Printers Share Crossover Points for Running Shorter-Run Static Print Jobs Offset vs. Digital

With digital printing hogging so many of the headlines in the printing industry these days, most casual print buyers may be operating under the assumption that cutsheet digital output has its foot on the neck of sheetfed offset's neck. And they may be right.

But they're not.

Sure, when it comes to variable data work, digital printers are the ones doing touchdown dances. And on the long-run end of the spectrum—someone, somewhere is gearing up for a 100,000-count run...we just don't know where—offset printing still reigns supreme. But in the realm of short-run, static work, where digital and offset both frolic, there is harmony in the versatility of being able to use one production process or the other.

A popular subject during the digital era has been the crossover point, the magical number run length (500, 1,000, 1,500, etc.) that dictates a printer use his/her sheetfed offset press as opposed to digital output devices. It's magical because it's all about money—the per unit cost when it begins to make fiscal sense to use offset and not digital.

Times have changed. Though it's still all about the money, other variables factor into the decision on whether to use offset or digital for static, short-run work.

Just ask Mitch Schilkraut, the other half of the husband-and-wife owned Jam Printing of Elmsford, NY. Jam Printing boasts a trio of presses—two Heidelbergs (a two-color, 18˝ Quickmaster 46 and a five-color, 20˝ Speedmaster 52) and a Jet envelope press. On the digital side, Jam relies on a Konica-Minolta bizhub PRESS 8000 and a soon-to-be installed Ricoh Pro 901.

According to Schilkraut, any number of factors can influence which machine a job lands on: price, quality, timing, paper requirements. "The biggest factor in my mind is timing—how fast the customer needs it," he says. "It may be cheaper to do it on (offset) press, but then we might not be able to deliver it to the client in the timeframe they're looking for."

Jam Printing produces a strong amount of direct mail, continuing education materials for hospitals, and work for the financial and education spaces. Its first introduction to digital came in the early 1980s with a Xerox 9500, then DocuTechs. After getting away from digital for a spell, Jam returned full-force about five years ago.

But Still Some Finnicky Clients

Quality concerns surrounding digital printing is not the factor it once was for Jam's customers, but there are exceptions. A designer client insists on having her 16-page newsletter—which is ideal for digital printing—produced offset in order to have the PMS colors match exactly. Digital presses tend to apply something of a varnish look to the pages, and this client insists on a "softer" appearance.

That type of customer is certainly the exception in an era when not many print purchasers are print savvy. "These days, 99 percent of customers know little, if anything, about printing," Schilkraut relates. "As long as they can get it when they need it, and the price is right, they don't care how it's done."

Where average run lengths at Jam Printing were in the 25,000 range three to five years ago, they currently sit in the 2,000 to 5,000 zone. Today, it takes a run of about 1,500 to make digital less feasible, says Schilkraut, mainly due to click charges. Even with the cost of plates and labor, offset will routinely get the nod.

Paper weights and certain finishes can be taboo for digital presses, he notes. "On certain jobs, where you have a tri-fold type of brochure with bleeds in the center, and it must register exactly, registration is an issue sometimes on digital machines," he says. "So we produce it offset. Cracking can also also an issue on digital due to the heat, when you score and fold. It's gotten better; machines now do a channel-like score that eliminates a lot of the cracking."

Down in Covington, LA, Mallery Mele found himself in a quandary not long ago when his printing shop, Mele Printing, needed added capacity to handle its static output. Mele was considering purchasing a second Kodak NexPress to complement the 14x26˝ NexPress SX with extended delivery he already had on board; the next closest in size was a Heidelberg Speedmaster CD 74 (23x29˝). The main bull in Mele's pasture was a five-color, 40˝ Speedmaster XL 105 with coater.

In the end, Mele opted to go with a five-color, 20˝ Heidelberg SM 52 Anicolor (inking technology) press with coater. "We wanted the ability to not only produce short-run work with minimal makeready, but also the ability to do four-color envelopes and print on a variety of papers stocks. Initially, when we first got the Anicolor, it pulled 50 percent of all volume off the NexPress. We were running jobs on the NexPress that were mainly price-driven, then we realized the Anicolor could do it cheaper, because there are no click charges, and much faster."

Manufacturing, financial, pharmaceutical, insurance and the educational spaces top Mele's customer list. It covers the full range of commercial offerings, with brochures and postcards providing a lion's share of work output on the Anicolor press. Six-page newsletters and business cards keep the NexPress humming.

