Adding digital to an offset shop.

[Sheppy]

Hello All, We are currently in the process of adding some digital equipment to our Offset shop. We have been running strictly offset almost 15 years now and are looking to expand our capabilities a bit and we have work promised from some of our existing customers also. The problem is that none of us know a damn thing about digital equipment, should we buy or lease. If we buy what kind of service contract will we need etc. I have gotten so many differing opinions from people. Some people say the KM's are great then I talk to someone that says they are crap etc. Some people swear by xerox and then the next shop I go to they hate xerox. We are looking for a machine that does fairly consistent, pleasing looking color and that won't put us into bankruptcy. Not too concerned with the bindery options because we already have that equipment. How about the Xeorox DC 252? Will that get us there? Any advice and knowledge you can pass along is greatly appreciated.

 

[MailGuru]

Tons of posts throughout PrintPlanet on this very subject, and, yes, you will get many varying views, recommendations, and suggestions. But, that's what is so awesome about this forum!

Really, it all boils down to these topics:

(1) What are you going to use the machine for (what types of applications)?
(2) What volume to you expect to push through it? (Duty Cycle)
(3) What types and sizes of paper do you want it to handle? (Min/Max sizes & substrates)
(4) Check out your location and which vendor has the best service coverage (how many svc techs and how big an area do they have to cover)?
(5) IMHO - Never Buy A Printer -- Always Go for the Lease - at the end of the lease, trust me, you won't want to buy it anyway. This technology moves too fast and, new machines coming out will depreciate your existing machines' value quickly. You're going to want a different machine. Negotiate the click charge and maint contract.

 

[Craig]

Everything Guru said is correct and I will build upon it with my opinion.

Canon, Xerox, Konica, HP.... they all have strengths and weakness. You need to be absolutely honest with what your expectations are with whatever you LEASE. What are you planning on running paper wise? What MIGHT you run on it paper wise??? What types of jobs would/could you run on it? Do they require tight registration for cutting and folding? What do you project your volume to be now, and in 4 years? What is the environment of your shop like?

The Xerox 252 you asked about is an office color machine with very limited capabilities. Registration will be all over the place with it. Color consistency will be hard to duplicate. Remember if the registration quoted in the specs is 1mm, that is for each side of the page. So practically speaking your front to back can be off 2mm and be within specs.

None of these digital boxes are PRESSES they WILL break and need MUCH service compared to an offset. Don't buy for your needs today either.

 

[DCurry]

A place I used to work at had a Xerox (don't remember the model number, but it was a step or two up from an office copier) and it was down half the time, and as someone else mentioned it was tough to keep the color consistent. When it was running it produced nice work.

Then I went to a shop that had an HP Indigo. That thing was great - in the 3 years I worked there it was only down for scheduled maintenance, and the color was extremely consistent. Had a very good operator, which helped a lot. We ran a ton of work on it.

 

[digimon]

Lease a decent digital press with a service contract and reasonable click charges. Indigo 5500 or 7000 and Xerox iGen 150 are pretty good. Once you get started you will print a lot of jobs on them you are now doing on conventional offset. Digital is the way to go. Dont get left behind.

 

[WharfRat]

I would look at the pricing for an iGEN4 rather than a 150

MSD

 

[digimon]

Do you have some experience with the iGen 150 ? If you could elaborate more on what you don't like about it I would reallly appreciate it.

 

[MailGuru]

@Shepfu - The digital equipment they are discussing (Indigo, iGen4, iGen 150, etc) is expensive (1/2 Million $ USD & Up). Unless you are expecting a massive volume, and have really deep pockets, I would not recommend these machines for an offset shop just starting up digital. Also, it's been my experience that these machines, even the Indigo, present the same service problems as their less expensive counterparts. The difference is, on the Indigo, the operator receives extensive training that enables them to make most repairs and service adjustments in-house, without calling in a service technician

On the other side of the coin, as Craig hinted at earlier, in order to get consistent quality color and dependable production, you will need to go a level higher than an office color machine like the Xerox you are looking at.

Three Levels: (1) Low Range/Production = Office Color
(2) Mid Range/Production = Digital Production Presses (they're not really "presses")
(3) High Range/Production = Big-Iron

These "mid-range" production machines (also called "digital production presses") is what I would be focusing on.
These would be the Xerox 8080, 8002, etc., the KM 6500 series, the Ricoh C900 series, the Canon C8000, etc.
(My apologies if your are a vendor & I left your name/product out - these were just quick off the top of my head)

Also, as Craig correctly states, these are mechanical devices that WILL go down from time to time or need servicing to address quality issues, etc. You can count on it. So, there are two things that you can do to reduce your down time: (1) When selecting your vendor, service and response time is just as important, if not, more so, than price and (2) have more than one digital production press in your shop.

 

[iprint4u]

I asked the same questions of this forum just 3 months ago, I too have offset equipment, 30 years worth, 12 units Goss, 6 unit Heidelberg Speedmaster, 6 unit Harris M-110, and a couple of Hamada's. I too have all related finishing equipment and started out believing that the X box was my answer and I had no need for additional finishing. This forum reminds me what we called "Craftsman Club" in the old days, listen carefully to mail guru and Craig, their answers are right on the money, oh and money, 1/2 mill is the reality if you are going to do it even close to right, IMO.

We started out with a reconditioned KM 6501 and a KM blk and wht machine less than a year ago, when the click bills hit 5 to 7K monthly we decided to go all in.

