Is worth to printing in house and if so them what digital printer to get

[acastro917]

Hi, I'm actually outsourcing the printing of the magazine I publish, we do it over offset 5000 magazines 65 pages every other month and would like to move to 5000 magazines every month since I will be publishing same content different cover for a different city. if there any way doing the printing in house can save some money on printing compared to offset at this minimun runs, magazine is print on standard size 8.35 x 10.87 on glossy 60# self-cover and would like to move to a 70# for a cover and maybe lower the inside page as much as I can maybe 45# for inside, also I believe that printing myself I can actually have the option to add insert and bi-fold (like poster) in the magazine and so on then I can offer some job to my client base.

I had taken a look at a used Xerox 700 which is in the price range I can afford to start on but maybe this is not for want I want or maybe there are other brand that I can take a look as well but don't know much about it.

thank you for any feed back

My actual printing cost for 65 pages paper 60# gloss self cover 8.35 x 10.87 at 5000 magazine print is $4.225 every other month

 

[PricelineNegotiator]

You will not save any money switching, your turnaround time will increase, and quality will go down by quite a bit. 70# text gloss is minimum coated stock for xerox 700, and 5000 is much too high of a quantity for digital.

 

[Lorenzo lab guy]

If you are getting around a 5 cent color click rate on the 700 I think your cost would only drop from your $4 down to $2.5 to $3 per piece? You still have to figure in the cost of the printer, labor maintenance and training if you are not an experienced operator. So, your savings could be zero. You need finishing equipment if you full bleed print and probably also to saddle stitch a thick piece. You should get a piece printed on a 700 to see if you are OK with the quality. An indifferent quality 700 probably will be inferior to top-notch offset - I ran a Doc 700 for 3 years. Comparisons are hard, so test your print run before buying. Are you comfortable managing color through the entire production process, including calibrating the 700? Have you run a Fiery controller? If you are in fact spending $120000 per year on printing you might be able to make this work, but I hate to see newbies start with used equipment that might put barriers in their way. I have seen bad crash and burns with that. I am not trying to talk you out of anything just adding in some things that are often overlooked by folks in your situation.

 

[Correct Color]

Many lifetimes ago I bought and sold printing equipment for a living.

And when I did, occasionally I'd get a call from someone who wanted to open an in-house shop. And I cost myself many sales I'm sure, but every time I did, I told them pretty much the same thing:

Look, I know you think printing is expensive, and that you can save a ton by doing it yourself, but the fact is that printing is a fiercely competitive, very low-margin industry. The plain fact is that most printers just might sell their soul to the devil for a 5% profit margin.

So let's just double that. Let's say that you buy all exactly the right equipment, hire all exactly the right people, do every single thing exactly correctly -- even though you're a newbie and this isn't your business but it is theirs...

If you do all that -- which you won't -- you'll at best save 10% on your printing bill.

Are you really sure you want to do this?



Mike Adams
Correct Color

 

[Keith]

So let's do some math. 64 pages is around 16 signatures (I'm rounding down) printed two sides would be 32 impressions per magazine. Multiply that by 5,000 and you get 160,000 impressions a month. That would destroy a Xerox 700. I run a C75 and 80lb gloss text runs at about 30 impressions per minute, I think. That's 5,334 minutes which is 88.88 hours. Just. To. Print. It. That's not including clearing jams, loading and unloading, or any problems. Trimming, binding, and packaging/boxing may take just as long. So you'd be looking at an entire month to produce one month's issue. That will suck.

 

[PricelineNegotiator]

Keith, I think you are under estimating the time it takes to print on a C75. Our J75 runs about 14-17 sheets per minute in productivity mode (super fast), when duplexing.

 

[Keith]

PricelineNegotiator, you are correct. I was going off memory and I don't print 80lb gloss text very often so I just checked my CED and it's rated 11/min duplex. So to correct my math- 16 duplexed signatures x 5000 = 80,000 duplexed sheets / 11 per minute = 7,272 minutes / 60 minutes = 121 hours. Ouch. So it's more like three weeks just for printing.

 

[arossetti]

PricelineNegotiator, you are correct. I was going off memory and I don't print 80lb gloss text very often so I just checked my CED and it's rated 11/min duplex. So to correct my math- 16 duplexed signatures x 5000 = 80,000 duplexed sheets / 11 per minute = 7,272 minutes / 60 minutes = 121 hours. Ouch. So it's more like three weeks just for printing.

Assuming no service calls on a printer rated for what, 1 service call ever 50,000 8.5x11" clicks?

 

[AP90]

Is it just me or does $4.225/magazine seem a little high?

 

[PricelineNegotiator]

I love how we all spend time trying to dissect this guy's problem when we know the eventual outcome.

 

[Shawnd]

Let alone the registration on a 700 sucks, especially when duplexing. If you feel your offset printing costs are high I would shop around for another vendor, not bring it in-house.

 

[arossetti]

I love how we all spend time trying to dissect this guy's problem when we know the eventual outcome.

e-Edition?

 

[AP90]

e-Edition?

I'm guessing it "I found this great printer in China"

 

[jwheeler]

acastro...is the content all in color? Or is the cover color and the guts b/w? Full bleed? Also, when you say there will be 5,000 per month, but different versions for different cities, what is the break down? How many per city and how many cities? Lastly, you said 65 pages...magazines need to be in increments of 4 pages...so it is really 64 pages?

 

[Possumgal]

You also have to consider where you will put the printer. They need to be in a controlled environment, both temp and humidity, especially when running coated stocks. I can tell you that a 700 will have fits with 80# coated text when the humidity is high, let alone a thinner stock. You also need to keep the stock in that controlled environment all the time for best results.

Really a 700 is just not enough muscle for what you need. Actually, for your volume, you need to get digital out of the picture, that's just too much volume unless you plan to get several machines. Even then, printing 4-up sigs would take way too long.