Offset Technology: Never Say Die

Adds McLauchlan, “In printing’s heyday 30 to 40 years ago, the margins were only 4 percent or 5 percent. Now they’re half of that, and anything a printer can do to automate or eliminate press downtime is a good thing. As recently as 10 to 15 years ago, we considered anything below 50,000 a sheetfed job. Now, it’s down as low as 2,000 copies for some commercial work. That’s a function of a lot of things, including quick makereadies, on-the-fly plate changing and fast changeover. Not that long ago, the makeready on a web press would be counted in hours. Changing colors used to be an all-day affair. Now, it’s accomplished in virtually no time at all.”