Offset Print’s Passion Is Back -- and So, Too, Are Profits
Why conventional, non-digital lithography is still kicking and why its future is filled with promise. But reinvestment is key.
It is no secret that offset printing, overall, is a mature, no-growth market in slow decline. Print firm owners and managers have experienced its eroded margins, which remain challenged. We’ve all heard and read about how offset page counts continue to decrease, causing manufacturers of analog presses to struggle mightily in recent years.
“In the marketplace today, the media buyer does not want to pay more for print,” Heidelberg USA’s Clarence Penge bluntly pointed out. “It comes down to economics, despite volume,” added Penge, a 21-year Heidelberg veteran who now is VP of the firm’s sheetfed product management in the United States.
But if pages produced analog, using traditional printing plates, are decreasing (which they are), also know this: Offset printing still represents massive business in North America and worldwide. It is true that for HP alone, inkjet web printing volume has grown to some 90 billion pages over the past seven years, reported Marco Boer, VP at I.T. Strategies. And as digital and inkjet printing encroach on the graphic arts segment, the research firm projects annual growth of 27 percent. Looking at the overall digital prints cape, InfoTrends’ 2013-2018 Global Production Printing & Copying Market Forecast reported that US and Western European digital production color volumes totaled about 265 billion impressions in 2013 and will surpass 500 billion by 2018.
For the sake of illustration, however, if offset pages are down 10 percent that means for every trillion pages, 100 billion may have gone digital. However, there still are 900 billion being printed offset. Sure, digital print (including inkjet, of course) is growing dramatically, but its piece of the print pumpkin pie is a mere sliver compared to the mega slice that is offset, both web- and sheetfed. Flat though it may be, offset is still huge.
One telling statistic comes by way of the paper industry : Of all the paper stocked for print firms, inkjet substrates represent an average of only between five and 15 percent of total mill volumes at Appleton Coated, International Paper, and Mitsubishi Paper, said panel participants.
Show and tell
Admittedly, there isn’t much traditional “iron” on the Graph Expo show floor these days. Yet there still was a positive buzz coming out of the 2015 edition of the tradeshow this past September from press manufacturer exhibitors such as Goss, KBA, Komori, manroland, and RMGT (formerly Ryobi MHI). The rebranded RMGT actually had a five-color Ryobi MHI 925 LED-UV sheetfed press set up and running in Chicago; live demos of the “Must See ’Em”-winning, eight-up technology ran every hour during the four-day show. It marked the one and only offset machine at the show, as was the case for Ryobi MHI in 2014 as well.
“Now is one of the most exciting times that the printing industry has seen in a long time,” exclaimed Kian Hemmen, account manager for California equipment dealer Print & Finishing Solutions (PFS), which distributes RMGT (formerly Ryobi MHI) sheetfed printing presses. So, why the renewed excitement? Hemmen attributes three reasons for passion returning to the offset print marketplace:
- Consumer confidence: The proverbial “other shoe” never dropped, and the US economy has stabilized over the past 2.5 years to three years.
- Favorable exchange rate: The value of the US Dollar remains very strong vs. both the Japanese yen (nearly 120:1) and the euro.
- Ease of use and diversification: Offset printing has become easier, and businesses have successfully diversified into the packaging and grand-format digital spaces.
Highly automated workflow systems are a big reason that offset printing has become easier, according to Hemmen. “Automation is coming from upstream,” he said. “From imposition to proofing, jobs now get to press faster and with fewer [human] touches.”
Automation extends to the presses themselves, too, of course. “People are replacing legacy equipment dating back to 2002 through 2006-07,” Hemmen added. “The cost of investment has come down, making it easier for companies to see a three-year ROI by reducing labor and waste and by producing more pages per hour.” Some older presses, say 1990s vintage, could cost an owner up to $35,000 per month just in waste, he said, but newer models’ waste adds up to one-sixth that amount. “That $6,000 is more than a monthly payment for a new press,” Hemmen reported.
For example, Ryobi’s SMART RPC Fully Automatic Plate Changer greatly shortens plate-changing time and reduces operator workload. Through simple touch panel operation, plate changing is automatically performed on all units simultaneously. This provides powerful support for frequent job changeovers and diverse small-lot printing.
(Watch the full, four-minute video of PrintingNews.com’s interview with Hemmen at Graph Expo: www.PrintingNews.com/12114953.)
20 presses and counting
In fact, "RMGT has sold over 20 new presses in North America during the last 12 months," stated Don Barbour, chairman and co-founder of regional distributor Graphic Systems North America (GSNA). One recent installation is in Toledo, OH, where Metzgers Printing & Mailing is adding an RMGT 9210 Perfector Press with LED-UV.
The 925 model also features LED-UV curing and SMART RPC plate-changing technology “One of the benefits they [customers] mention is how simultaneous plate changing shortens makeready and closes the ‘cost-of-manufacturing gap’ between high-quality offset and high-cost digital printing,” Barbour noted. GSNA is the largest independent source of printing equipment, technical service, and parts in North America. GSNA delivers exclusive access to Ryobi MHI’s full line of offset and digital presses for commercial, packaging, and in-plant printers in the U.S. and Canada, together with immediate technical support and parts fulfillment. Formed in July 2013 with co-headquarters in four U.S. states and two Canadian provinces, the GSNA group has more than $60 million in revenue and constitutes the single largest offset press sales and service team in North America.
