Who has an all digital shop?

[Craig]

Here is a question I have been pondering for a while. My shop currently has both digital and small offset (2 up portrait) equipment. We run letterhead, envelopes, newsletter... on the offset's, the rest is on our digital machines. Our digital sales in $'s are 3 to 1 over offset.

If you are a digital only shop, how are you handling runs on letterhead and envelopes? Are you printing them on a duplicator or some other non-fuser machine, (especially letterhead) or are you brokering them out?

My reason behind this discussion is that we are currently having to replace our pressman, and are finding that in our area they either have no skill level or are from one of the box shops that have closed are are expecting $18.00 to $20.00/hr. + benefits for 1 and 2 color work. In my eyes that wage is fine for 4 color process but we are talking duplicator stuff.

Maybe it's time to drop the offsets altogether, any thoughts?

 

[Prepress_Parasite]

I would also love to hear what people think about this. Since we got our digital machine we are pretty much doing all of our duplicator work on it with the exception of stationary packages that include envelopes.

 

[rbailleu]

to my way of thinking you have to decide which way are you going to go. if you can keep a pressman busy 8 hours a day 5 days a week. you have to hire one. if you can't do that, you have to way offsets usefulness to you. I see inplants that have one guy running everything, but how can that be profitable. if the press is not running at least 50% of the time you might consider out sourcing or if you are doing long runs on old equipment your labor is eating you. time to out source offset. I had a copier salesman tell me about a couple printers near me that moved everything over to a km6500.

 

[random]

With the speed and convenience of digital and the greenies biting in we seem to selling more to the offset crowd for sure. Used to be copy centres but there is only so many of those in one town that can support the volume required to keep a 65 busy. Unless you are running uber volume it's digital or die really. Offset owners prefer the no oil look so maybe we have an edge.

 

[Craig]

So how do "we" handle short run letterhead and envelopes, qty's that are not profitable to outsource? Obviously we can't print letterhead on a toner device if it is going to be run through a laser printer/copier by the end user. Is there a reliable machine to print envelopes on?

I am wondering if a Riso duplicator would fill that gap? Is the quality there in the duplicator's?

 

[TWinqvist]

There is a digital press that prints on envelopes with good quality and reliable, I hope. It's a MGI's Meteor DP60 Pro with envelope feeder, print speed is 2000 to 2800 envelope/hour, env. size 100x140mm to 315x360mm (metric, I don't know what these are in inches). We saw it on action at Drupa we liked it. So there is one solution for printing envelopes digitally.

 

[James.Costen]

I think your math is correct. We source out all of our offset work. So much of the business has gone to short run digital, that it doesn't really make sense to have offset specialists onhand to handle the declining demand. Just my two cents. We are pretty much all digital now.

 

[mitragrafika]

Try to combine Digital with DI Press.

 

[Craig]

Try to combine Digital with DI Press.

To me the DI press is a waste, if I wanted to "print" 4 color I would go with a real press with automation and have far more flexibility. The market for DI's is just too limited, the costs involve preclude you from single or 2 color work. Not every business requiring printing has a 4 color budget.

 

[rbailleu]

the good news is that with every one getting out of offset that there will be more offset for those that are left. on the di front, i think you could up sell to 4 color. look at the cost of cleaning up a press for 2 pms colors and I think the di does not look so bad. 10 minutes to image plates in register versus 10 minutes to cleanup and 10 to mix new ink 10 to setup and get running.

 

[Craig]

Now throw in a metallic 872 or a Pantone color that's not CMYK reproducible and your back to my point. Single color business forms, envelopes just are not economical on a DI. We just can't tell the customer that their branded logo with Pantone colors is now going to be printed CMYK whether or not it matches.

