Feature
Knowing when to leverage the advantages
of digital, analogue and hybrid printing
technologies
Alec Couckuyt
Technology is driving the convergence in the “printing” industry, blurring
the lines between digital and analogue printing and generating new
revenue streams.
Over the last 10 years, our industry went
through an accelerated technological
evolution that has had a profound impact.
On the business side we’ve unfortunately
seen multiple plant closures. But we’ve
also seen a growing trend of consolidations
and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in
our industry. The recent acquisition of
Webcom by Marquis is a prime example
of how one dominant book printer
strengthens its position within its vertical
by acquiring another. The acquisition by
Transcontinental of Coveris Americas is
a prime example of how a print giant
reached out to another market vertical,
in this case flexible packaging, capital-
izing on quasi-similar technologies and
knowledge. Many other printers have
made similar moves, strengthening their
position or expanding in adjacent verticals.
On the technology side, we’ve seen the
introduction of a wide range of digital
print production presses, advanced
new lithographic offset presses and
flexographic presses, and even bigger
display graphic presses.
What does this all mean? Where
are we heading? What’s next? And
most importantly, when do I use
what technology?
In order to have a better understanding
of these questions, let me reflect on
what transpired in our industry over
the last several years. With the evolution
of digital printing, we’ve seen some
key changes in the printing industry’s
landscape. Looking back at the mid
to late 1990s, we saw once-thriving
verticals within the printing industry all
28 | April 2019 | GRAPHIC ARTS MAGAZINE
but disappear, and how an evolved
business model emerged. Typesetters,
colour separators, film strippers, prepress
houses and even offset-printing-only
businesses started to disappear. At that
time the survival of the commercial printing
business hinged on the capability of
amalgamating all these func tions
in-house. Prepress became more and
more digitized and finished jobs went
from taking weeks to days.
expanding beyond its original application
and moving into commercial, direct
marketing, transaction, packaging, label,
display graphics etc. Add to this the
introduction of inkjet technology toward
the end of the first decade of the new
millennium, and we were at the cusp of
digital print production going mainstream.
Fast-forward to today, and digital printing
presses are omnipresent in all printing
market segment s – commercial,
Ricoh Pro VC70000 Continuous-Feed
Inkjet Press
Gradually the digitization extended from
the prepress area into the press area
itself. The transaction printing world had
already embraced high-volume digital
B&W toner continuous feed (web) printing
on preprinted offset shells, handling
massive amounts of data and operating
on tight SLA’s. Océ, Ricoh and Xerox
were the key equipment manufacturers
in that field. Cutsheet B&W toner devices
also started to find their way into the
commercial printing world with Xerox
commanding the lion’s share of the market.
Towards the end of the 1990s we were
also starting to see some initial forays
into digital colour print production, with
companies such as Indigo and Xeikon
joining the field.
The acquisition of Indigo by HP in 2001
set off a new wave of digitization, quickly
packaging, display graphics, label, direct
marketing and transactional. We’re past
the point where “digital” quality is in
question. Analogue and digital printing
systems produce quality that’s now
accepted by clients – and the quality in
many cases is virtually indistinguishable.
The Idealliance G7 standards further
enhanced the conformity across print
production platforms. And, most printers
have already added digital printing
capabilities in the form of toner-based
B&W and colour cut-sheet presses.
High-volume, full-colour inkjet presses
have now reached high quality and
productivity levels, opening up new
opportunities for printers. Inkjet presses
have now lifted digital productivity levels
into offset production territory with the
obvious added advantage of short-run
and variable-data print. Full-colour
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