Every print services provider knows the drill – quote too high and you risk losing the job – quote too low and you risk losing money. Balancing these risks requires both art and science. Nowhere is this balancing act more challenging than when estimating complex color jobs.

For many print providers, the three-variable quote equation is:  cost plus target markup plus or minus a “gut factor” based on current demand and available capacity.

The “gut factor” takes away a percentage of the markup when the market is slow, and increases the markup when demand is high. Printers use varying levels of tools and analysis to come up with each of the three variables in the main equation. Some refer to static pricing books, some create sophisticated spreadsheets and others may use commercial estimating software tools that use many variables to estimate the costs of the job and add a designated markup – but the fudge factor is always in there somewhere. That’s because most people don’t totally trust the cost numbers that get spit out of a computer.

That’s because costs are both complicated and dynamic.

Typically costs encompass people, processing and technology costs – each made up of many sub-components. On the face of it, “People” includes labor, service and monthly or yearly maintenance contracts, “Processing” includes running costs like paper, ink, and power; and “Technology” includes capital and leased equipment costs. The complicating factor is that capacity on each piece of equipment is dynamic, and the level of efficiency on one piece of equipment impacts the capacity of other pieces of equipment. People, Processing and Technology are inextricably linked so a job that requires multiple stock changes on a continuous inkjet printer reduces the potential capacity of the print device, increases labor usage and impacts inserter efficiency as well. Since jobs to be quoted may vary significantly – a catalog approach would have to include a “worst case scenario” on efficiency thereby potentially inflating pricing. Even printers who use estimating tools tend to apply a “gut check” if they know a particular job is either very simple or more complex than average.

The situation takes on a whole new level of complexity when the device in question is a full-color inkjet machine – and don’t forget the potential for built-in MICR. These machines offer your clients tremendous cost savings potential, which can make you more competitive – but only if you get the quotes right – RIGHT?

Now your “processing costs” aren’t just about a single ink and a single coverage percentage – you’ve got C+Y+M+K and maybe plus MICR, each multiplied by a different coverage percentage and unit cost. Again – do you use the most expensive ink as your baseline? An average? Either way could dramatically skew your estimates – particularly when MICR is in the mix, since it is roughly 13 to 15 times more expensive than other inks. Here, the gut check just won’t do – it’s critical to have tools that not only let you test ink coverage and costs in advance, but monitor usage/coverage for the life of the job and see if it stays true to your estimate.

Imagine that you have a job of one million pieces that started out with five or seven percent ink coverage and crept up to 20 percent coverage over time as your client added more graphics and messaging to the document. Are you still charging the same price you quoted six months ago? Do you have clauses in your contract to adjust pricing based on actual coverage? If you don’t, you could be bleeding money for the life of the contract.

What’s needed is a way to calculate the number of dots for every color in a sample and break out percentages of cyan, magenta, yellow, black, MICR or spot color coverage in order to generate more accurate quotes and collect essential color data on jobs in production. (Océ PRISMAproduction Truecost is a unique and valuable tool developed expressly for this purpose)

Another key, and often overlooked, factor that impacts costing is paper. Not the cost of the paper itself – that may be volatile but is at least directly measurable. I’m talking about the impact of the paper you use on the efficiency of the printer. Again – the linkage between People, Processing and Technology. Using papers that are not certified for a particular device can have dramatically negative results – increasing paper wastage,  “downtime” on the machine and potential fines for missed SLAs, and of course the potential to use more ink than required for the job due to absorption factors. Most print manufacturers have catalogs of paper that they have tested, certification programs with vendors and teams available to help you make wise paper choices. Take advantage of these resources both in selecting papers (or helping your customers to select papers) and in developing estimating guidelines that take into account the expected performance.

Estimating will always include the “art of the gut” to some extent, but the science is getting better and better.

What are your experiences with the challenges of estimating – especially when it comes to inkjet? I’m interested in hearing your take on the role job costing plays in creating accurate quotes – and the role quotes play in painting a brighter profit picture.

By Jack Miller, Principal Consultant, Market-Intell

In the world of digital print and paper, “nirvana” is a press that is capable of producing offset quality at a competitive cost on the same papers that printers use on their offset presses.

