On the way home today, had time to stop at Renaissance Publishing, a unit of Bimrose UK. The company's main business is calendars. They run the four color artwork on a Heidelburg Speedmaster, then finish the printing by usually adding 3 lines of black type to personal the page. The type is imprinted using a Heidelberg Quickmaster QM-46 - - this is not the Quickmaster that uses Presstek technology and plates. They took delivery of one of the first units delivered to the US, and have since recieved 3 additional presses. Even tho these are not QM-DI presses, the visit is worth reporting to the forum, as we did discuss digital imaging and computer to plate technology.
(the four color work is run 'bulk' on the Speedmaster)
They evaluated the QM-DI for the imprinting but could not justify the purchase based on a) they run black on white, b) the average run was 400 sheets, c) the turn over was 100 jobs per day. When asked if he remembered the break for justifing the QM-DI, comment was 'cost effective only at 4 color not black on white', also suggested a 2000 sheet run would be prefered. (that confirmed Heidelbergs target market).
As for the plates used, there was a good quantity of Howson plates around. They also had a Linotype-Hell Herkules imagesetter, his comment on that was 'expensive' and walked on.
Asked about the skill level, was there a difference ? Return comment was 'likes the Heidelberg presses due to amount of automation, they can take someone and with very little training have them producing.
Best thing learned was four color short run is a high dollar market. Either price of the press will need to drop for the town printer to own one, or the consumer will need to change and demand it. Reading thru some of tech journal web-sites, the change in consumer is happening faster than the drop in press prices. (side note on this, as for Heidelberg starting a line to produce the QM-DI believe the drop in press prices will be evident.
Granted the visit did not consist of the QM-DI but a lot can be learned from someone with working knowledge of the market and equipment. Will be visiting Madison WI near the week of 22nd, there are QM-DIs running there and will report on the visit (pro and con).
For those that have emailed websites discussing DI or Presstek, thank-you. I will again update the the site this coming weekend. Keep the research coming.
http://www.digitalmall.net/opertech/stocks/prst.html
Have another post following, TOM |
