Guide to Buying New Digital Equipment

[rcreveli]

I am not a purchasing expert of any sort but, I feel over the last 15 years I've been involved in a lot of equipment purchases, digital, offset, bindery etc. I feel that we've developed a system that is easily adaptable to any one in the industry. Since this is the digital forum I'll use that as an example.

1. Wishlist/Criteria
If you are replacing a piece of equipment this will be easier than buying something completely new but now is the time to make and rate you list.
Here are a few of our criteria - we ended up with 17 for our new digital press
1. Improved Image quality - we defined this to mean closer to offset than our bizhub 6500 with improved grayscale and better spot color matching.
2. Must be able to run 13x19 out of 1 drawer
3. Duplex 300 GSM
4. Improved deskewing
5. better color controls

etc.

2.rate your critera
Assign them value from 1 down. In our case #1 was improvement in quality. #17 was inline finishing because of our offline capabilities. Also Inline finishing is quite expensive and Inline stitcher can easily go for between 20-40K US$. That's a nice upgrade to your offline/nearline capabilities.

3. Find Machines that fit into your criteria. Your top 5 criteria are going to help you eliminate machines very quickly. Our #2 Criteria of duplexing 300GSM with our #1 of improving image quality got us down to 3 machines from 5 vendors. 3 Vendors proposed to Bizhub 8000.

4. Test 1.
We gave each company the files with offset printed samples and a carton of paper. They were told to match there output as closely as possible to the offset. We specified which controller and then let them have at it.

5. Double Blind Review
I've been doing this for 15 years. I and everyone I work with have some bias regarding vendors. Maybe we didn't like a tech or had really great experience with a machine. I sought to eliminate this from the first round reviews.

I took all of the outputs and assigned them a number. I then gave key employees a questionnaire and asked them to review the outputs. These employees including the production manager, the designer, the digital key op and the owner.

The questionnaire had both objective and subjective questions for each of the 3 sample files ie.

Which output most closely matches offset

Which output looks the best.

I then tallied the results and we were down to two machines.

6. Stress Test.

I went to see the vendors and brought a carton of 100# coated cover and a test file that I built. This file was brutal It has multiple different skin tones, RGB B&W images. Both blacks and whites with fine details and solid swatches. I then printed the file head to tail to check that the entire image are was consistent.

I ran an entire carton at each site. I timed the job and pulled and marked regular samples for consistency.

7. Haggling.

Ask for the world.

Go back a re asses ask about component prices. We saved several thousand dollars by getting a finisher with a staple unit instead a just a stacker.

Remember that most of your bill is going to be clicks.


So that's the system we used for both our last major purchases. The interesting this about this system is that both times the winner was not whom we expected.

When we bought our last B&W generation we bought Xerox 4112's a machine we had no interest in

This time we decided on a Canon solution. This was even more surprising since both the owner and I haven't looked at Canon color since the CLC 1000/5000 generations we were so badly burned.


Sorry for the long post and I hope this helps some of you.

[erth]

I like your testing system!

Did you choose the Canon 6000/7000 or the 6010/7010?

Also did your testing include the Xerox 800? The Fuji guys were pushing it.

If I understood correctly the Bizhub 8000 was #3 - what was machine #2?

Erth

[rcreveli]

We chose the the Canon 6010. It best met our needs at the price we wanted. we would have liked the VP but the CPM is not a huge issue for us and this machine gives a a significant speed boost over our 6500. Also the VP requires 3 phase which would require additional expense in instalation

The 800 was considered briefly but was way out of our budget, had a higher click rate over 11x17 and we did not think we could sell it's advantages to our customers.

Our top 3 machines were
the Xerox 7002 - eliminated almost immediately due to concerns from other printers
the Xerox 700 - eliminated for quality in the double blind and stock handling
the Bizhub 7000 - eliminated during the double blind
The bizhub 8000 - first runner up
The Canon 6010

[thebluesdude]

How is it going so far with the Canon? were just about to sign for the 6010vp with the oce rip to replace our Xerox 5000

Cheers
Ron

[rcreveli]

Ask me in 2 weeks It's getting installed next week.

[erth]

rcreveli

You have had the Canon 6010 for about 4 months now - can you me a review.

We have talked with the Canon rep and have been quoted $105,000 for the 6010 with the A2200 server, the AJ2 two bin saddle stitcher and the POD Deck A1, installation,set up training and a .055 color click and .02 b/w. The the same setup with the 6010VP was $138,000.

In reading some of the other posts wmwilker has ongoing problems with the 7010VP.

theBluesDude did you get 6010?

Thanks
Erth

[neleson]

Hi,

Thanks for sharing this informative post. This post will really helpful. Digital equipment are very sensitive and very costly. They provide high class efficiency.

___________________________
t1285 compatible ink

[thebluesdude]

rcreveli

You have had the Canon 6010 for about 4 months now - can you me a review.

We have talked with the Canon rep and have been quoted $105,000 for the 6010 with the A2200 server, the AJ2 two bin saddle stitcher and the POD Deck A1, installation,set up training and a .055 color click and .02 b/w. The the same setup with the 6010VP was $138,000.

In reading some of the other posts wmwilker has ongoing problems with the 7010VP.

theBluesDude did you get 6010?

Thanks
Erth

Hi Erth, no we didnt get it in the end, they messed us about big time and changed the price four times, even though it was getting cheaper everytime it still had a glaring error...no engineers within a hundred mile radius to us. The good thing for us short term was that Xerox gave us another DC5000AP as a sweetener to stay :O)

[Big Dave]

rcreveli, can you upload the test print file you used to "stress" the printers ?

[wmwilker]

rcreveli, can you upload the test print file you used to "stress" the printers ?

Our 7010 was installed on June 28 and we are still having major problems. I'm ready to send it back.