Commercial Printer Delivers Superior Competitive Offering with Digital Press Technology

As products innovate, increased capabilities and performance are reflected in customer demand. For commercial printers, customers expect only the highest levels of quality and at the fastest turnaround times possible.

UTAP Printing Co., Inc. formerly operated on a combination of four offset Heidelberg presses and finishers when it became apparent that the print fleet needed to be upgraded due to growing print volumes and heavy reliance on outsourcing. It was increasingly difficult to turnaround projects in a timely fashion and UTAP determined that the need to adopt digital technology was the necessary next step. In evaluating competitive solutions, UTAP also wanted to offer customers more competitive pricing than what was possible with the current offset devices and decided to explore digital printing solutions.

Time and Cost Savings

UTAP determined that Konica Minolta’s next-generation bizhub PRESS C8000 Color Digital Press would provide the broadest range of capabilities to meet customer demands. UTAP was able to begin printing short run projects such as school books, brochures and catalogs in both color and black and white. The print house significantly increased its output volume by delivering 1,000 more brochures per print job on the new bizhub PRESS C8000.

In addition, UTAP now turns around jobs within 24 hours for clients. Overall business has improved drastically as the print house can offer a more competitive price point and customer loyalty has grown based on the outstanding performance of the bizhub PRESS C8000. UTAP has also reduced overhead by eliminating a number of offset charges for consumables such as wash ups, inks and plates. The built-in stitcher in the bizhub PRESS C8000 has allowed the print house to reduce overall production time by eliminating the additional step of having to run a job through the finisher.

UTAP now prints 35 percent of all jobs on the digital press, including the heaviest demand jobs – business cards, brochures and booklets. The print house has not experienced any downtime with the bizhub PRESS C8000 since it was purchased, and a technician is usually at the shop within a few hours if there is a maintenance problem to ensure that downtime is no longer an issue.