 |
 |
 |
Call us: (317)844-6629
About Us:
|
 |
|
 |
AlphaGraphics News
Put Up Your Dukes!
Put Up Your Dukes!
By Staff Writers
Published: Tuesday, January 26, 2010 5:24 PM EST
What’s
the difference between a digital press and a copier? This was the
question posed in the LinkedIn discussion group “Digital Printing.” The
explosion of input that resulted reflects the intensity of emotions on
all sides of the issue.
What’s the difference between a digital press and a copier? This was the
question posed in the LinkedIn discussion group “Digital Printing.” The
explosion of input that resulted reflects the intensity of emotions on
all sides of the issue. There are those who hold that it is the printing
process that defines a press. Others see speed, printing tolerances and
other technical specifications as more important. Yet others look at
how the press is operated, tolerance for downtime, or the applications
it runs—even marketer opinion.
Paul Vermeersch, print specialist at Printconsultant.eu, explained the
view that presses and copiers can be defined by how the ink or toner is
laid down on paper. “If you consider a digital press [to be] a digital
version of a printing press, only HP-Indigo presses use parts of gravure
and offset principles (liquid ink and indirect print with plate blanket
and pressure cylinders),” he wrote. “Most others today are
sophisticated high-end xerographic color printers.”
Joel Lukacher, technical director at Family Labels, Margate, Fla., is
representative of the view that speed, printing tolerances, and other
technical specifications are more important to determining a pedigree.
“Both [digital presses and copiers] use photo xerography. The difference
is the faster speed (70-200 ppm), tighter tolerances and the tighter
color controls. Also, a digital press would have more sophisticated
inline bindery options, such as a saddle stitcher with three-knife
trimming.”
The challenge, as discussion participants pointed out, is that
some of the higher end color copiers offer faster speeds and tighter
tolerances, too. “Faster speeds don’t necessarily mean a press can give
you higher quality, and what about inkjet technology?” asked Rick
Ciordia, regional sales manager at MGI USA Inc., whose question sparked
the discussion. “Will inkjet technology take over xerography? The Indigo
7000 is closest to a traditional press, but its liquid ‘ink’ is just a
very fine toner suspended in oil.”
Ciordia suggested that a better start for distinguishing between the two
might be wide color gamut, FOGRA/GRACOL certification, tightness of
register and color consistency over the length of the run.
The limitation on using the length of run as a determining factor,
pointed out Andrew Simmons, publisher at DigitalPrint 360, however, is
that these devices aren’t always run in their designated duty cycles. “I
know NexPress owners that only print 75,000 impressions a month and
Konica Minolta [owners who are] doing 300,000 a month.”
Martin Koebel, research and development analyst at Taylor Corp.
(Miami/Ft. Lauderdale area), suggested that an external RIP, the rated
monthly page volume or duty cycle, as well as response time for repair
service calls, separate a digital press from a copier. “A digital
machine rated for 300,000 a month [as an example] would be 75,000 per
week in a four-week month,” he said. “With five days a week, that works
out to 15,000 per day. In an eight-hour day, that is 1,875 pages an
hour. That is a lot of pages for a copy machine in a typical office
environment, and would probably be better classified as a press. On the
service side, copiers can be down for eight to 48 hours (as usually a
company has more than one) and a person just has to walk down the hall
to pick up prints or copies. If service is set up and designed for one
to four hours on site with the most common parts, it could be classified
more appropriately into a digital press category.”
Michael Kile, owner of an AlphaGraphics franchise in Indianapolis,
suggested it’s not any aspect of the technology that determines press
from copier at all. It’s the operator. “Any machine that is operated
with a push button mentality is a copier,” he argued. “Even light-duty
machines with an external RIP can be operated as digital presses with an
operator who understands color calibration, registration, etc.
Likewise, a color copier is pretty much just used for printing standard
sheets without much bindery consideration.”
Kile argued that this is why some of the same machines in a copy center
can be successfully used for short-run, commercial-quality projects.
“Undeniably, the bigger boxes handle the larger volumes much better,” he
wrote, “but that doesn’t stop the smaller machines from being credible
digital presses for a certain volume range.”
Micah Rush, manager at Select Impressions, Portland, Ore., wryly
suggested that the marketing department seems to be the one that decides
if it is a press or not depending on their targeted customer base. “If
they are going to sell it into a true production environment they will
apply the label “press,’” he said.
Industry pundit Michael Jahn, now working for Homecare Health, added
spice to the discussing by kicking in, “No one sells a copier anymore
[anyway]. There is no such thing as a device that is not connected to a
network and is standalone and only copies. I can’t find one, even on
eBay or Craig’s List.”
Bob Walter, direct mail data specialist at Circular Marketing, rounded
out the discussion by comparing the issue to one that exists in the
offset world. “A Multi, A.B. Dick, and the like are considered offset
presses, but they don’t have the speed, sheet size, registration and
other factors of a larger press, but they still are considered a press,”
he wrote.
Walter continued, “We run a KM6500 and KM6501 and neither of them are a
perfect solution to all of our printing needs, but we still have put
over one million impressions combined on them in under a year....I’d
love to have a machine that would print even faster, but they definitely
fit the bill for the price category that they are in. As far as the
comments about ‘If it has a scanner, it’s a copier,’ my 6500 has the
scanner, but I bought the 6501 without it. Does that mean I have one
copier and one digital printer/press? Sometimes I think people put too
much stock in a name instead of looking at their real needs and buying
equipment to suit.”
So the debate rages on.
Heidi Tolliver-Nigro is an industry writer, an analyst specializing in digital workflow and technologies. Her e-mail address is htollvr@aol.com.
© 2007 Cygnus Business Media. Displayed by permission. All rights reserved.
|
 |
|
AlphaGraphics
12955 Old Meridian Street
Suite #103
Carmel, IN 46032
(317)844-6629
(317)844-6636 (fax)
Hours: 8:00 am to 6:00 pm Monday - Friday
|
 |
|
 |