 For the most part, coated and uncoated offset papers run reasonably well with toner-based digital laser printing, but toner is expensive. Now, the next generation is here: low cost, high speed digital ink jet web presses made news at Drupa in 2008, Print09 last year, and IPEX this year. These are the Océ JetStream, the HP T300, and the Kodak Prosper, presses that are capable of commercial production output volumes with variable data.  Xerox also introduced a new production inkjet technology at IPEX, and while this technology is not yet commercial, it is  promising.

 Now, the challenge is paper.

Inkjet inks have high water content, and tend to soak into uncoated papers or sit up on coated papers where they may smear. For uncoated papers, HP and International Paper introduced ColorLok technology for desktop printers. This technology involves a calcium chloride-based chemical that is added at the paper mill and adds minimal cost. With the introduction of the T300 color inkjet web press, HP followed up with ColorPRO, a similar technology for inkjet presses. Abitibi Bowater, Georgia-Pacific and Stora Enso all produce ColorPRO qualified papers. The ColorPRO program requires that mills meet quality standards audited by HP. The HP T300 can also apply a “bonding agent” that enables printing on ordinary uncoated paper.

Coated papers, however, remain a challenge.

The list of available coated papers for ink jet is limited (see Table 1). HP’s ColorPRO technology is not designed for coated papers, nor is the bonding agent (although some coated papers do work better with the bonding agent.) Océ, HP, and Kodak are all working with the leading coated paper manufacturers. Appleton Coated reports that they are jointly developing high-speed inkjet coated media with HP, and the first such product is the Utopia Book Inkjet 45 lb. Matte Text.  Appleton Coated also offers coated papers in matte and dull finishes for direct mail and commercial printing applications. The Utopia Inkjet family, including Utopia Book Inkjet, does not require the use of the bonding agent. Appleton Coated has also worked with Kodak to qualify this grade on the Prosper press.

NewPage is also working on coated inkjet, and is working with glossy papers. I saw some beautiful books printed on NewPage 80 lb. Gloss Inkjet with the HP T300. This sheet is specially formulated for the HP T300 and is available on an inquiry basis. Other weights and finishes will be available as market demand increases.

Table 1 Coated Inkjet Papers

 The two market areas that are finding the most immediate traction are books and direct mail. For books, waste factors are high, logistics are expensive and returns remain a major factor. Digital solves these problems, and even though paper costs may be a bit higher, the economics remain favorable. Digital book printing can be a one-off printed by Amazon or by a digital book printer like Lightning Source, but for these “new generation” digital ink jet presses; this is about medium length runs and keeping the printing cost under control, while slashing inventory and logistics costs. For direct mail, the economics are equally compelling. It is much better to print 500,000 copies of personalized, targeted direct mail and get a response rate of 8 to 10 percent than to print a million copies and get a 2 percent return.

For now, the installed base of digital inkjet presses is small, but as the base grows, run lengths at the mills will lengthen and costs will come down. This will provide a stimulus to demand for digital print, and the range of applications will increase. The new presses have been described as “disruptive technology,” i.e. technology that will change the rules of the game. And ultimately, these new rules will mean more digital inkjet papers.

 Jack Miller is Principal Consultant, Market-Intell, a supplier of strategic consulting and “Need to Know” market intelligence in paper, print and packaging. He can be contacted at jack.miller@market-intell.com     

We are truly in the golden age of printing. It’s an exciting time full of technology convergence, disruption and acceleration. Along with all of this is the necessary sorting out true cost/benefit of any technology including the energy used to run it. As the old adage goes, you can’t track what you don’t measure. This writing explores that philosophy as it pertains to power consumption.

It is generally accepted that digital printing costs less to both you and your customers in terms of both time and money in specific situations, and although this can be true, the question here is how does power fit into the equation?

Hybrid printing facilities have a variety of options when it comes to jobs that at the outset seem more efficient through the use of one technology over another. Do you run it offset or digital? Preprint shells and imprint data or run an otherwise black-only variable data color job on a digital color press? Sure, time and cost can be calculated in terms of BHC and necessary turn around, but for each piece of equipment what is the true cost of the power used to run it?

The power it takes to run digital versus offset equipment can and should be measured on an isolated basis. There are many permanent and portable power meters and data-loggers on the market generally ranging from $600 to $3000 for a three-phase-capable unit. This cost can be viewed as a quick payoff investment to get a true picture of how much power is consumed by each piece of equipment in the shop for a specified duration, either under load, idle or “off”, provided the results are utilized to proper advantage.

