Page 15 - Print 21 Magazine Sep-Oct 2021

Technology Focus
Technology Focus PacPrint may have been cancelled, but the technology that
continued apace. Today’s offset press bears some resemblance to those of 20 years ago, but is also strikingly different. The latest presses have makeready that is blink-and-you- miss-it fast, enabling printers to achieve great efficiencies, and offer versioning in a cost-effective way to their clients. One pass printing is the buzzword, with ink, coating, foiling all inline if required.
A printer looking at an offset press today has the exact opposite of Henry Ford’s old maxim that you can have any colour you like as long as it is black; today you can have any configuration, with any number of units, that you choose.
Wide format printing has been an area of increasingly rich picking for printers over the past two decades, with the inexorable growth of the sector. Outdoor media for instance was on course to hit $1bn in spend before it was sideswiped by Covid, and while print accounts for 45
per cent of that it will remain a growth area. Many commercial
print businesses have brought wide format printing inhouse, after all they have the file management skills, the printing and colour skills, and crucially, the customers.
Wide format technology developers continue to launch new solutions, meaning printing businesses have options to print with various different systems, according to the application. Roll-fed, flatbed, hybrid, eco-solvent, UV, LED, the myriad new wide format printers is testimony
to the enduring opportunity in this sector of print, notwithstanding the current absence of major wide format sectors such as conferences, concerts, events and expos.
Finally there is the media itself, the printable material, which is itself enabling much of the growth in print, for example the non-PVC banner material, enabling printers to go to market with an eco-friendly message, or new creations such
as the print and emboss machine highlighted in this issue designed to enable printers to capitalise on the boom in personalised home décor.
Print business owners are in a fortunate position, although for many it hasn’t felt fortunate over the past 18 months, of having some of the world’s finest minds develop technologies designed to enable them to grow their businesses.
The investment by the technology developers is staggering, and investment they believe will be well rewarded. 21
was due to be shown in Melbourne is still available, with Print21 highlighting the latest developments.
Although Covid has caused so much disruption over the past 18 months, and
looks likely to run until Christmas, the pace of print
industry technological development has certainly not slowed down. In every area of the business – software, digital presses, offset presses, wide format presses, media – technology has improved, and with it brought new opportunities to print businesses of all kinds.
Covid has killed off the trade shows, here and around the world, leaving printers unable to have that great opportunity to see a host of technology in one place. Overseas visits to vendors and their customers have been banned. It seems that both will be back on the agenda in 2022, giving print business owners and managers the chance to see the latest technology for themselves.
Printers are still investing of course, press giant Heidelberg has sold 11 B1 and B2 offset presses here
over the past year, and Print21 has reported on many print businesses installing new equipment, with some of that bought sight unseen, printers trusting the brand and the test jobs coming back from the factory
Over the next 45 pages of Print21 we highlight some of those leading technologies that are now available, or will shortly be available to ANZ print businesses.
Digital printing now dominates the A3 market, and there have been many new launches in this sector. Effectively there is a digital press for virtually every type of printer, and every budget. What you can get for an entry level investment is quite remarkable, and would have been unthinkable 20 years ago. Digital
is now also in B2 printing, and in continuous feed for high speed, high volume work. It is also increasingly available for label printing, and now for carton and corrugated printing.
The majority of print though is still produced by offset presses, and offset press development has also
Above
Developing fast: Print production technology is moving forward at a rapid pace
Print21 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021 15