The RYOBI MHI 925 LED-UV Press with SMART RPC technology delivers unmatched advantage for printers who need the versatility of LED-UV instant curing, latest-generation automation and broad substrate capabilities—in a package that provides the lowest total cost to print when compared with other eight-up presses.
“Reinvestment is the key,” agreed Andy Rae, senior VP of equipment at Heidelberg USA, who came from the OEM’s UK subsidiary four years ago. “Without reinvesting in equipment, you cannot compete. And if you can’t compete, then print is indeed dead,” he opined.
Rae also acknowledged a bit of a “Catch 22” situation: It is difficult for a print firm owner to invest without profit, and most can’t profit without reinvestment. “But we are nowhere near maximizing efficiency in the printing process,” he said, “and digital is not necessarily the answer. Ten years ago, the Speedmaster 102 had a duty cycle of 25 million sheets per year. Today’s SP XL 106 can produce between 40 million and 90 million sheets per year.”
Rae cited the short-run example of Heidelberg’s innovative Anicolor inking unit, which became available on its 23x29-inch Speedmaster XL 75 (six-up) models two years ago. Anicolor technology reduces makeready waste to a bare minimum in terms of time and paper, according to Heidelberg. Sellable quality can be achieved in as little as 10 sheets, with makeready times around six minutes per form. When compared with inkjet or e-ink based systems, “the break-even point on this device is less than 500 sheets, not 5,000 like with 1999 vintage models,” Rae noted, at speeds up to 15,000 sheets per hour (sph).
Running the numbers
A recent Anicolor 29-inch installation took place at 4 Color Press (4CP), which installed a Speedmaster XL 75 -5+L in May. The 11-year-old firm is on track to triple its business in the next two years, according to owners Andrew and Lisa Fuld. 4CP outgrew the SM 52 Anicolor it acquired in 2007, logging more than 103 million impressions on the machine in seven years. “We literally had no capacity left,” Fuld said.
Since the larger machine was installed six months ago, 4CP has taken 16 to 18 hours of run time per day on the SM 52 down to about five hours of press time on the XL 75. At this rate, Fuld said, “We’ll be able to add two shifts and triple our business to boot. We anticipate getting back to 100 percent capacity on the new machine within two years.” According to Fuld, the company already has put more than four million impressions on the new machine.
The company’s centerpiece, essential tool, and sole press is the Heidelberg Speedmaster XL 75 Anicolor, which turns out quick-turn orders in run lengths from 50 sheets and up for customers throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and nationwide, including corporations and nonprofits, manufacturers and educational institutions. 4CP rarely handles high-volume jobs, although the long-run capabilities of the XL 75 Anicolor give 4CP the flexibility to take on run lengths up to 50,000 sheets, if necessary. The XL 75’s ability to turn jobs quickly also lends itself to multiple versioning, a company specialty.
“One makeready, one setup, and more than 300 full CYMK/K plate swaps,” Fuld said. “With the XL 75 Anicolor, it isn’t nearly as onerous as it sounds.” Take for example the recent order of 168 versions of a pocket folder in quantities of 100 to 1,000. With the Anicolor’s five- minute plate transitions and 15 sheet makereadies, we were able to knock out more than 25 versions per shift.”
Fuld’s embrace of Anicolor technology has as much to do with print quality as with production speed. “Customers that seek us out are aware of our reputation for reliable color consistency minus ghosting, banding, or other printing flaws. Anicolor technology provides extremely stable inking.” The certified carbon-neutral Speedmaster XL 75’s up to 90 percent waste-reducing capabilities also echo 4CP’s ecological concerns.
Penge, Rae’s colleague at Heidelberg USA, sees short-run offset applications in the yearbook business, “where there are many signatures but quantities of only 250 to 500,” as well as web-to-print businesses run over the Internet, which also commonly reproduce in the 500-sheet range. “Thirty- to 40-minute makereadies are not fast by today’s standards,” Penge noted, “not when you’re running, say, 13 jobs per hour and runs of 250. You may be producing 100 jobs per shift. I remember when 20 would have been a lot.” To process all these print orders, “Workflow automation also is needed in these production environments,” he said.
If you are a printer who has not invested lately, Rae advised “right-sizing” your business – before it’s too late. “Two old, 40-inch presses can be replaced with one, newer half-size model that’s highly more efficient, getting as many or more pages out at better margins,” he reported. “So the ROI is there.”
Package printing
“If you look at commercial packaging, the key here for offset is cost per copy or per sheet [which] dictates the technology being used when you have ‘longer’ runs,” said Soren Larsen, senior VP of sheetfed sales at KBA. Offset can print 9.1 million 64-inch sheets in one month, he pointed out. “Try and do that on a digital press! It will not happen.”
For more information on the future of offset package printing, including energy-cured inks, continue reading PN’s extended online coverage, "The Future of Offset Printing: 2016 and Beyond," at www.PrintingNews.com/12124443
And for a retrospective look at print’s past future, circa 2010, reread my story “Why Print’s Not Going Away Any Time Soon.” www.PrintingNews.com/10264985