For instance, platesetters, digital presses, cutters &c. all are under idle power when not in use. By calculating the idle time power draw and then isolating a production run under full load, a true picture of the actual cost can be achieved. Now how about warm-up time? Obviously a cutter doesn’t have much of one, while a digital press does. Most shops have these machines powered up all day long, idle or not. How much money could be saved by turning off idle devices when not in use? Of course the same can be said for idle workstations, lighting and climate control, but that’s not the focus here.

On the other hand, offset presses, with the exception of associated compressors, chillers, agitators, recirculators, UV units, thermal oxidizers… well, you get the point, along with folders, stitchers and some types of packaging equipment do not draw active power when not in use. They do however draw at the very least phantom power. In all cases, the question comes down to whether there’s a warm-up time, and how much power that activity consumes and whether or not a lockout device should be employed to completely power down when it would otherwise be “turned off”.

Once the true power consumption costs are calculated for any given piece of equipment how could this play into your organization’s strategy? Here are some thoughts:

1. Benchmark costs for power used for jobs on specific equipment;
2. Track unused idle time and phantom power draw, and find ways to eliminate the same;
3. Report on isolated power consumption as part of a formal Life Cycle Analysis (LCA);
4. Use power consumption as an evaluation tool to cost one technology over another;
5. Integrate power isolation metrics into upper management’s continuous improvement dashboard;
6. Incentivize and empower employees to reduce energy use;
7. Empower customers to make the choice of technologies partially based on energy use;
8. Integrate a power reduction strategy into the organization’s sustainability reporting;
9. Normalize power conservation into the organization’s DNA;
10. Become a champion and tell your story to the masses.

What other ideas can you come up with?

Orange County Printing (OCP), a Consolidated Graphics, Inc. (NYSE: CGX) company, has launched Forte Select, a line of personalized promotional gift and apparel items.   Unlike traditional promotional product providers, Forte Select enables users to create one-off pieces such as mugs, mouse pads, and t-shirts that are personalized with individuals’ names, images, or other custom content.  

“We are among a select group of companies offering the ability to personalize promotional products, and view this capability as a way to broaden and enhance the marketing resources of our customers,” said Tarek Korraa, president of Orange County Printing and creator of Forte Select. “Our customers are demanding a more personalized marketing experience, and now we can offer uniquely customized promotional products in addition to our custom pulp products such as photo books, custom calendars and variably printed direct mail pieces.”

 These personalized promotional products are printed through a dye-sublimation or digital inkjet process, and enable customers to avoid the costly setup fees, quantity minimums, and other costs that are inherent considerations when producing most promotional products.

Please forgive me for posting an advertisement – but I really liked these videos. (Actually – I  posted the “Old Spice Guy” video awhile back so I’m already in the dog house.)

There are a whole bunch of variations out there on the “sound sculpture theme.”  I would have described it more as a “color dance.” The campaign (scupture? dance?) was put together by the Dentsu Agency in London and is a great example of how “soft-selling” via social media can work.

I guess anything that helps our industry promote the beauty of color printing is probably not a bad thing – right?

Is the use of color really that different in transactional and graphic arts print environments? Or do expectations and unique application characteristics drive the perception of color quality and the choice of color technology?

In my experience, the lightning rod for differentiating the two comes down to five key questions:

1. What drives the use of color?
2. How do you define color quality?
3. How much color is enough?
4. How critical is color quality?
5. What is the acceptable cost of color?

Let’s start with transactional environments where applications are fairly predictable from month to month and are printed in significant volumes in highly compressed windows. Here, as with direct mail, color may be used to maintain corporate branding, to induce an action, enhance understanding or just to get attention. Color is also being used in transactional environments to gain the operational efficiencies of a white paper environment and increase the potential for postal savings. As for color quality, in transaction environments the focus is on striking a balance between the cost of color and the quality required to fulfill the purpose of the application – typically directing attention to or highlighting key information on a page like an amount due or due date. More and more, those responsible for transaction documents are looking at the cost-benefit equation related to promotional messages with varying levels of color – but not at the level of color quality associated with graphic arts work.

I’ve never met a print provider who doesn’t expect and produce the best quality- including color reproduction. But we have to be careful to put color quality in context. Is it something that we recognize when we see it? Is it the quality we see in annual reports, photo books or brochures? The ability to reproduce corporate colors within 1 to 3 deltas of the target PMS or Pantone color? I contend that it is some of all of these things. But there are trade-offs in digital (and offset) printing such as throughput, machine settings, supply costs, use of specialty supplies versus standard supplies, and paper costs that can be chosen to manage the resulting color output.

