Will only digital printing be used in the future?

Digitally printed material requires no drying time and can be processed immediately either in or offline. Image: Edubook AGAs a print shop with a 100 percent digital output and an annual volume of more than 100 million A4 pages, Edubook AG in Merenschwand, Aargau, occupies an exceptional position in the Swiss market. Edubook describes itself as a low-cost print shop for books, brochures, catalogs and folder content. For the CEO and co-founder of Edubook AG, Nicolas von Mühlenen, the market presence and importance of digital printing will continue to grow over the next 3-5 years. Market shares will increase continuously, but not by leaps and bounds, as long as high-speed inkjet presses do not (yet) displace conventional offset printing. He sees the greatest potential in large-format sheetfed inkjet printing and Xeikon's Trillium technology.In his opinion, due to increased segmentation and industrialization, the term "digital printing" no longer does justice to the different solutions. For Nicolas von Mühlenen, it is clear that today's digital printing technologies enable a print quality that is sufficient for the majority of applications. For him, it is nonsense to produce luxury quality for all applications, which is only necessary for top products and is only paid for for these.At Edubook, commercial jobs between 50 and 1,500 copies are run with DigiSpeed by Edubook (high-speed inkjet from the roll). Customers benefit from the combination of speed, flexibility and the possibility of personalization. The proportion of personalized print products in the commercial sector is still smaller than 5%, even at Edubook.Good quality at a reasonable priceFor Daniel Jud, Managing Director of Baumer AG in Islikon, Switzerland, the only thing that counts is the customer's needs. For him, the decisive advantages of digital printing technology are the ability to address customers in a targeted manner using individual text or image content, enabling very short runs and segments, such as test runs for direct mailings, to be produced quickly and cost-effectively. Since continuous color digital printing is still new to Baumer AG, it is not yet possible to make any reliable statements about the ratio between digital and offset-printed jobs. This is at least in the continuous area, but only recently, as print quality has steadily improved and this is crucial for the direct mail area.Customers are sensitized to digital printingSince 2011, the volume of digitally printed products at Abächerli Media AG in Sarnen OW has increased threefold. Freddy Fallegger, Head of Sales & Marketing and co-owner of Abächerli Media AG, expects this trend to continue. Abächerli customers are aware of the advantages and disadvantages of digital printing and make particular use of the personalization options. Freddy Fallegger is convinced that the future lies in inkjet sheetfed printing for larger print runs. Today, Abächerli produces runs from one copy up to 80,000 copies, with runs of 1,000 copies or more running through the company as hybrid jobs (combination of offset and digital printing). The ratio at the moment is 80% offset versus 20% digital. In digital mailing production, however, 60% of all jobs are personalized.Digital printing makes it possible to produce short runs of one copy or more cost-effectively and thus also to anchor the print-on-demand idea with customers. The personalization option with variable text, image and barcode information as well as QR codes, combined with short delivery times, are the outstanding features of digital printing from the customer's point of view.Large-format items are also printed digitallyFor Karlheinz Kaiser CEO and co-owner of Christinger Partner AG in Schlieren ZH, the specialists for visual communication and outdoor advertising, the distinction between poster printing and advertising technology is important.Since poster campaigns appear in numerous subjects, usually in three languages and in up to four poster formats, digital printing is usually the obvious choice. Christinger prints digital posters according to the Process Standard Offset (PSO ISO 12647-2), so that digitally and offset printed posters can be mixed in poster campaigns without any problems.Thanks to digital slide printing, lightbox posters can now also be printed with strong luminosity, which previously looked rather flat in normal digital printing. However, when it comes to large campaigns without a large variety of types, posters are still produced more cost-effectively in offset printing.Share of digital printing will increaseIn the field of advertising technology, digital printing has made it possible for the first time to produce large-format image decorations at a reasonable cost for a wide range of applications such as fleet lettering, full-area streetcar, bus or train decorations and wallpaper. For Karlheinz Kaiser, it is clear that the share of digital printing will increase and that, thanks to continuous development, even larger formats can be printed with even more durable inks.Today, posters are produced in runs of up to 200 copies using digital printing. The decisive factor in the choice of printing process is the mix of types, languages, and formats. Whether offset or digital printing, the printing process is defined by cost-effectiveness and not by quality. In general, customers are not interested in the type of production. At Christinger Partner AG, 75% of jobs are already produced digitally today, with the rest being offset. Short manufacturing times, production accurate to the run, high luminosity and the possibility to print variable data - and if everything is right, cheaper production costs, have accelerated the trend towards