Stocking for Digital Print

Many printers are expanding into digital to serve existing customers' needs. This is a rather easy investment call. The capital cost of digital equipment is comparatively small against gravure, flexography and offset expansions. And it requires less space.

Fixed costs such as labor and maintenance are easily integrated. Consumables might be slightly higher but are without great impact on overall variable costs (including energy). On the revenue side, margins are much higher, even on small volumes. Sales reps get a boost by having another widget to talk about and sell.

Paper-makers moved into this arena from the onset. Their smaller machines were readily used to apply additives and the flex processes needed to finish substrate surfaces to accept digital marking. Many mills gained related experience early on, producing for black-and-white, non-impact printers.

Today, all paper companies can make "guaranteed" digital grades. Likewise, many converters transform uncoated stock into highly pre-finished materials (perfed, laminated, punched, etc.) allowing for increasingly sophisticated products from digital applications in printing, labeling and display.

All of this expansion has given designers tremendous opportunity to expand the range of services—including the all-important test market and market segmentation. Every catalog publisher, magazine circulation manager and product marketeer is interested in designing products for specific buyers. This effectively trims press runs and page counts. So-called "versioning" and "personalizing" is prevalent in more and more marketing strategies.

In the fine paper world, digital stock can be expensive—sometimes doubling costs. Price is accompanied by other factors: lower durability to being kept in inventory and more sensitivity on press. The wonderful mark-ups in printing digital can be zapped quickly by wrong stock selection or by poor handling and storage.

Most digital paper stocks, and particularly sheet stocks, need to be used immediately and completely. Unless a shop has a regularly running digital operation, consider using one of the express services offered by most paper mills (such as Domtar, Fox River, Sappi, Appleton) or their distributors (xpedx, Unisource). Digital stock should never be stored in an unconditioned facility.

One exceptional advantage of digital lies in proofing. When designing a piece, it's easy to use the same stock for a proof. This also helps with estimate accuracy, as well as projecting color matching and image-quality reproduction.

Using the actual stock for proofing is no problem on sheetfed machines. But roll-fed systems (either roll-to-sheet or web-based printers like the Xeikon) present complications. In these cases, think ahead and request matching sheeted stock from the merchant. All the big guys, whether uncoated (like Weyerhaeuser, Mohawk) or coated (SAPPI, Stora Enso), have sample sheets that you can run or that they can run at your request.

Newer digital machines (Xerox iGen3 and DocColor 8000, Xeikon 5000 and HP Indigo) allow for wider output than standard 11×17″ sheets. Designers can be sold on using the presses to test banners, POP, book covers, posters and panoramic photography.

Paper mills are responding to these new requirements. For OEMs such as HP Indigo, the focus is on brightness and weight, where its line has expanded into a 125 CIE brightness for heavier (80 lb., 100 lb.) gloss and matte coated covers. Mohawk Paper also has options for the HP Indigo user with a sapphire-treated Superfine and 50/10 (recycled content) stocks required by the machine.

On the coated side, the same can be true for comparing a Mitsubishi Diamond stock with Stora Enso's Futura or 4CC lines. The mills are likely to provide a small cost benefit against the OEM grades, especially if you order truckloads mixed with traditional coated papers.