As for transaction and transpromo documents, print providers are more likely to select low-cost commodity-grade papers, manage supply costs by choosing designs with low coverage and optimize throughput to satisfy short print windows, and may not even print at the full resolution that a device is capable of. While willing to make some concessions on quality in return for cost savings, in transactional environments, month-to-month consistency is critical to ensure that the look and feel of the documents contributes to a uniform and consistent relationship. So at any color or resolution level, color management remains critical across these high-volume runs.

Contrast this with how color is used in graphic arts environments. Here, job mixes tend to be more unpredictable, varying from day to day based on what customers bring through the door – or web portal. Turnaround ranges from same-day to more than a week. Volumes run the gamut from very short to very long. The amount of color coverage is driven by the job, but with a difference. Applications tend to be photo- and graphic-intensive and therefore color-intensive – with more frequent use of full color in jobs like direct mailers, photo books, brochures and catalogs. Instead of highlighting data to drive a message, the graphic or creative does the heavy lifting, supported by the message. Consequently, quality is as important – if not more important – than cost. Poor color reproduction of images, especially of people, can result in a failed communication.

This focus extends to the reproduction of product images as well. In graphic arts applications, reproduction of corporate colors is very important, and the trade-off with cost is minimal. Corporate colors must approximate the specified colors and must be produced consistently within a job and from job to job. To achieve these results, we wrestle with the conundrum of process standardization versus manipulating the process to modify print quality (often on the press). This practice isn’t ideal and is often discouraged. However, the point is that print providers who produce graphic arts applications know that skin tones must be accurate, neutrals must be neutral, and products like textiles must look realistic. Graphic arts print providers are highly sensitive to these requirements and will customize the print process to ensure that customer requirements for quality color reproduction are met. There is a strong focus on high screen rulings to achieve better image fidelity, using the best quality coated papers, using extended color gamuts and specialty colors, disciplined color management, emphasis on contract proofing and on-press approvals.

In both environments, when it comes to costs, the numbers tell the story. For example, the cost per page of an inkjet printer producing transpromo documents with limited color is far less expensive than a toner-based digital color press producing image- and graphic-intensive brochures with extensive color. As you can imagine, applying the cost of producing a color brochure to transpromo documents would be cost-prohibitive when you’re producing millions of customer communications per month. So, there are trade-offs. That said, I am increasingly impressed with the image quality, fidelity, and consistency of inkjet technology. Likewise, toner-based systems deliver outstanding color quality for many traditional graphic arts jobs. Either way, the application and business requirements drive the use of color and emphasis on quality vs. cost. From the perspective of a graphic arts guy quickly becoming immersed in the world of transaction printing, the two environments are similar, but with key differences.

What do you think? I look forward to your feedback and would love to continue the discussion at Graph Expo. I’ll be in the Océ booth (#1217) October 3^rd through 6^th.

“Digital printing refers to methods of printing from a digital based image directly to a variety of media. It usually refers to professional printing where small run jobs from desktop publishing and other digital sources are printed using large format and/or high volume laser or inkjet printers. Digital printing has a higher cost per page than more traditional offset printing methods but this price is usually offset by the cost saving in avoiding all the technical steps in between needed to make printing plates. It also allows for on demand printing, short turn around, and even a modification of the image (variable data) with each impression. The savings in labor and ever increasing capability of digital presses means digital printing is reaching a point where it will match or supersede offset printing technologies ability to produce larger print runs at a low price.”

I know that this is supposed to be an interactive medium with feedback ensuring the accuracy but I am surprised by this inaccuracy.  And someone who did not know better would assume it is correct because it has 3 references.

But as the author of two books on this subject I disagree. The most glaring is this “Digital printing has a higher cost per page than more traditional offset printing methods….” That is only true for longer run lengths using digital printing. Everyone knows that you can chart the cost per page for both processes and that there is a cross over point where offset becomes cheaper.

I also take some issue with “The savings in labor….” That also is dependent on the run length as well as the automation and finishing capabilities of both workflows. There are inline features on digital and offset presses that make each very efficient.

I think we need to request changes to this definition. Do you agree?

