Digital, Schmigital

Is anyone buying offset equipment? The answer may surprise some people. Literally trillions of printed pages still are reproduced worldwide each year using traditional offset press technology -- not to mention “newer” offset product applications such as door hangers, pocket folders and packaging (keep reading).

“People talked about ‘the last offset press’ a few drupas ago,” Doug Schardt, director of product marketing (Americas) for Japanese OEM Komori Corp., remembers with a laugh. "A lot of those same people have bought an offset press since then. The manufacturers never stopped research and development. Our engineers keep squeezing time out of make-readies. We now can change plates and wash blankets simultaneously."

"At recent GRAPH EXPO and PRINT exhibitions in North America, Ryobi was the lone OEM lugging sheetfed-offset 'iron' to the show floor. Since 2015, RYOBI MHI Graphic Technology Ltd. (RMGT) has installed more than 100 sheetfed-offset presses at North American customer sites,” said Kian Hemmen, western region sales manager for RMGT’s print and finishing solutions.

Offset press consoles have gotten smarter and can learn.

“We’ve seen major advancements in software and electronic vision enhancements with ‘eyes’ on every sheet," Schardt said. "Nobody can afford waste any more.”

Auto-registration is built in, and live control of ink keys ensures proper density as well as Delta E color levels. 

“There’s a lot less waiting these days,” he said.

More templates are used for job set-up, and the use of motors and parallel controls allow for multi-tasking. Capturing production OEE (overall equipment efficiency) data is the big trend.

“That data can be accessed in the ‘cloud,' if desired. We’re not at the point yet of totally ‘lights-out’ [offset] production,” Schardt said, “but we’re close.”

“Offset printing is very different today than the old, mechanical beast of yesteryear,” said Clarence Penge, executive VP and head of U.S. product management for Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg), a 170-year-old company that leapt from letterpress to offset printing in 1962. Today’s machines “are digitized,” he said, “loaded with software that integrates upstream into prepress and MIS [management information systems].”

Rapida sheetfed presses made by Koenig & Bauer Group (KBA), the world’s oldest press manufacturer, now feature LiveApps tools for press control available for mobile devices. Operators literally hold relevant job data, information on production times, press status messages and maintenance reminders in their hands, wherever they may be. Inventory management becomes a completely new experience, and tracking of the use of particular ink and consumable batches has never been simpler.

KBA’s new-generation B1 press for the commercial printing and packaging markets, available since November 2020, is the Rapida 106 X model. With a maximum speed of 20,000 sheets per hour (sph), the offset press was demonstrated as an eight-unit perfector with coater for the commercial market. Koenig & Bauer says that the new commercial Rapida 106 X was developed from “the ground up,” based primarily on customer feedback.

RMGT’s 970 series models, introduced some 10 months ago, are eight-up, 25x38-inch format, LED-UV offset presses featuring automated smart assist printing (ASAP) featuring full camera systems. With the literal touch of a single button, ASAP allows a press operator to autonomously manage the entire printing process — from ink and paper presetting, blanket and impression cleaning, and plate changing through verification of test printing, register adjustment, ink-density adjustment and full sheet inspection  — without even pulling a sheet. Four-minute makereadies “can start at wash-up for a new job,” Hemmen said. There’s far less waste, too.

For Heidelberg, too, it’s all about artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous manufacturing.

“These features allow a push-to-stop manufacturing approach where the machine automatically carries out all the tasks and continues from job to job until the operator tells it to stop,” Penge said, “or [until] a manual intervention is needed, such as changing a Pantone color. Offset has been very strong in packaging and label [segments], with large growth in the in-mold label segment. Over the last year, there has been good growth in book publishing, which we have benefitted from and sold many pressed into this segment.”

Book and magazine printing have seen an uptick on manroland Goss presses, too, “especially in countries like Ethiopia,” said Wolfgang Hiesinger, senior product manager and newspaper and packaging Systems VP at manroland Goss Group.

“Offset is alive, especially in packaging,” Hiesinger said. “We see a lot of advantages we can bring into this segment.”

