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?

 

[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