Howard Fenton is a Senior Consultant at NAPL. Howie advises commercial printers, in-plants, and manufacturers on workflow management, operations, digital services, and customer research.

I was in a presentation early last week and someone complained about the size limits of digital presses. That was echoed later in the week during the Graph Expo preview on WhatTheyThink by Frank Romano and David Zwang. During David’s presentation, he mentioned that sheetfed electrophotographic (toner) based digital presses had hit a wall in terms of productivity. And at the end of that presentation the audience was asked, “What’s Your Next Big Equipment Investment?” The two top answers were 43% digital press and 24% production inkjet. The focus on production based inkjets was a real shock and together these comments got me thinking and, as you will see, took me down a strange hypothetical road.

I think both points are true. Except for the manufacturers that have put two machines in tandem allowing the first to print on one side and the second to print on the second side there has not really been an increase in productivity in the sheetfed toner-based devices for a few years. But let’s keep this straight – the productivity concern is really two issues, size and speed. Let’s just focus on format size for this discussion.

As they ask in the Godzilla movies, “Does Size Matter?” For larger sized applications it does – for smaller sizes it may not. The reason it may not is because increasing the speed with a tandem based configuration can help with applications that fit. (Except when a larger device can print it multiple times up on a sheet and be faster or more cost effective.)

But if that last international show showed us anything about format size it appears that size limitation is more of a toner issue than an inkjet issue. If you remember, one of the manufacturers announced that they would bring a 32” inkjet press and then showed up with a 36” press. As a result, we are learning that the inkjet heads are grouped into specific widths and can be added or subtracted and the toughest challenge is to the paper handling function. However, there are rumors that there is a width barrier for the toner-based devices due to the electrophotographic nature or ability to hold a charge across a sheet.

What does all this mean? Clearly this is speculation but it could mean that understanding your application mix based on size may become a more important consideration in the future when deciding which digital print technology best suits your needs. Of course quality and equipment cost is important too, and there are critical differences with these technologies, but lets take quality and cost off the table for this conversation and see what happens.

One more disclaimer. Admittedly at this point in time what I am about to suggest is more of a bizarre idea, but if quality, cost and speed were comparable and you could buy either a electrophotographic 2 up press or an inkjet 4 up press for $500,000, which would you buy?

Howard Fenton is a Senior Consultant at NAPL. Howie advises commercial printers, in-plants, and manufacturers on workflow management, operations, digital services, and customer research.

The best marketing ideas today are operationally justified. Envelope marketing is no exception. A variety of solutions for printing messages on envelopes have been touted to marketing departments for a long time. Some companies pre-print messages on the outside of envelopes such as corporate taglines, incentives to go paperless or eye catching graphics to entice the recipient to open their mail.

Megaspirea, a French firm, introduced what they called “Dynamic Envelope Creation” via the Mailliner 100 at IPEX way back in 2006. Dynamic Envelope Creation was hailed as a holistic process for making a complete mail piece (envelope plus content) out of a single print stream. Variable images and messages could be printed directly on the envelope itself. Despite a strategic relationship with Pitney Bowes and Emtex that should have given the company a lot of reach in the US market – the technology never really took off.

You would think that the ability to dynamically market on the outside of the envelope would be marketing catnip – but in fact, many direct mail marketers feel that the white envelope approach is more effective than jazzy graphics on the outside of the envelope. Transaction mailers today, are still not well integrated with marketing departments (whether in plant or service providers) and therefore envelope marketing is a tough sell to this group.

DST Output (www.dstoutput.com) recently announced an envelope marketing solution that, despite the demise of past market entrants, I believe has a real chance of success. Why? Because the solution is as appealing – or potentially even more appealing- from an operations and efficiency standpoint as it is from a marketing standpoint. Like white paper, full color printing in general – operational efficiencies from wrap envelopes are creating the business case for more effective marketing. First let me explain the solution.

DST’s Wrap Envelope technology is a no-touch process for printing, wrapping and finishing high-volume, First-Class Mail packages in a high-speed production environment. Wrap extends major mailers’ customer marketing efforts with dynamic messaging that can be applied to the front, back and inside of the envelope. This means that the solution provides an envelope marketing opportunity for transaction mail like statements and bills, but also can double as a stand-alone self-mailer.