Doing More with Less

The challenge for offset is how to increase press uptime and achieve double-digit profit increases while operating less equipment. For customers with “vintage” equipment, one newfangled offset press may replace two or even three older presses, said Eric Frank, senior VP of marketing/product management in the U.S. and Canada for KBA. Press “make-readies” from job to job have been reduced by 75%, down to eight minutes on an eight-color press. Advancements such as aforementioned inline color control systems drastically reduce paper waste, while ultra-violet (UV) curing with light-emitting diodes (LEDs) reduces cost.

In addition to printing more efficiently, today’s offset presses offer versatility, allowing progressive print service providers (PSPs) to delve into new markets, such as packaging, folding cartons and labels.

“Some of our offset customers are now printing POS and POP [point-of-sale/purchase] signage on paperboard and rigid plastics,” Frank said, "while others are producing direct mail."

Despite the global pandemic, KBA had a robust year in 2020. Its strong performance was largely due to packaging segment growth, Frank said.

“Our offset sales are booming. They’re alive like never before.”

Frank believes digital printing has peaked. Aside from the transactional segment, “How many half-sized machines can you place?” he asked.

That said, digital presses are ideally suited for many types of printing applications. Some manufacturers, such as Komori, sell digital and traditional offset equipment – and some projects call for a blend of offset and digital printing.

It’s like the old adage, “using the right tool for the right job,” said Schardt. “Digital and offset [presses] are not really competing products,” noting that there is not much crossover in the type of work each process produces.

The Value Proposition

Why invest in offset print? It offers the highest quality and lowest manufacturing cost, according to Penge. He points to a recent example at Heidelberg.

“I had a performance call with a customer who has a XL 106-8P and ran 125 makereadies on the first shift and 112 makereadies on the second shift. Offset printing out-produces other forms of print and, in most companies, this ties into more than 70% of their revenue. With a modern Heidelberg [press], our customers are more competitive and profitable, while at the same time capable of meeting the speed to market needs with quick turnaround dates.”

In addition to working closely with coating, ink and substrate manufacturers, “KBA has extensive return-on-investment (ROI) calculation tools,” Frank said, that measure efficiency and profitability for modern-day equipment owners, “who are financially savvy.”

The aforementioned OEE data are used to analyze processes from workflow and prepress to postpress. The OEM also employs application specialists who can optimize operations for customers by identifying efficiency opportunities.

“They point out things like, ‘Hey, did you know you can also produce this?’” Frank said.

Print firm owners and managers base decisions on manufacturing economics. Jim Luttrell, principal owner at Socios Digital Marketing, which handles public relations for RMGT, believes some PSPs get locked into click-charge cost models. Monetization can be the proverbial elephant in the room about which no one wants to talk.

Selling variable-data printing (VDP) is not the same as delivering a VDP project, said Luttrell.

“The success of a VDP project is outside the scope of most PSPs. Personalization is a specialty niche, and data dominates the VDP landscape. Privacy is just one unfamiliar issue that PSPs find themselves wrestling with.”

What often happens, he said, is that digital printers are back to selling static jobs on price. And, toner on paper doesn’t stack up well: about 8 cents per sheet for digital versus 3 cents per sheet for offset.

In addition to click charges, equipment acquisition cost needs to be taken into account along with maintenance plans. Digital printing has much higher downtowns.

“If digital devices are used for high print volumes, the machines can get beat up,” Luttrell said.

Between purchase/lease pricing, maintenance and clicks, “The TCO [total cost of ownership] quickly can add up to $75,000 to $80,000 monthly in some cases,” he said.

Delivering Packaging

KBA entered 2021 on a strong note, according to its May financial report to shareholders, posting a 5.3% increase in order intake over the previous year to €286 million (Euro, the equivalent of nearly $345 million USD).

“This was particularly due to a double-digit increase in orders in the sheetfed segment, of which around 60% can be attributed to the sharp growth in the more pandemic-resistant packaging printing market,” according to the report.

Four months ago, print firm Marshall & Bruce (105,000 square feet in Nashville, Tenn.) continued its commercial-to-packaging conversion by purchasing its fourth KBA offset press: a 41-inch Rapida 106 sheetfed model. President Chip Smith and his team have increased their nationwide base of clients in such industries as health and beauty, personal care and office supply to 80% of his packaging and blister card output while maintaining 20% of the company’s commercial print work. Explosive sales growth has prompted the addition of the new Koenig & Bauer eight-color press this past February.

