Offset vs Digital Quantity...

[kdw75]

I would be interested in hearing when others have decided it makes sense to move a full color job to the offset press, because of higher quantities.

We generally go to offset when the click quantity exceeds 5,000. Our thinking behind this is as follows. If we have a 5,000 4/4 flyers, and we run them 2-on, we have 5,000 12.5" x 19" clicks on our digital press, we would pay out just under $250 in click charges. If we put it on our 14x20 inch press, we have to make film, develop it, then burn plates, and have to process them. And figuring in all the equipment, and chemistry, as well as time, we are looking at around $100 our cost. Then we have the time to punch the plates, mount them on the press, register them in, and balance color, which takes about an hour to 1.5 hours depending on the color accuracy needed. On top of the money, we are also frequently short handed, so the guy spending the time making plates, and running the press, could have run the same job twice on the digital press.

Please feel free to share your thoughts and comments.

 

[gordo]

I would be interested in hearing when others have decided it makes sense to move a full color job to the offset press, because of higher quantities.

We generally go to offset when the click quantity exceeds 5,000. Our thinking behind this is as follows. If we have a 5,000 4/4 flyers, and we run them 2-on, we have 5,000 12.5" x 19" clicks on our digital press, we would pay out just under $250 in click charges. If we put it on our 14x20 inch press, we have to make film, develop it, then burn plates, and have to process them. And figuring in all the equipment, and chemistry, as well as time, we are looking at around $100 our cost. Then we have the time to punch the plates, mount them on the press, register them in, and balance color, which takes about an hour to 1.5 hours depending on the color accuracy needed. On top of the money, we are also frequently short handed, so the guy spending the time making plates, and running the press, could have run the same job twice on the digital press.

Please feel free to share your thoughts and comments.

I think your thinking is going in the right direction i.e. based on page counts and your cost per page.
You might consider what your total cost is per page is (based perhaps on an 8.5 x 11 page size) at specific quantities (e.g. 100, 500, 1,000 etc pages) for both methods so that you are comparing apples to apples. It doesn't matter that one method requires film and plates what matters is your cost to deliver X pages from each system. You then need to look at your sell price (including some profit) at the different quantities because even though one method may appear to be cheaper to manufacture you may not be able to charge enough for that quantity to be worth the effort.

 

[Deleted member 16349]

I would be interested in hearing when others have decided it makes sense to move a full color job to the offset press, because of higher quantities.

We generally go to offset when the click quantity exceeds 5,000. Our thinking behind this is as follows. If we have a 5,000 4/4 flyers, and we run them 2-on, we have 5,000 12.5" x 19" clicks on our digital press, we would pay out just under $250 in click charges. If we put it on our 14x20 inch press, we have to make film, develop it, then burn plates, and have to process them. And figuring in all the equipment, and chemistry, as well as time, we are looking at around $100 our cost. Then we have the time to punch the plates, mount them on the press, register them in, and balance color, which takes about an hour to 1.5 hours depending on the color accuracy needed. On top of the money, we are also frequently short handed, so the guy spending the time making plates, and running the press, could have run the same job twice on the digital press.

Please feel free to share your thoughts and comments.

Costs are not a fixed value that can be calculated easily. In general, the burden part of the cost will decrease with an increase in the volume of production one can put through the equipment.

 

[kdw75]

Very true about the volumes. The lease cost of the machines becomes less significant as the monthly volume goes up, which means it becomes more competitive with offset, at higher volumes. Of course the film chemistry goes bad over a certain period, so if we aren't running but a few plates during that time, it looks pretty expensive.

If your a busy shop, with dozens of employees, then your cost to run a set of plates is probably a tenth of what it costs us, and if you have a pressman with some dead time, it doesn't cost you much to have him slap on a short run job, vs us being short handed, and having to pay overtime to get the job done.

 

[[email protected]]

About 10 years ago people in the industry used to say that when you hit around 1,000 Qty that it starts to make sense to go offset. But since then click charges have gone down quite a bit and some don't charge double for larger sheet sizes. I'd recommend making a little "program" in excel that covers your costs basis so when you plug in variables like qty you can see the cost projections on the job of both the digital and offset.

Just curious if you ever have a customer demand offset. I had one once that demanded offset even on b/w jobs. I personally tend to like offset quality better myself.

 

[kdw75]

About 10 years ago people in the industry used to say that when you hit around 1,000 Qty that it starts to make sense to go offset. But since then click charges have gone down quite a bit and some don't charge double for larger sheet sizes. I'd recommend making a little "program" in excel that covers your costs basis so when you plug in variables like qty you can see the cost projections on the job of both the digital and offset.

