff, the DirectPress 5034DI's spot size is 21 microns, versus the standard 30 microns. "It can image a plate in 4½ minutes versus 12 minutes, and has inherent design advantages such as more form and ink rollers," he adds.

Heidelberg continues to make improvements to its popular 133/8x181/8" Quickmaster DI press line, which boasts a total worldwide base installation of 1,800 machines, 865 of which are in North America.

The company's newest version, the Quickmaster DI 46-4 Pro, was introduced in 2001 and has been recently upgraded. Now standard on the QM DI Pro, which also has a makeready time of 10 minutes, is a smart spooling mechanism that allows users to customize the amount of plate material used to run a job, whether it be for imprinting company logos or running envelopes (this capability also can be retrofitted on earlier models).

The previous mechanism, explains Dähnhardt, fed a predetermined plate length, which meant that, when running an envelope job, at least two-thirds of the plate area was unused. "Now, you use only what you need," he states. "So instead of producing 36 envelope jobs with one roll of plate materials, you can now produce more than 100."

Printers taking advantage of the press's efficiencies include Belleville, N.J.-based Wheal-Grace Corporation, which installed a QM DI Pro in January. The 52-year-old commercial sheetfed company—which specializes in pharmaceutical, financial, and advertising printing for the New York/New Jersey metropolitan region—is completely filmless, employing CTP on six-color Heidelberg 102 CD presses, along with digital imaging on the QM DI Pro.

"Our sales force found that we were missing opportunities on smaller runs for high-quality color jobs," acknowledges Emíl Salvini, owner and president of Wheal-Grace. "We were encouraged by some of our pharmaceutical customers to explore digital printing, which we had avoided in the past because we didn't want a toner-based system as it is too restrictive in terms of stock. We wanted a system that could put ink on paper—a true CMYK four-color press."

He continues, "The QM DI Pro offered a lot of advantages. Heidelberg had just upgraded it to run 16-point stock, uncoated or coated offset. It has an IR heater to get jobs through to finishing faster. The feeder was re-engineered to be like the feeder on larger presses, so we can register dot-to-dot if we have to run a job through the press again. Our sweet spot on the DI is anything above 500 copies, and we can now run seven-color jobs—you couldn't do that with older DI presses."

Salvini reports that as sales are increasing, selling jobs on the DI press has required a different mindset for his company's sales team. "We are having monthly sales meetings, and have produced literature to educate both our clients and our sales force," he states. "We want everyone to understand how we can help customers using different kinds of presses."

The 74 Karat, developed jointly by KBA and Scitex, was launched at the Drupa 2000 exposition in Germany. The joint venture with Scitex was terminated in April 2002, and KBA's dedicated subsidiary, Karat Digital Press, was merged with parent company Koenig & Bauer as a new digital print and small-format offset division at the company's sheetfed offset plant in Radebeul, Germany. In addition to the four-page 74 Karat, this division also is responsible for the development of the 46 Karat.

To address a demand from the short-run color market for faster finishing, KBA showed at Ipex 2002 a 74 Karat DI offset press with in-line coater.

"The dramatic reduction in drying time enables a perfecting pass to be run as soon as imaging is complete or, with the relevant imposition, instantly, if using the same form," explains Thomas Göcke, marketing and public relations manager for KBA North America, Inc.

He continues, "One of the 74 Karat's big advantages is that it prints the sheets on the underside, so the pile only needs to be rotated 180° horizontally, not turned over. The coated sheets are dried by an infrared [IR]/hot-air dryer located directly above the delivery, and can usually be trimmed after just 60 minutes. The dryer also dramatically cuts the time delay to finishing, from 24 to around three hours, depending on the type of job printed."

In fact, the 74 Karat's in-line coating capability was one of the major selling points for DigiLink, Inc., a high-end prepress shop located in a facility in Alexandria, Va.

Michael Wight, president and chief executive of the 28-employee shop, says he spent two years searching for the right press for his company, whose clients include magazine and book publishers, commercial ad agencies, and design firms. "We have a very diversified client base and were looking for a press that enabled us to utilize our strong color management capabilities," he explains. "We also were looking for new services tailored to our client's changing print needs."

Wight says he waited to buy a DI press until a manufacturer made one with a coater unit. Digi-Link installed the first 74 Karat coater press in the U.S. last fall.

"The fact that the 74 Karat has a coater unit and is a 29" machine was a real win for us," he says. "Our customers are doing a lot more short-run work, anywhere from 100 to 20,000 impressions, and they require it in a hurry. The 74 Karat's aqueous coater lets us go to the cutter, folder, or stitcher right away.

"The press has opened up many new opportunities for us," he continues, citing a 25% increase in sales that is directly attributable to the use of the 74 Karat. "For example, a magazine publisher looking to launch a new venture wanted to run a few hundred prototypes. He didn't want to use his regular magazine printer for a 200-copy run, so he came to us."

Says Wight, the Karat is now being run on two shifts, and plans are underway for expansion in 2004.

In the four-page direct-imaging category is Heidelberg's Speedmaster DI 74 press, of which there are 35 installations worldwide. The 20x291/8" machine is available in 17 configurations, in four to six colors, with optional coating and perfecting capability.

"It offers one of the industry's fastest makereadies, at about 10 minutes for a 29" four-color press, and 12 minutes for a six-color machine," says Heidelberg's Dähnhardt, adding that the machine has a top running speed of 15,000 impressions per hour. "If you are running 5,000 impressions, the press will only run for 20 minutes. In a total of 30 minutes, you have a complete job done so much faster than anything else available."

Komori Imaging Systems' DI offering is a 40" Lithrone S40 sheetfed fitted with Creo's SquareSpot imaging heads. Introduced at Drupa 2000, the machine—called the LS40D—is available in four to eight colors, and is the only eight-up DI press currently available, say company officials.

"The LS40D offers all the benefits of the Lithrone S40 press, including all of the latter's automated makeready features, and is combined with imaging head technology to make it what we think is one the most efficient presses on the market in that format," says Komori Imaging Systems general manager Jackie Hudmon.

For a company like Toronto-based Astley-Gilbert Reproductions (AGR) Ltd., the LS40D was a perfect fit. AGR, the first North American installation site for the press (and Canada's first installation of a six-color Heidelberg Speedmaster DI 74), services marketing, advertising, financial, and construction industries in southern Ontario.

A 100% digital shop, AGR specializes in on-demand delivery of information, offering an array of print solutions, Internet services, on-line collaboration tools, and file transfer capabilities. The company began its foray into digital printing with toner-based devices, but found its run lengths and page counts growing. AGR's average run length is 2,000 impressions, although the company has handled runs from one to 10,000.

"We needed a 40" DI press because we were handling larger-page products," says Ron Verbaas, vice president of digital services for AGR. "With the eight-up LS40D, we found that we could streamline our entire print process."