Is there a profitable B2 digital press

[bill kahny]

I am a small offset commercial printer. aging out of our old Komori 20x26, everything else is already digital. As far as short run press work how many sheets/clicks are need to profitably change to a bigger digital press? How long of a static run does press definately beat digital? I have both canon and ricoh color boxxes and a ricoh Black only. My crossover was always 4000 color12x18 clicks before I thought it was big enough for press. Do the bigger digital machines have a click charge? I am partial to the ricoh z75.

I know there are a lot of opinions for brand and service in the area are the big issues. but how would you grow a 1 press printing shop?

 

[ReproElectroProspero]

Are you a one-man shop? Or are you paying employees? Because when I do this same math, I'm usually not switching to my offset unless it's 10-20k clicks or more. The labor time of my employees needing to print plates, ready the machine, hang plates, get everything printing right, and then clean up afterwards...pretty much negates any savings from avoiding click charges until my quantity is quite high. The time savings digital provides are well worth the click charges, imho. Especially if you negotiate a good volume in your maint contract, then there basically aren't any click charges until you have a really good month. Just your default known fixed charges.

 

[bill kahny]

Paid employees but only 1 shift on the Komori. With our current press/plate processor being paid off and only around $400 plate cost leaves $600 on a 20,000 digital run ($.05/click). Obviously with the press/prepress being paid off, I'm skewed on the low side of the bar. The call to go digital floats with work load and due dates. But knowing there are outside suppliers for the bigger press runs, I just can't get my head around the numbers for any B2 equipment I'm seeing.

 

[jwheeler]

It might be helpful for others, especially those that already own B2 Digital inkjet presses such as the Ricoh Z75 or Konica's KM-1 (now the AccurioJet 30000) to know what your volumes currently are. But yes, they can be profitable... if you have the volume! One of KM's favorite case studies is PostcardMania who has purchased a total of 4 now to keep up with their growing volumes. It also doesn't hurt (other than the time investment) to get some quotes from the vendors to see if it's viable in your operation. I know when I worked at KM, the KM-1 didn't have a click charge, you just paid for your own ink. However, there were different flat-rate service plans available. It's been nearly 7 years since I left, so I don't know their current pricing models.

My 2¢ is that those inkjet digital presses are still VERY expensive, and unless you regularly have long runs, you could probably get 4 or 5 high-end toner digital presses (such as Ricoh's C9500 or KM's C14010) for the price of one B2 Inkjet press. And that would give you much more redundancy and overall firepower. Also, when you get these bigger toner digital presses, you should be able to negotiate less than $0.05. I know many on this forum have closer to the $0.035 range.

The advantages of the B2 Digital presses is that they are UV, so they can print on nearly any substrate, they can print on thicker/heavier substrates (up to 24pt board), and they allow you to print larger projects (as opposed to the 13" width limit of toner digital presses). While the B2 are faster than toner digital presses, having 2-3 toner presses will meet or beat their speed for less cost.

 

[rickix84]

Sorry, but when you talk about click cost, are you referring to the pure click charge only, or to the full industrial cost?
That is, including the press, operator, overhead costs, etc.?

My break-even point between digital and offset is around 500 clicks per printed side, which on a 70×100 press would correspond to roughly 2,000–2,500 clicks.

We have an iGen 5, and our pure click cost is around €0.024 (excluding the maintenance contract). @jwheeler I agree with toy, B2 digital press are too expensive, Maintenance contracts that cost as much as the purchase installment of a small-format press, And an uptime that’s close to only half of the working hours.

 

[AP90]

Sorry, but when you talk about click cost, are you referring to the pure click charge only, or to the full industrial cost?
That is, including the press, operator, overhead costs, etc.?

My break-even point between digital and offset is around 500 clicks per printed side, which on a 70×100 press would correspond to roughly 2,000–2,500 clicks.

We have an iGen 5, and our pure click cost is around €0.024 (excluding the maintenance contract). @jwheeler I agree with toy, B2 digital press are too expensive, Maintenance contracts that cost as much as the purchase installment of a small-format press, And an uptime that’s close to only half of the working hours.

Wow, your transition point from digital to offset is only 500 clicks per side? That seems extremely low from what ive heard. We're digital only so we don't deal with the transition in house. I would think you'd be up in at least a couple thousand range, especially on 4 color work. So for example a 750 4/4 28 page booklet your running offset?

 

[bill kahny]

wow 500 I think is low too!
I tend to exclude operator/overhead and even machine financing cost because those apply to both pieces of equipment. I tried to get as close to true consumables for both machines when analyzing cross over between machines. We are small so our employee cost don't double each other, meaning we don't have alot of minimum wage people. Our digital operator is doing the imposing and a little color correction that is done in pre-press for the press room to so I may be higher than some companies.
My press is only about 165000 impressions a month 20x26 I would

 

[rickix84]

Wow, your transition point from digital to offset is only 500 clicks per side? That seems extremely low from what ive heard. We're digital only so we don't deal with the transition in house. I would think you'd be up in at least a couple thousand range, especially on 4 color work. So for example a 750 4/4 28 page booklet your running offset?

to be fully transparent, (we are talking about cost, without margin, paper not calculated), I have a cost around 0,12 - 0,10 per side in digital print. 1050 for print 750 copy 28 pages. In offset around 650. And also is much more faster! What is your cost for side in digital printing? (employee, press, click)

 

[rickix84]

wow 500 I think is low too!
I tend to exclude operator/overhead and even machine financing cost because those apply to both pieces of equipment. I tried to get as close to true consumables for both machines when analyzing cross over between machines. We are small so our employee cost don't double each other, meaning we don't have alot of minimum wage people. Our digital operator is doing the imposing and a little color correction that is done in pre-press for the press room to so I may be higher than some companies.
My press is only about 165000 impressions a month 20x26 I would

In digital we do 75.000 click month. not more