Printing equipment is more sophisticated and complex than ever. This is especially true of the latest generation of inkjet presses. This technology integrates electronics, chemistry, physics, software, and mechanical hardware in a dizzyingly complex package. The same goes for the new generation of finishing equipment.
Increasingly, customers are looking at the finishing end and wanting finishing solutions that are far from standard. The era of the “vanilla” book, mailing piece, or booklet is over. Printers are attempting to be more creative than ever (with good reason), and the prospect or customer applications that I’m tasked with require machine modifications that range from the minor, to very major.
There is a wide range of finishing automation for photobooks of all quality levels. But larger machines are not inexpensive and a photo book printer needs adequate volume to justify the capital expense. And this leads to the question of demand.
The overall shrinkage of the print market has challenged dealers like never before. A smaller potential customer base forces them to diversify their product lines further, and to try to enter new potential markets. This is far from easy, as (successfully) entering a new market — especially against existing competitors — takes lots of time and money. And this also works against new suppliers trying to enter the U.S. market.
The Bibliotheca Alexandrina and the great libraries in Italy, France, The British Library and others, hold the world’s great historical treasures in printed form. And their continued viability is due to the little-known daily work of these bookbinding and preservation artists.
To understand the bindery process, it’s crucial to train operators to understand the machine’s automation and its underlying processes.
The team behind ESKOWorld, the North American user conference for users of ESKO packaging, printing and finishing solutions, with the help of their customer advisory council, created a well thought out agenda that addressed the needs of over 500 users and 100 brand owners and agencies.
I love print. I particularly love it when it knocks my socks off. I’m also a huge digital print advocate. Yet much of production color digital print is process color only. Cyan, magenta, yellow, and black are great, and they are perfect for a lot of work, but sometimes I yearn for more.
How important is data in digital finishing? It’s critical. You’re probably relating this to the fact that digital is (by its file-based nature) all about variable data. But beyond creating personalized documents and books, there is the larger question of integrating production data into the plant workflow and MIS systems.
I was at the 2017 Inkjet Summit a few weeks ago. As usual, the buzz on inkjet was intense, with many good presentations covering the latest advances in inkjet technology. But the one item that jumped out at me during one of them was that well over 90% of print was still being created by offset technology. Digital print technology accounts for less than 3% of the total print market.
