Konica C8000 - What are you using it for?

[InvisSoul]

We recently had a Konica C8000 installed in our shop last week and we are a traditional offset printer, so this is our first digital press.

We are pleased with the color and the quality that the machine prints but we have been running several imposed jobs through the press and find that its hard to control the registration from front to back on most jobs. We know that we won't be able to get every mark to line up on every sheet, there is a much wider tolderance for registration on this.

So far out of the several jobs we've run they all are setup to be trimmed and/or folded after the piece is printed.

So what are you using your Konica C8000 or other digital press for and do you come from traditional offset? If you are from traditional offset with a digital press, how are you dealing with the post-production of material off your digital press?

[Toner4Brains]

Digital presses make money on down and dirty stuff - books, manuals, direct mail pieces, etc. Transitioning your offset work to digital may save you some money on current jobs, but you have to get your sales team educated on how to sell digital and start bringing some different type of work in.

As for the registration, it should hold tight. Coming from offset, your expectation may be high but it seems like you understand what the market deems tolerable for digital. There is a lot you can do with the C8000 to dial it in, and it's very specific to the paper as well. If you are using a paper catalog, you can tie registration settings for specific substrates to it. The basic adjustment is using the "both sides" setting either from the adjustment menu on the user interface or from the paper settings menu on the user interface. From the both sides menu, go to "chart adjustment", select "front" select "print mode" at the bottom, select "5" which will output a quantity of 5 just to be sure, wait until the start button turns blue and press start. It will output a registration pattern with instructions. Once you've dialed the front in, do the same for the back by hitting "back" from the "chart adjustment" menu. This way you are registering for the specific substrate you're using, and like I said if it is a paper catalog entry you are working under, it stores those settings with the paper. Makes a world of difference.

[Coolio]

We are a traditional offset shop with complete bindery and mailing. We put in a Canon IR110 and a Nexpress 2100 about three years ago with the intent of doing personalized variable data mailings. We found out a few things over the last three years and I will echo Toner4Brains on a couple of them.

- Most of the work that is run on the digital devices is not variable data. It is short run that, on paper, is cheaper to produce digitally. Through our efforts we are seeing more variable data printing.
- Train the salesforce to sell digital print!

It was an education process to learn about variable data and pURLS. Learning how to "sell' the customer on this technology, showing ROI and relaying client success stories has helped us transition in that regard.

From a post press perspective it is nearly impossible to throw digital jobs into a traditional workflow from a scheduling standpoint. They are produced too quickly. The little hair our scheduler has left would be gone if we forced him to schedule all of those little jobs. On the other hand, longer run jobs will get scheduled. It is a judgement call on his part.

We also couldn't expect a traditional bindery to support a digital workflow so we invested in a Morgana Creaser/Folder, Duplo Tower Collator and Duplo Bookletmaker, all offline.

We have turned into a "Hybrid" shop and are still fine tuning the workflow as well as educating ourselves and the customer. It has been an interesting process with a few eye opening moments but we are a better shop because of it.

HTH
Greg