Cost-efficiency, not quality, will be the deciding factor in digital-offset battle

Firstly, I think the question of whether digital printing is as good as offset has already been answered. As so many commercial printers are prepared to offer both offset and digital printing, the answer must be digital and offset in four-colour printing are essentially comparable. Offset has benefits in running speeds and of sheet size that generate many more finishing options. Many digital presses, however, have a significant benefit in offering in-line finishing and printing of a complete product that may make use of many different substrates in just one pass.

As quality is no longer really an issue, the main question is where and when to use digital printing instead of offset; this concerns run length and running costs.
However, when it comes to running costs and at what run lengths it becomes more economical to print offset rather than digital, the question becomes more difficult. The answers coming from offset press suppliers are rather different from those of digital press suppliers. For example, presentations from Heidelberg concerning its Speedmaster 52 Anicolor press, ideal for very short-run printing, put the crossover point at which it is cheaper to print offset at around 250 copies.

The time to change
Presentations, however, from HP Indigo about its new 7000 press indicate that it sees the crossover point against a B3 offset press for an eight-page brochure at 1,800 copies and for the same job against a B2 offset press at 990 copies. The HP Indigo figures, I would anticipate, do not compare like with like and the offset press used for comparison may not be as advanced as a Heidelberg Speedmaster 52 Anicolor. Companies like Xerox also have figures to compare run lengths. The digital companies have software programmes that compare different job types and run lengths to work out when a digital press would be a better option for running a job compared with offset. These programmes allow a printer to enter the characteristics and costs of their different presses for this comparison to be made.

New presses debuting at Drupa will have an impact on these crossover points. I have already mentioned HP’s new Indigo 7000 press, which is twice the speed of the existing HP Indigo 5500 and has lower running costs. Another high-quality press likely to change the crossover numbers in favour of digital is the Xeikon 8000; at 230 A4 pages a minute, it is nearly 50% faster than its predecessor, and the fastest ‘offset’ quality digital colour press on the market.

The main area of new digital press activity at Drupa is in continuous-feed colour presses. Most of these will not have a serious impact in the offset-to-digital transfer area, as they will be mainly targeted at personalised transactional and direct mail activities. There are two products, however, that may create a significant change in the switch of offset work to digital. The first of these is the Kodak Stream Concept Press. The first production version, which should be like other Kodak continuous-feed presses with a 500mm (20in) web width, is expected to be available in 2010. Samples I have seen show it will produce similar quality to the high quality digital presses on the market today, but will operate at much higher speeds and with lower running costs. Kodak has stated it envisages a 30in-wide version of this press to become available around 2013.

The other product, and one that can be seen in a near deliverable form, is the new HP Inkjet Web Press. Aimed at books, newspapers, direct mail and transactional applications, this will be the fastest (2,600 pages a minute), widest format (76 cm) and have the lowest running costs (under $0.01 per A4 colour page) of any colour digital press when it comes to market in the second half of next year. I have picked this as my top new product at Drupa, and I am calling it a ‘transformation press’, as it is really the first digital press that can seriously transform the market. It will be an interesting Drupa!