 

[dpxcross]

Digital Printing

Digital Printing

Hi
Read your question, and at my shop we run our four color stationary and matching envelopes through our digital press. We also run our spot color jobs for stationary and envelopes through the digital press. Most of these jobs are short run jobs, 500 to 2500 pcs etc. Anything over that amount I send out to a big four press outfit. We also run all our baronial and anouncement envelopes through this press. Give Xante a call and they can help you out. Hope this helps.
Dave

 

[tommy-the-cat]

It's sad to see my profession of traditional offset printing come to an end. In High School I was having so much fun printing the school newspaper. I ran with that when I graduated and landed a press position with a very large and great company. 19 years later, I moved to California. My career took off as I wanted to learn and no matter how big the press, I felt I could do it. I resigned from a 6 color Speedmaster operator to be a Production Manager. That was my biggest challenge and for 4 years I was very successful at it. The Industry has changed so much in the last 5 years. I am currently running a 2-color Ryobi doing multi-pass work. Sometimes 8 wash-ups a day. Today's technology can have 1 person with adequate skill do what 3 people did 5 years ago.
If you feel that $18 - $21 per hour is too much on labor then by all means hire someone for $14 and track all the standard production percentages. In the long run I strongly believe you "get what you pay for". I'll start my career all over again before I take any kind of a pay cut, because no way will I give away my 19 years of experience for free.

You get what you pay for.......

 

[Rushlight27]

Xerox, DI & offset

Xerox, DI & offset

Our industry is in such decline with people doing their own work on colour laser printers that the price of second-hand machinery has plummeted. This is double-edged. When my Xerox volumes were getting too high and those merry funsters at Xerox put my click charge up again, I knew I needed offset. I looked at a 2-colour SM-52 with 55 million on the clock, I looked at a 4-colour GTO, both required a new platemaker and hence a heavy investment. DI machines are so unfashionable at present that I got my QM-46 DI, 14m imps and a new Highwater DI RIP for less than £38,000, an affordable 3-year repayment. The others were going to cost me £80,000 and £140,000 respectively. It's a fine machine if you've got a good operator, and costs me about the same as I've saved on meter clicks. This makes it a free Heidelberg.
I can now run work on whatever machine I please for efficient production and I still have my reliable old 1 & 2-colour QM machines for mono work, 5th colours, envelopes, perforating, letterheads, etc.
I suppose the point is that you can have an array of machines without a dedicated operator for each, and have the right press for whatever job comes in. You just need a good operator.

 

[Craig]

It's sad to see my profession of traditional offset printing come to an end. In High School I was having so much fun printing the school newspaper. I ran with that when I graduated and landed a press position with a very large and great company. 19 years later, I moved to California. My career took off as I wanted to learn and no matter how big the press, I felt I could do it. I resigned from a 6 color Speedmaster operator to be a Production Manager. That was my biggest challenge and for 4 years I was very successful at it. The Industry has changed so much in the last 5 years. I am currently running a 2-color Ryobi doing multi-pass work. Sometimes 8 wash-ups a day. Today's technology can have 1 person with adequate skill do what 3 people did 5 years ago.
If you feel that $18 - $21 per hour is too much on labor then by all means hire someone for $14 and track all the standard production percentages. In the long run I strongly believe you "get what you pay for". I'll start my career all over again before I take any kind of a pay cut, because no way will I give away my 19 years of experience for free.

You get what you pay for.......

Tommy,
I am not negating the pay for an offset pressman, when you are talking about a small shop like mine with less than $650,000 in sales I can't justify $18 to $21/hr for a pressman who is running a duplicator press. We are not running 6 color Speedmasters, we're talking about an ABDick 9870 with T-Head here. Plus the cost of living in Ohio is far less the California, so the wage will and should reflect that.

Your comment on technology is valid not only in print but every trade, we would still be digging with shovels if it weren't for the backhoe. But with technology you need an operator who can understand it, I just had a pressman leave, who looked like a deer in headlights whenever he saw blinking lights and a green button, and he had 25+ years running large 40"+ presses. He was so far old school that he couldn't fathom programming a job to run.

In our area the problem is that none of the local trade schools are teaching offset printing or graphics for that matter. Pressman are a skilled trade that we are loosing in my area, maybe kids no longer want to get a little ink under their nails I don't know.

I started 15 years ago with no formal training, but on the job, my background was horticulture, I now own the company I started working for. Each time we are in need of a pressman it is getting harder to find someone who doesn't have 20 years experience and is already in the upper end of the pay scale, we are running out of young talent, willing to get their start, learn the basics and be able to move on to larger shops... much like you did.