WEB OFFSET SPECIAL REPORT -- Breaks and Splices Ahead
Certainly, in the conventional management imperative of volume, such specialties are as unattractive as gourmet dinners are to McDonald's, but their popularity with clients is unabating. The questions are: "Can managements adapt?" and "Is there a place for specialty activities in a web operation?"
A once-regarded bad break for the medium is unrelenting shorter run lengths. At every trade meeting, a show of hands is invariably demanded from the question, "How many of you are seeing shorter runs?" Embarrassed, most respond. The others, of course, are liars. Direct-to-plate prepress and faster makereadies are good breaks, and many plants in short-run web are so efficient that the only victims are sheetfed printers! The crossover price, or what economists call the marginal point of substitution, is down to 18,000 impressions on 16-page forms and is even lower on impositions for double-webs, half-webs and mini-webs.
- People:
- Vincent Mallardi