DST Output’s Wrap Envelopes are printed duplex on continuous plain roll-stock paper, and then literally wrap around multiple pages of statements, bills, inserts and reply/remit envelopes. The process enables mailers to embellish the interior as well as the exterior of the envelope with marketing messaging and promotional content, such as coupons, event information or other customer marketing materials – and can include customer data on the interior to create the self mailer – or additional personalized offer.

There are other operational benefits as well:

1. Placing messaging on the envelope can minimize postal weight by reducing the insert count and replace separate mailings and direct mail.
2. Wrap Envelopes can serve as a self-mailer for privacy statements, regulatory notices or e-statement bounce notifications minimizing the cost of these mailings.
3. The windowless Wrap enhances security and privacy with no see-through areas.
4. No window also makes it fully recyclable (no cellophane) and therefore more sustainable.
5. There is no need to pre-order and warehouse envelopes reducing storage, commercial print and procurement costs as well as improving cash flow.

The Wrap Envelope is a compelling solution for one-page statements or bills – with or without a remit envelope. From a quality perspective, Wrap utilizes an integrated no-touch manufacturing process that tracks each and every mail piece during production to verify that the total package is complete and accurate. If an error is detected, the process automatically remakes the entire mail package.

So, no-touch quality control, cost savings, improved privacy and sustainability and – oh, by the way – completely dynamic messaging inside and out. I think that’s pretty innovative. (Take a look at the examples below.) If DST was selling this as a hardware solution, I think it would be a big success. For now, only DST outsourcing customers can take advantage of the technology and it will be interesting to see whether it is adopted for the marketing features, the operational features or both. How would you use it if you could?

(Click on pictures to see larger view)

Wrap Envelope (front) with logo and text message

Example of Wrap Envelope (front) with Dynamic Graphic

Wrap example with Dynamic Messaging on Back of Envelope

Wrap envelope with Dynamic Graphics and Messages Inside

"Outside In" Wrap Campaign

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A new study by research firm Interquest challenges the belief that glossy direct marketing mailers deliver superior response rates when compared to matte finished materials produced with inkjet technology. For the study Interquest sent a total of 10,585 direct mail postcards to marketing managers and executives from various industry sectors in the U.S. Approximately half of the postcards were printed on a full-color inkjet device, and half on a full-color toner-based production copier/printer.

Download the report for all the details.

Andy Tribute recently attended the the IMI European Ink Jet Printing conference in Barcelona.

The IMI European Ink Jet Printing conference has for many years been the place to come to find out the most recent developments in new print head designs and support systems from the different suppliers. This would often indicate the likely trends of the market as integrators and printer manufacturers incorporated these new heads into their latest products. This year however was slightly different with hardly any new print head designs being announced. Instead once could say that this years conference showed a maturing of the markets as finally areas of the market that had been discussed for years as having potential for inkjet printing saw new products and approaches becoming available.

During the conference IT Strategies provided a look at the market adoption of new ink jet press technology:

The conference started with update given by IT Strategies on what was happening in the market for inkjet production presses. This was of great interest considering the amount of interest in this area at drupa last year. This update showed that this market has yet really to take off. According to IT strategies there were only around 80 sites around the world with installation of these presses predicted to be 325 engines (or between 160 – 180 systems with a system being two linked engines). In 2009 sales have been less than 2008 as the early low hanging fruit of leading monochrome installed base customers switching to colour have completed their purchases. It appears that the majority of installations are for either transactional applications or direct mail. It also appears that few installations are pushing the presses to anywhere near their production capacities. It also showed there are few installations carrying out publishing type applications.

You can read the rest of Moving Inkjet Technology into the Future at WhatTheyThink.

Last time we talked about ways Océ is helping customers build business with inkjet technology and how market acceptance of digital print quality has changed. Today, in the final installment of this interview, Mal Baboyian talks about how Océ is changing the way it presents itself to the market at big venues like PRINT 09 and gives us a glimpse of what the company will have on display in Chicago.

NW: Océ used to show only its high speed production presses at shows like PRINT or Graph Expo, but at recent shows you often have one or two wide format machines on hand. Why the shift?