The tipping point, run-wise, used to go as high as 1,000 for the digital side, but now Mele is happy to go as low as 500-count jobs on the Anicolor. Any jobs requiring heavy solid ink coverage also make their way to the Anicolor.

Mele doesn't mince words...price is the No. 1 consideration for him. The cheapest option for the customer is the one he'll select, with caveats made for turn times and other variables. But don't get Mele wrong; it's not as if he loves the Anicolor and loathes the NexPress. They both bring something different to the table, like having left-handed and right-handed relievers in the printing bullpen.

"The quality level off our digital press today is phenomenal," he says. "A lot of times, our customers can't tell the difference. With a sophisticated buyer, we'll give them an option on which way they want to go. We still have a few accounts that insist we print their job on offset, even if it's just a run of 300. We understand, that's OK. The two output devices simulate each other very well."

Ultra-Short-Run Book Production

Seaway Printing, the pride of Green Bay, WI, has returned to embrace the roots of its 1884 establishment as a book manufacturer. According to Kevin Heslin, company president, about 75 percent of all its jobs are bound in some manner, either via perfect binding, saddlestitching or coil binding. A majority of its work is short- to ultra-short runs, with a sweet spot of 50 to 1,500 copies.

It's not likely you'll find Seaway Printing's work sitting in your local bookstore. Its client base of publishers and associations tend to lean toward tomes with high intellectual value, not widely distributed (associations or professional/educational books), but carrying a high cover price. College texts and backlist reprints are also sources of work for Seaway.

On the press side, Seaway employs a 40˝, four-color Heidelberg Speedmaster XL 105 for offset printing and a trio of Xerox digital machines: two Nuveras and an iGen4. Which machine gets the nod is dependent on a number of factors, according to Heslin. Most buyers do not stipulate the printing process employed.

"Most of our customers are agnostic to it," he says. "The quality is suitable in both cases, so it's a cost solution. Unlike commercial work, book work has a lot of finishing components involved in it. We're looking at what is the cost to get to a (break-even) place in the finishing stream. If we run the job on the Nuvera or iGen, we get a book block coming off. Granted, it's two-up or four-up, but it's a book block. If I run it offset, I get a stack of flat sheets that still need to be folded and gathered before they go to the next step. We look at the whole stream and try to determine where the tradeoff is.

"The other thing that comes into play…digital may be a more cost-effective platform, but the sheer number of man hours needed may push us onto (offset) press. We do a fair amount of pretty high page count work. We may do 600 copies of a book that's 700 to 800 pages long. At that point, you're quickly up into that half-million pages. It becomes almost impossible to do that on a cutsheet digital machine, just from the sheer number of hours."

Heslin believes digital printers get a bad rap. For instance, one publisher's rep once declared that he did not want Seaway to run any of its jobs digitally, because the customers wouldn't be satisfied with the quality. But since the publisher hadn't stipulated as such previously, digital is exactly what that client had been receiving. "We find the quality that comes off our Nuvera—as long as the machine is properly maintained—is equal to offset, in most cases," Heslin adds.

He estimates the general digital/offset tipping point to be in the 1,200 range, a few hundred more than a general commercial printer would estimate due to factoring in the finishing needs of publishing clients. Heslin has bounced from one method to the other within the same project, depending upon the run count.

One printer's disdain for digital has earned him unique distinction and extra business. C&S Press, of Orlando, FL, decided not to take the digital plunge after securing a four-color, 20˝ Heidelberg SM 52 Anicolor with coater in 2009. Since the Anicolor is capable of profitably running jobs in the 500-plus range, company President Frank Tantillo decided to forego obtaining a digital complement.

Instead, Tantillo has hammered out co-venture agreements with digital print shops, sending them all the work under 500 copies. In exchange, C&S' partners have been sending along a healthy amount of offset work.

"A lot of people choose to go with the Anicolor because they want to keep their branding efforts intact," Tantillo notes. "If they want a 500 to 600 count piece, it prints in-line and matches all of their corporate collateral. They maintain that color consistency. If they run it on digital, it just has that different look."

However, Tantillo does anticipate his shop taking the digital storefront route in the near future. "It's the wave of the future—automated, and billing gets done right away. I don't want eight people touching a $20 job." PI