I personally did not count on offset finishing methods to finish digital short to medium runs, the digital pieces have special requirements that are time consuming on convention booklet makers or finishing equipment, it is tough to cut 24 up business cards with UV on a 36" polar cutter. Someone suggested you identify your needs first, really good idea. We chose short to medium runs as we have the longer run projects covered with our offset equipment. My Heidelberg and duplicators are going to get very lonely. digital printing is not just for medical and religion anymore, it is a legitimate profit center, variable data is a great, almost magical tool, but it requires more than just pushing a button. Read everything you can and then some more because what you think today may completely change tomorrow, identify your budget and the type of products you are interested in marketing.

I notice most of these guys on this forum that really know what they are talking about, don't always recommend specific equipment, but they do suggest what to look for in a machine. I am way too short at this to offer advice, for me the KM 8000 and duplo near line finishing options were my choice. There is a KM tech on this forum who is very helpful, and really not that bias, my budget was 3.5 based on current sales numbers and salaries. To me we got a lot for that amount.

Anyway good luck to you and your business , I don't feel this way everyday but for the most part, I love love love this digital world over the offset I am so used to.

The only good advice or direction I can offer, you are in the right place to get the answers you need, this forum is the best, up until a few months ago I never belonged to one nor had I posted, this post to you is my first ever reply, no advice just my opinions.

 

[Glenn-PrePress]

Shepfu,

Good afternoon. I'll tell you our story in hopes it helps you make a better decision for your company.

Five years ago we were in the same position you are now. We were a small offset printer with a couple Heidelberg presses who decided to dip into the digital scene. We purchased a Xerox Docucolor 240, signed a maintenance contract and the machine did OK. Color quality was sufficient but had its limitations. It wasn't a high-end digital press (not a true press) but it got us in the digital mix. Matching a color to a previously printed job (from our same DC240) was always tricky despite the fact that we calibrated the machine before each and every color job. The color quality wasn't awful and it gave us the ability to take in orders that we would not have been competitive with had we needed to run it on our Heidelberg. For clients that were not especially picky on color, this machine did the job. Unfortunately it needed to be serviced much more than we would have liked for the fairly low volume we were putting through it (maybe 20K a month).

Just over a year ago when our maintenance contract expired, we decided to move to a different machine that would hopefully yield better and more consistent color. We chose a Konica Minolta C7000P with the two additional oversized trays. One huge difference between the DC240 and the C7000P was the ability to duplex on thick stock (up to 300 gsm).

IMHO - this machine has been great. The color quality is fantastic. We continue to calibrate before each color job and we are easily able to achieve sufficient color output to match our previously printed C7000P proof or our previous C7000P job. We now use this machine to give hard-copy color proofs. While the color on the Xerox edge to edge was not consistent (reds would tend to go from red-to-deep orange-to-red), I have not had that problem with this Konica Minolta machine.

The only tray that can duplex 300 gsm is our additional Tray 5 (no other trays can handle stock thicker than 256 gsm) ... but that's OK with me; I was tired of manually duplexing (printing one side at a time) on the Xerox.

Service required for this machine has been minimal. The last time I had a technician here was probably a month ago for a small issue. It's still a machine with moving parts that will require service - but nothing like what we needed for our Xerox. Our regular technician is fantastic and knows his stuff.

If I had to provide you with the worst thing about his machine it would be a slight image rotation when duplexing. The software allows you to image shift up, down, left, and right but no image rotation (such as rotating image clockwise 0.5%). It's not a huge deal for us as it is close enough for jobs to be completed without problems.

All in all, I am very happy with our Konica Minolta C7000P. We now do a big chunk of our business on this digital press, many of which we would have normally printed on the Heidelberg.

Good luck with your entrance into the digital arena and I hope our experiences helps you decide which way to go.

 

[MailGuru]

Shepfu, please note - Glenn-PrePress isn't necessarily advocating KM over Xerox, Xerox makes very good, very dependable mid-range production presses. In fact, starting with the DC8002 & later models, the Xerox Mid-range production presses have a built-in ACQS (Automated Color Quality System) that, basically, is an in-line spectrophotometer that constantly compares printed output to the input model and makes adjustments on the fly to ensure color consistency throughout long print runs. A feature that allows us to increase production without having to do as many reprints of pages.

What he is demonstrating to you is the big, big difference of trying to do digital production on an "office color" machine (the Xerox 242) that wasn't really built for that kind of application, as opposed to doing digital production on mid-range presses that were specifically designed for that purpose. Night and day difference.

Moral of Glenn-PrePress's story: Instead of using the flat side of a wrench to drive a nail, you'll find that using a hammer instead is much more efficient. "Office Color" machines are great for everything EXCEPT digital print in a production environment.

 

[JustPrint!]

Hello All, We are currently in the process of adding some digital equipment to our Offset shop. We have been running strictly offset almost 15 years now and are looking to expand our capabilities a bit and we have work promised from some of our existing customers also. The problem is that none of us know a damn thing about digital equipment, should we buy or lease. If we buy what kind of service contract will we need etc. I have gotten so many differing opinions from people. Some people say the KM's are great then I talk to someone that says they are crap etc. Some people swear by xerox and then the next shop I go to they hate xerox. We are looking for a machine that does fairly consistent, pleasing looking color and that won't put us into bankruptcy. Not too concerned with the bindery options because we already have that equipment. How about the Xeorox DC 252? Will that get us there? Any advice and knowledge you can pass along is greatly appreciated.

Trust me you don't want to do Xerox 252. We had a 250 and as everyone here says it's office color. We stepped up to KM C6501 and has been a game changer. Here is what I recommend since you probably have an eye for color (15 years experience), farm out a couple of jobs on a Xerox or KM or Canon or whatever else. Don't let them do finishing. Look at registration (sheet to sheet), color consistency, etc...
IMHO, for digital, go production level or outsource).

Mike