InkJet Age

DEC 2014

Inkjet's Age, a print supplement to Quick Printing, is a business and technology brand dedicated to corporate and senior management and focusing on issues surrounding inkjet printing technology in all its forms. Inkjet's Age covers the industry news,

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12 DECEMBER 2014 • INKJET'S AGE www.MyPRINTResource.com more customers across a growing range of applications. Mike Shafer, vice president of sales, TKS: Previous to TKS getting involved with this technology, no inkjet vendor had a solution to produce multiple broadsheet products inline. TKS also has a business model of not forcing the printer to have to purchase the ink through the original OEM. This was and still is very attractive to printers who do not like being forced to purchase their ink from a supplier and also having to pay a click charge. Williams: The presses are a major pur- chase, and before someone invests in them they really need a strong business plan to make the press pay off. Most of the inves- tors today know this and are making the major commitment to a business model up front before they purchase the press. We also see some of the technology im- proving with better drying, faster speeds, and enhanced ink formulations. As new presses go into the market, more sub- strates and inline finishing equipment are becoming available. We have seen a lot of positive interactions between the substrate suppliers and OEMs to ensure end-to-end solutions for the printers. HP T300 Color Inkjet Web Press press operators examine a personalized direct mail piece for a ski school. The run length cross-over point moves digital into new territory Digital (toner) Digital (inkjet) Run length Offset Cost per page IA: How will these technological changes and developments move the in- dustry forward in 2015? Boer: When the market has become comfortable with the business model for these new, continuous-feed inkjet printers able to print on coated offset stock, it will cause some reverberations among future capital investment in offset and likely put additional downward pressure on offset investment. It may even impact some con- solidation of multiple-unit digital color press sites, but it is too early to speculate. Graupman: These improvements will continue to move forward with increased capabilities in ink, heads, and substrates. But the cost of entry into the inkjet mar- ket must be addressed. For example, print- ers with volumes day one can justify a $1 million to $3 million device—and reap the benefits of variable-data full color at the low run costs that inkjet enables. But what about the rest of the market who want to gain the benefits of inkjet tech- nology but don't have the massive month- ly print volumes? We believe a lower entry point for inkjet is needed—ideally smaller devices that can produce volumes in the 500,000 to three million page-per-month range. This would provide yet another avenue to move the industry forward into digital inkjet. Meldrum: The markets will continue to grow and develop as end users broaden the use of inkjet production printers to cover a broader substrate range—including some of the more challenging coated papers used in higher quality book, brochure, and mar- keting collateral applications. Poulin: Another critical market driver for inkjet is the increased quality and speed that early-adopter commercial print- ers are experiencing with today's high- speed inkjet devices. High-speed inkjet systems are now encroaching on territories that were once the exclusive domain of other technologies. Thanks to high pro- ductivity and low consumable costs, the run length cross-over point has shifted. The figure below represents InfoTrends' cost versus run length cross-over curve diagram. Offset presses facilitate a very effective long-run manufacturing process that is excellent for making many copies of the same thing. Yet because of the high cost of plates and makeready, it is not as effective at short runs. Digital toner devices have a different curve with a flat cost structure, making them very effec- tive for short-run and quick-turnaround work. They also can print a new image on every sheet (rather than reproducing the same image over and over again, as offset does). This means that variable- data, personalized printing is possible with digital in ways with which conventional offset presses cannot compete. With the entry of production digital inkjet, the run length cross-over point moves digital print into a new territory where it is now quite competitive with offset and suitable for high-volume printing. It also retains all of the advantages of digital print, including

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