MB: Océ has one of the broadest product lines in the industry covering the office, wide format, display graphics, and production printing. But even customers in these segments weren’t always aware of our other offerings and capabilities and didn’t necessarily think of Océ when they needed a different type of equipment. Having a wider range of equipment at shows strengthens our brand by showing the full scope of our offerings and helps position Océ as a leader in more segments of the printing market. We also share some technologies across the different divisions of the company and are always looking for ways to leverage what we know. As I mentioned, our inkjet experience in wide format aided us in developing the JetStream family. Many of our customers had no knowledge of Océ’s breadth of solutions in the office, production printing and wide format segments. And many of them have needs in more than one segment .
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As we saw in part three of this interview, Océ’s history in both toner-based and inkjet printing gives it good credibility as it rolls out its new inkjet systems. Still, for most print service providers, having equipment with a lot of capacity is only part of the equation. That capacity needs filling and profitability is still a basic business requirement. So, I asked Mr. Baboyian, what does Océ do to build capacity and help print providers get a bigger share of their customers’ wallets?

NW: OK. This is all good, and many printers I talk with see inkjet as having a lot of potential. But the thing they all say concerns them is being able to fill up a significant portion of the capacity of these machines. How is Océ addressing this and helping customers make the transition into inkjet?

MB: That’s a great question, and it really all comes down to applications and the importance of printers understanding their customers. When we first introduce a customer to the JetStream line we learn about all the applications they are running, who their customers are, and look for all the applications that make the most sense to print on a JetStream. For example, we know there are many jobs, especially in direct mail and transactional shops, that require preprinted forms. We’ve done the math, so we know that simply shifting these forms to inkjet adds a lot of volume to the press and will save the printer’s customer a lot of money. But as you know, that can a difficult conversation for some printers to have with their customer. So we provide the support our customers need when they introduce JetStream to their customers. We can help to explain the technology, answer questions, and show them, based on their current printing costs, how eliminating pre-printed forms can make a substantial difference in their business.
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In the second part of this interview we heard more details about Océ’s new JetStream 1000 inkjet press, how it fits into the market, and about print quality on inkjet systems. In today’s installment, Mal Baboyian talks about how Océ, with its legacy of toner-based printing is making the transition and commitment to inkjet.

NW: Mal, most people probably don’t think of Océ as having a history in inkjet printing, yet you’ve introduced several models of the JetStream family in a bit over a year and a half. But you haven’t done this on your own. Tell me about the alliance with Miyakoshi that has led to the JetStream line.

MB: Let me answer that in a couple of steps. First, Océ actually has developed a lot of inkjet technology and provided innovation and industry leadership in a number of markets. Our first inkjet products came to market almost 15 years ago. The wide format side of the company has been very successful and has the leading market share in some segments of wide and superwide format printing. Some machines, like the Arizona line of flatbed printers that can also print roll-to-roll, have won awards for innovation and quality. Last year at drupa I’m sure you saw our CrystalPoint solid toner technology which can be jetted onto a wide variety of substrates. At GraphExpo 2008, the Océ Colorwave 600 with Océ CrystalPoint technology won a Must See ‘Em award and this product has been recognized once again for PRINT 09 with a Must See ‘Em Encore award. Océ R&D developed and we manufacture these products. Of course, these wide format machines address a different market and at lower speeds than a production press, but the underlying knowledge of inkjet technology, chemistry, color, and material science has been very instrumental as we developed the JetStream family.

Second, our relationship with Miyakoshi is very much a strategic alliance that draws on the strength of both companies. Miyakoshi is a well-known offset press manufacturer that was developing an inkjet technology. We’ve brought our expertise in inkjet, color management, controllers, security, and error recovery systems for high-speed, high-volume digital printing. The win-win is that JetStream is built like a press for heavy duty use, our SRA MP [Massively Parallel] front-end can handle every aspect of the data in full color, and can be easily integrated into any PRISMA-based system as just another print engine.
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In the first installment of this interview series, Mal Baboyian, president of Océ North America’s Production Printing Systems division shared some details about Océ’s new JetStream 1000 inkjet press and talked about the company’s reasons for bringing it to market. Today he provides more detail on the machine and talks about quality, one of the key issues for any type of digital printing.

NW: What kinds of applications will you be showing on the JetStream 1000 at PRINT 09?

MB: The JetStream 1000 prints everything in a single pass, so much like our VarioStream 7000 and 8000 family of toner-based presses, adding MICR is really just business as usual. At PRINT we’ll be running a number of apps using MICR printing and showing how trans-promo statements printed on the JetStream 1000 meet all newly announced regulations and are CPSA compliant. We’ll also be running full color books and a newspaper application that shows how inkjet can be a real fit for the changing shape of the newspaper industry.
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