Just curious if you ever have a customer demand offset. I had one once that demanded offset even on b/w jobs. I personally tend to like offset quality better myself.

We used to have quite a few that demanded offset, but they have become pretty scarce. I always have the fear in the back of my mind, that a customer may not like the quality of digital, and just go somewhere else, without asking about offset. There is no doubt that a reflex solid looks much better on offset.

 

[PricelineNegotiator]

We used to have quite a few that demanded offset, but they have become pretty scarce. I always have the fear in the back of my mind, that a customer may not like the quality of digital, and just go somewhere else, without asking about offset. There is no doubt that a reflex solid looks much better on offset.

I agree, even though we do not have a four color press.

 

[dabob]

We still use the "1000" quantity generality . . but we have a plate setter and from file to plate its usually 20 minutes for a 4/c job and then we are mounted and running in under an hour . . . but like you say its what we do every day and we still keep our digital equipment running a shift a day . . . thats my 2 cents . . .

 

[MailGuru]

We don't have offset capability, we are 100% digital. If we have a need for offset, we outsource it to an offset printer. In the last 5 years, I have not had a customer "demand" offset. With today's generation of sheet-fed, dry-toner based machines, (I'm talking mid-range digital "production-class" machines), IMHO, the print quality is much higher than offset. The latest advances in digital print technology (VCSEL rendering, full-width array production monitoring, closed loop process controls, etc ) can process true 10-bit rendering. What does that mean? We'll its like this. The previous generation of digital printers, that used the conventional "side-emitting diode" could only render in 1-bit mode. About 5 years ago, Fuji developoed the VCSEL (Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser) and, has licensed the technology to many digital production printer manufacturers. The conventional side-emitting diodes could only give 256 shades of any color. With the VCSEL technology, it can render 10-times that amount (2,560 shades of any color), and, here's the best part: VCSEL diodes are much much less expensive to mass produce than the conventional side emitting diodes. This translates to lower machine production costs, as well as lower click charges, not to mention, less electricity usage to operate.

 

[MailGuru]

Break-even point on digital versus offset is entirely dependent upon how many pieces you can get to a page, but, for us (before I decide to outsource to offset), I have found that a typical 4/4 6x9 post card (I can get 4-up to a 13 x 19 sheet) that point is between 8,000 to 10,000 finished pieces. Computed as front and back $0.15/sheet ($0.075 per side, including machine lease cost & taxes). 10,000 post cards at 4-out = 2,500 sheets @ $0.15/sheet = $375.00 ($37.50/m). This does not include the cost of the paper, pre-flight, laser run charge, bindery, etc (since those costs would be approximately the same for offset as digital). Just trying to compare straight print to straight print. Keep in mind that you are also direct addressing presorted with postal bar codes at the same time you are digitally printing the post card. With the offset print method, you would need to make a separate ink jet run for the addressing after the cards are printed, dried, and cut. Typical ink jet run cost is usually around $25/m


As digital printing equipment continues to improve, evolve, etc. I would expect that the machines and click charges will continue to decrease.

 

[MailGuru]

Oops, forgot. Of course, it goes without saying, that, digital's ability to vary images and text during the print run makes it much more valuable to the customer, and, thus, you can push a higher profit margin (recipient's first name in popping color, or, white knock-out on the front, different text, images, or offer based on the recipient's interest or buying patterns, etc.). These things you simply can't do on offset, regardless of cost.

 

[MailGuru]

Try doing THIS in offset.....................................

 

[namelessentity]

Good God that is ugly, it looks like it was made in publisher or something.

Getting back on topic, I really think it's dependant on your equipment. right now we have a pretty slow Imagepress 6010, but in the fall we plan to upgrade to one of the new pieces of equipment that can do 100ppm, so things that used to take 2+ hours can be done in close to 30 minutes.

 

[gordo]

Try doing THIS in offset.....................................

They were doing that level of "personalization" in the late 70s - all the 4/c is static so why not just print that offset and imprint the K text on a B&W digital printer.

 

[MailGuru]

They were doing that level of "personalization" in the late 70s - all the 4/c is static so why not just print that offset and imprint the K text on a B&W digital printer.

Actually, it was more like the mid 80's. Print B & W laser on an offset printed 4c shell. We used to do millions of them.


Back then, however, the technology did not exist to copy/fit variable text along a "cut-path" with effects that make the text look like it was built in to the art (technically known as "personal imaging"), nor, was it possible to print the text or variable information in color (only B&W)