Shifting more work back to offset....

[kdw75]

Let me preface this by saying that we are a small 5 person shop.

Four years ago we bought into digital. We put in a C75 and a year later we followed it up with a Versant 2100. We started running all of our 4-color work that was 5,000 clicks or less on there as we didn't have a platesetter, and were using film to make our plates, which took chemistry, and time to mask, process and burn everything. Now keep in mind that our 4-color offset press doesn't have auto ink setting, auto plate mounting or other features to speed make-ready, but it is in great shape, and turns out fantastic looking work.

We had anticipated a demand for variable data mailing and, which never materialized. At this point I think we will be scaling back to one machine at the end of the lease, and instead purchasing a new speedmaster, and a platesetter. I am just surprised at how much demand there seems to be for large quantity work vs variable data.

Today I had a 4,000 11x17 Index run on the digital machine. It would randomly fail to pick up the sheets from the Oversize High Capacity Feeder. New rollers didn't help, curling the stock didn't help, and of course each time it mis-feeds, you have to wait forever for it to start again. In the time it took me to finish that job, my 4-color chewed through about 20,000 sheets without a hiccup. Very frustrating when you consider how much more the digital machine costs.

Has anyone else jumped into digital only to go back to doing more offset?

 

[PricelineNegotiator]

What were the specs on the stock you were running?

To answer your question, we have never been interested in getting a four color press, we have some duplicators and a 3302 that does everything we need it to. Everything else is 4over or Navitor. It's nice to have the luxury of not needing to constantly feed a four color press to stay in the profit zone. I think the digital market is really expanding for us. I can't wait until our lease for our J75 is up and we get the next iteration of the J75/V80. That's not to say our machine doesn't kick ass, I just look forward to smoother gradient and better fusing.

For context, we have several shops that have four colors presses in our area, and almost all of them have sold out, only one has not. Not sure if it's shitty management, people just wanting to sell out or low volumes, but I think it's a factor of online print providers pulling customers away and it being a slippery slope to provide valuable services at no cost to the client "just to retain their business."

 

[DannyB]

my shop runs both digital and offset and yes a good offset machine like the SM is going to be more dependable than any digital machine out there and as long as you have a good operator quality is going to be better as well. The only question is do you have the work to make offset profitable? Now if the only thing you are worried about is the cost of a platesetter you can always look at chemical free they are cheaper obviously because no chemicals but the plates have a much shorter life span so you may have to make multiple sets depending on the size of the job. also if you want to spend the money there is always the hp indigo in my opinion it is the next best thing to offset. But it can get costly just like offset.

 

[JustinB]

I'm kind of hoping for production UV Inkjet that can print on regular coated stocks. Fewer moving parts to go bad, but still short run, variable data and digital finishing options.

 

[dabob]

IMHO . . . we are also a smallish shop been around since 1977 with a 2/c SM72, 4/c SM 72, GTO 52 1 and 2/c, added digital in 2001 with an Indigo, then went to Xerox and most recently we got a Ricoh. We have a great pressman who can makeready in minutes on any of our presses and none of them have computer controlled fountains . . . wouldn't trade any of them . . our break point is theoretically 1,000 sheets before heading to the big iron . .. give us much needed versatility in our market.

But if your interested in a Chief 17 or a Hamada 660 give me a call . .. they haven't run for a long long time.

 

[kdw75]

When crunching the numbers, it just amazes me how cheap offset really is. If you buy used presses, like we do, and have have someone running them that takes care of them, repairs are few and far between. Our GTO has only had one repair in 40 million impressions, and it was less than one lease payment on our digital machine.

 

[DannyB]

When crunching the numbers, it just amazes me how cheap offset really is. If you buy used presses, like we do, and have have someone running them that takes care of them, repairs are few and far between. Our GTO has only had one repair in 40 million impressions, and it was less than one lease payment on our digital machine.

offset is cheap if you have the numbers to put on it but for a company like the one i work for it gets costly. We do yearbooks and the runs are generally anywhere from 200 copies to 1500 copies. so if you have a 48pg book 250 copies the cost in plates and the time it takes to do make ready along with having to pay a second person because you usually have an operator and a helper it gets pretty hard to stay in the black at that point.

 

[DannyB]

we pay about 7$ a plate for the sm74 and about 0.07$ a sheet for our indigo so up to a certain point the indigo is cheaper but the more impressions you add eventually you are paying more in clicks than in plates.

 

[Magnus59]

$7 for an SM74 plate in today's market, really?
I think you should be having robust discussions with your vendor!

 

[DannyB]

$7 for an SM74 plate in today's market, really?
I think you should be having robust discussions with your vendor!

we buy fuji which is a bit expensive compared to others but they have some of the best plates on the market. and we don't buy as many plates as other companies do so we don't really qualify for any kind of discount.