Page 25 - Print21 March-April 2020

Revolution in Print
risks of buying a digital press have
so far prevented most of them
form stepping in. Not all though, Emmanuel Buhagiar at Imagination Graphics put in the first sheetfed B2 inkjet KM-1 into NSW, and speaking at the launch a few weeks after it was installed he told guests, "She’s a hard worker, good looking, great manners. She fits into our business and our company so well. She’ll end up being one of our hardest workers.”
After two months Buhagiar told Print21 that his investment in her is paying off. “It’s opened up a whole new market in short-run digital at a great price, and the quality is better than offset.”
Ellipsis Press in Queensland chose to put in a B2 digital, in its case
a Fuijfilm Jetpress 750 sheetfed inkjet, last year. Its director Rob Keanalley says work in the first week "had already exceeded expectations", he said. "On the second day we did
a particular job which would have taken a day and a half on the offset press, on the JetPress it was two and a half hours. The decision to invest in JetPress inkjet sheetfed is working out already."
By far the largest number of B2 digital installs in ANZ, and around the world, are the HP Indigo presses. The first company to install one
was Courtney Colour in Melbourne, which seven years ago switched from an offset house to digital and put
in an HP Indigo 10000. Last year it installed the first HP Indigo 12000 in the country.
Managing director Aldo Burcheri says, “Courtney is committed to staying at the head of the market. We need to invest to be able to have the solutions to offer our customers more. The new B2 HP Indigo printers enable us to grow further into markets such as variable data print, direct mail and
Far left
First for Fujifilm:
With the
new Fujifilm JetPress 750S B2 digital inkjet at Ellipsis Media are (l-r) David Martin, Rob Keanalley, and David Fritz
Above
B2 sheetfed digital inkjet: Konica Minolta AccurioPress KM-1
point of sale. The Indigo 12000 we have ordered has new capabilities, such as invisible ink, that will enable us to offer more to our customers and give them more value.”
Burcheri says, “Print is a tough market, we have to keep investing
to keep ahead of the pack. We have a great relationship with Currie Group going back seven years now since we put in Australia's first B2 HP Indigo, so that was a big part of our decision to upgrade with the new Indigo presses, along with their capabilities.”
However, offset manufacturers say that a move to B2 digital is not inevitable and they say that for short run work the new generation of offset presses offer lower costs and high quality.
HP Indigo is the most successful
B2 digital player, first with its 10000, then 12000, and latterly 12000HD. Most installs have been to existing HP Indigo users, printers familiar with the technology and the business model. Its sales dwarf all others combined.
Digital B2 proponents say that
the same arguments that saw the A3 digital wave enter the small sheet size world hold sway in B2 and B1 as well. Offset press manufacturers, though, counter that the benefits of today's litho machines make digital arguments redundant, except for variable data work, which they say is minimal anyway, and can always be integrated into an offset press for a single colour.
For B2 printers, traditionally family owned businesses, the
“Print is a tough market, we have to keep investing to keep ahead of the pack.” Courtney Colour managing director Aldo Burcheri
Most offset press manufacturers now offer LED UV, which means instant drying and low power. The speed of offset printing is three, four, or five times that of B2 digital. Digital players say speed is not that relevant when you are only printing 1000 sheets, it is makeready that is key. Here though the offset boys say they are down to a few minutes for makeready. And when it comes to cost the break-even point for offset is now low.
Part of the issue for B2 digital
is that if a press is being used
as a straightforward drop-in replacement for a B2 offset it is not being used to its full potential, that occurs when the B2 digital
is part of an integrate production line. Printers in Europe and Japan that are putting in more than one
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