The Digital Finishing Challenge

I'm lucky in that I get to work on a fair number of new digital print and finishing applications in my work. I also get to speak with a number of commercial printers, so, in a way, I have a front-row seat in the digital transition show.

This is not the first time I've visited this subject, but as digital print continues to take a bigger market share, the subject is attracting more attention. As the workloads being assigned to digital continue to grow, the existing "digital" finishing machinery is coming up short. Many (but not all) of the available folders, booklet makers, and binders are a bit light for these higher volumes and compressed production cycles. This has created real opportunity on the finishing end, and a diverse lot of finishing manufacturers are jumping into this space.