digital printing.Digital printing as an opportunityJürg Hürlimann, Business Unit Manager FO-Smartprint in AG Egg near Zurich, sees digital printing as a complement, not a competitor, to offset printing. Thanks to the ability to offer digital printing, new customers have been acquired. Certain products can now be offered as hybrid products at a lower cost than with pure offset printing. In addition, customers can be offered additional benefits in the form of personalization, finishing and the printing of special colors, all at attractive conditions. Today, about 10% of all orders at FO-Smartprint are printed personalized - with an increasing tendency.The fact that a good can be realized within the shortest possible time for printing on production paper also speaks in favor of digital printing. This gives the customer and the printer security for the print run.The advantages for customers are impressiveDigital printing has developed in numerous print shops as a very flexible and efficient addition to existing printing processes. The USP (unique selling point) is considered to be the possibility of personalizing and individualizing printed matter, which is not possible with the classic printing processes. For Markus Schär, Key Account Management and Projects, of W. Gassmann AG in Biel, the main customer benefits are:- High topicality of content- Short time to market- Flexibility (possibility of individualization)- Targeting accuracy thanks to personal address (personalization)- Possibility of reducing stock levels- Possibility of new forms of publication- Deeper capital commitment- Denomination according to demand- Transparent, automated processes- Ecological production, only when there is a demandMarkus Schär is convinced that digital printing will continue to grow, as the segmentation of print jobs continues to progress and accommodates digital printing. Today, W. Gassmann AG, or its subsidiary Publikation Digital AG, produces runs of one to 2,000 copies digitally. However, one can well imagine that the upper limit of the print run will shift towards 5,000 copies, always depending on the demands made on printing and finishing. Today, around 20% of digitally printed jobs are personalized.Personalized direct mail products in one passIn the past, the technical possibilities did not allow personalized mailings to be produced in one go. Laser preprints were personalized and then further processed, with the risk that addresses would be lost in the event of malfunctions on the finishing line or would have to be re-produced at high cost. The cheaper option was to subsequently address finished mailing products on the front, without actual personalization.Today's possibilities of digital printing in the direct mail business are described by Thomas Ziegler, Management COO of Swiss Direct Marketing AG in Brugg, as follows: "The quality of digital printing has improved markedly in recent years. Digital printing gives us the opportunity to personalize and individualize to a high degree, and to do so in images, text and perforation in all run lengths. The production process is greatly simplified by the elimination of preprints and, thanks to the high productivity, we achieve very short throughput times. "In order to be able to cover as many run lengths as possible, Thomas Ziegler believes that the future lies in high-speed web inkjet printing in combination with sheetfed digital printing. The variability of digital printing is crucial for Swiss Direct Marketing, as more than 90% of the digital print products are personalized.Will digital finishing follow digital printing?The development of digital printing systems is moving towards higher speeds, larger formats and the use of process-independent substrates. Now there is a desire for digital finishing. Martin Lerchmüller, Head of Print and Deputy Managing Director of Effingerhof AG in Brugg, would like to see opaque inks, gloss varnishes, embossing and foils that can be applied individually, i.e. personalized, in the future. Partial solutions are already on the market and so nothing stands in the way of printed products that are personalized in terms of text, image, coating application and finishing method.Effingerhof AG assumes that an annual growth rate of 12 to 15% can be realized in digital printing by 2020. The digitally printed share of sales is currently 5 to 8%. This results in approximately 15% personalized and 85% non-personalized print products.Digital printing in trendAll respondents agreed that digital printing is the future. This is not surprising, since the respondents were companies that have invested in digital printing. For those who continue to print conventionally, the question is therefore not whether they should or want to invest in digital printing technology as well - but when? Because the print jobs of the future will be even more segmented and the products even more individualized in order to be able to make an impact on the market.Therefore, today's print shop will develop more in the direction of data processor and problem solver and the core competence "printing" will merge into the process of printing and finishing/finishing.Digital printing also does not solve one problem - the overcapacities in the printing sector. On the contrary, with the advent of high-speed inkjet printing systems, the printing capacity offered on the market will increase yet again, triggering another round of price increases. The suppliers who are well equipped are those who have implemented automated processes and have them under control. After all, digital printing is not the solution to all print shops' problems - but it is an opportunity to continue offering attractive printed communication solutions in the future.Author: Heinz Urben