An East Coast printer had a similar experience, seeing 15% growth in 2020 as a result of transitioning into the packaging market. Allied Printing Services (Manchester, Conn.) added a KBA Rapida 106 sheetfed-offset press to its production mix late last year.

“We’re fully equipped to handle high-end packaging work,” said President/CEO John Sommers. “Our newest Rapida eight-color 106 (plus coater) joins three additional six- and eight-color Rapida 41-inch presses all running at 20,000 sph – the world’s fastest sheetfed press arsenal. These presses with their superior automation allow us to easily switch between commercial and packaging work on the fly.”

The new press automation has reduced Allied’s waste by 25%.

In the Midwest, Decatur, Ill.-based Huston Patterson rang in 2021 by taking delivery in January of a new, eight-color Rapida 164 large-format (64-inch) packaging press. In its 110,000-square-foot facility, 180 miles south of Chicago, the firm is producing top-notch color-critical packaging that can be found up and down the aisles of any retailer such as a local grocery store, pharmacy, Walmart and Amazon.

“Our internal tracking system tells us that the new Rapida is giving us 15% faster speeds and has reduced our makeready in half,” said President Tonya Kowa-Morelli. “In particular, Koenig & Bauer’s color management system with internal camera allows us to excel at efficiently matching color and producing jobs built with five, six, seven or more PMS colors.”

“Some of our customers needed additional capacity for take-out food packaging,” Frank said, recalling the spike in home meal deliveries during the heart of the pandemic.

He also cites increasing demand for top-sheet printing to enhance the look of corrugated-board packaging used by big-box retailers, such as Costco. Also on the rise: offset printing directly on “micro[flute]-corrugated, which is a packaging subset,” said Frank. Not plastic, this thin packaging option is popular for bakery items (think Panera), fruit, vegetables and even rapidly growing, legal cannabis products.

KBA sees signs that customer-spending reticence is beginning to dissipate in many areas.

“Nevertheless, some new investments are being postponed due to the uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic,” according to the report. “This mainly concerns digital decor and corrugated board printing as well as metal decorating, although we are still seeing noticeable interest on the part of our customers. The end markets that we address and particularly also the structurally growing packaging printing segment are fundamentally intact.”

Industry Shrinkage

Consolidation in the print industry is nothing new, and evolution continues on both supplier and PSP sides. Three months ago, Fort Dearborn Co, acquired Hammer Packaging Corp., marking its fourth transaction in the packaging sector. Three years ago, web-offset press OEMs manroland and Goss merged.

“We are constantly on the move and are seizing many new opportunities created through rethinking our processes,” said Franz Kriechbaum, CEO of the combined company.

“COVID-19 has taught us that labor is difficult,” Hemmen said, noting that some 93% of RYOBI’s offset machines now run with a single operator.

Even before the pandemic hit, there was a loss of operator skill in the marketplace, according to Komori’s Schardt.

Other thought on industry compression:

• “It’s never fun to see mid-sized shops struggle, but those coming out of it are stronger,” said Hemmen.
• “We all are surviving together," Frank said. "The strong do get stronger and, in many ways, these companies become easier to do business with because knowledge is power.”
• “Another positive thing about customer consolidation is that [centralized] training can go out to all plants," Schardt said. "The knowledge and techniques passed on can help everyone get a better handle on what they want out of their equipment.”
• “Consolidation is a normal market trend when a competitive industry has pockets of customer who haven’t invested for years and try to survive by lowering their price," Penge said. "This, in general, doesn’t help the market and, as we have seen, is not sustainable. From our perspective, we hate to see the shrinking market but often benefit as many shops plan to reinvest and gain efficiencies as part of their new strategies."

Go further:

RMGT “Open Mic” – “The Economics of Offset Printing vs. Digital Printing: Cockrell Enovation”

Rethink Your Options – Explore the Power of manroland Goss Web (Offset) Systems for Packaging.