MyWildIrishProse
Well-known member
By Richard Romano, Industry Analyst
Imagine you are a small manufacturer of chocolates. Your customers are interested in customized or personalized packages of chocolates to give out as gifts at weddings and other events. Unless it’s a Hollywood wedding, chances are the number of guests will be only 100 or so, give or take. We all know about short-run printing, but what about short-run box and packaging converting?
That’s one of the most popular applications of the Standard Horizon RD-4055 Rotary Die-cutter, said Bob Flinn, Director of Business Development for Standard Finishing Systems. “This system allowed them to make their own boxes, printed on demand as they were needed.”
It’s not just boxes and other forms of packaging. Greeting cards, birth announcements, wedding invitations, and other short-run items are all high-growth, albeit short-run, print applications that benefit from die-cutting and other postpress processes.
“[Long] run lengths used to justify investing in a larger piece of die-cutting equipment or sending work out to a trade bindery,” said Flinn, “but as run lengths become shorter, that doesn’t make much sense.”
With a maximum sheet size of 15.74 x 21.65 inches, the RD-4055 is designed to complement today’s digital printing equipment, although Flinn says about 80 percent of the machines in the field do a mix of offset and digital work.
The machine uses flexible die plates that don’t require any specialized knowledge about creating dies. “Today, if I want to design a piece like a door hanger, I can design that, create a PDF vector file, and send it to one of the numerous die-makers. They can turn a plate around in 24 hours.” Kocher+Beck, Rotometrix, Electro Optic, and Wink are four die suppliers that Standard Finishing customers work with regularly. The dies also have a long life, and can often run for a million or more impressions.
“If you think of a three-up door hanger, the cost is $150 to $170 for the die, and someone can use that die for many different jobs,” said Flinn. “And as you build a library of die patterns these can become standard offerings to future customers.”
And there’s the rub: run lengths are declining, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that volume is declining, particularly when it comes to specialty items. “They’re done in short runs per order, but high volume per day or week,” said Flinn.
The RD-4055 also utilizes a patented repeat register system. This means that the user can buy a partial plate that has a single die pattern on it and repeat four times down the sheet. This helps cut down on die cost, and it gives users the flexibility to print even shorter runs on a smaller substrate.
Ease-of-use is one of the hallmarks of the machine, and it has been designed to allow even unskilled operators to be up and running with only a day’s worth of training. Quick changeover is another; a die can be swapped out in less than a minute, which is a vital feature when shops need to rapidly turn around many short-run jobs over the course of a shift or day.
The machine also has a small footprint, for a system that will do creasing, perforating, round cornering, and hole punching, as part of the die-cutting process.
Printing today is about more than ink on paper; it’s about utilizing a complete arsenal of equipment and processes to create unique, high-value applications. Finishing processes like die-cutting have always been popular ways of adding value to a printed product, and finishing equipment that can take advantage of the prevailing industry trends toward digital printing, short runs, and customization/personalization can allow companies to maximize productivity while still being able to produce these types of applications. And now that processes like die-cutting don’t require the highly skilled artisans of the days of yore is–to reprise the confectionary theme of this article–the icing on the cake.
Imagine you are a small manufacturer of chocolates. Your customers are interested in customized or personalized packages of chocolates to give out as gifts at weddings and other events. Unless it’s a Hollywood wedding, chances are the number of guests will be only 100 or so, give or take. We all know about short-run printing, but what about short-run box and packaging converting?
That’s one of the most popular applications of the Standard Horizon RD-4055 Rotary Die-cutter, said Bob Flinn, Director of Business Development for Standard Finishing Systems. “This system allowed them to make their own boxes, printed on demand as they were needed.”
It’s not just boxes and other forms of packaging. Greeting cards, birth announcements, wedding invitations, and other short-run items are all high-growth, albeit short-run, print applications that benefit from die-cutting and other postpress processes.
“[Long] run lengths used to justify investing in a larger piece of die-cutting equipment or sending work out to a trade bindery,” said Flinn, “but as run lengths become shorter, that doesn’t make much sense.”
With a maximum sheet size of 15.74 x 21.65 inches, the RD-4055 is designed to complement today’s digital printing equipment, although Flinn says about 80 percent of the machines in the field do a mix of offset and digital work.
The machine uses flexible die plates that don’t require any specialized knowledge about creating dies. “Today, if I want to design a piece like a door hanger, I can design that, create a PDF vector file, and send it to one of the numerous die-makers. They can turn a plate around in 24 hours.” Kocher+Beck, Rotometrix, Electro Optic, and Wink are four die suppliers that Standard Finishing customers work with regularly. The dies also have a long life, and can often run for a million or more impressions.
“If you think of a three-up door hanger, the cost is $150 to $170 for the die, and someone can use that die for many different jobs,” said Flinn. “And as you build a library of die patterns these can become standard offerings to future customers.”
And there’s the rub: run lengths are declining, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that volume is declining, particularly when it comes to specialty items. “They’re done in short runs per order, but high volume per day or week,” said Flinn.
The RD-4055 also utilizes a patented repeat register system. This means that the user can buy a partial plate that has a single die pattern on it and repeat four times down the sheet. This helps cut down on die cost, and it gives users the flexibility to print even shorter runs on a smaller substrate.
Ease-of-use is one of the hallmarks of the machine, and it has been designed to allow even unskilled operators to be up and running with only a day’s worth of training. Quick changeover is another; a die can be swapped out in less than a minute, which is a vital feature when shops need to rapidly turn around many short-run jobs over the course of a shift or day.
The machine also has a small footprint, for a system that will do creasing, perforating, round cornering, and hole punching, as part of the die-cutting process.
Printing today is about more than ink on paper; it’s about utilizing a complete arsenal of equipment and processes to create unique, high-value applications. Finishing processes like die-cutting have always been popular ways of adding value to a printed product, and finishing equipment that can take advantage of the prevailing industry trends toward digital printing, short runs, and customization/personalization can allow companies to maximize productivity while still being able to produce these types of applications. And now that processes like die-cutting don’t require the highly skilled artisans of the days of yore is–to reprise the confectionary theme of this article–the icing on the cake.
