We do not lack for terminology in the printing industry. Take the terms ‘light production’ or ‘multifunction device’ (MFD) or ‘multifunction printer’ (MFP) when referring to digital printers. They are all machines that can print or copy (and often scan and fax). Because old habits die hard, we sometimes call them copiers even though they do much more than copy.
It all began when light lens copiers were re-invented and their analogue lens systems replaced with scanning systems. The Xerox Docutech in 1990 was among the first printers to scan the page to disk and then print from the stored file. ‘Scan and print’ became the new ‘copy’.
By the late 1990s, almost all printers operated in this manner. The machines looked like the old photocopiers but could do something those single-purpose copiers could not do: they could accept digital files for printing. And slowly but surely, the cost of colour printing came down and colour printers began to replace their monochrome counterparts.
Because these new machines could now perform multiple functions, they acquired new names that tried to describe these new capabilities. Although they were first directed at the office market, they found great acceptance in the printing industry, especially in small shops.
The first digital colour printers were 35ppm and 40 ppm (the Canon 700, the Indigo 1000 and the Xerox Docucolor 40). Very quickly they jumped to 50 and 65ppm. At the same time, 12ppm to 20ppm printers were introduced. Thus, we had a very low end (under 20ppm), a middle (21ppm to 65ppm), and a high end (70ppm to over 100ppm).
We are emphasising colour printers. You can print black on a colour printer but you cannot print colour on a black-only printer. More importantly, mono volumes continue to decline as colour volumes rise. Although there are still large markets for B&W printing, the real growth is in colour. It is possible that within a decade there will only be colour printers, just as there are only colour TVs today.
Some of these colour printing machines were oriented to the office market and some were oriented to commercial production. The so-called inplant or CRD (centralised reproduction department) market applied machines at every level, with the high-end or heavy production printers in the centralised printing centre, the light production machines used in satellite operations, and MFDs used in office environments.
Production printing is divided into ‘light’ production printing and ‘heavy’ production printing, with the differentiating factor being speed. There is not much consensus on where that speed dividing line is. Some say a 100ppm device falls in to the light production printing category.
I contend that 50 to 65ppm is the dividing line. Below 50/65ppm, you have a plethora of MFPs and light production printers and above 50/65ppm you have heavy production printers.
Why the confusion?
In many cases, the print engine used for the MFP and light production machine is similar. The front end, paper handling, monthly volume, and finishing options define the differences.
Front end
The DFE or digital front end (we once called it the RIP, which stands for raster image processor) accepts files and processes them for printing. The EFI Fiery is the most common DFE, followed by Kodak Creo Spire (primarily at the high end), and followed by various company-specific digital front ends.
Monthly volume
All digital printers have a manufacturer-defined number of impressions per month. Faster printers have very high monthly volumes whereas slower printers have low monthly volumes. The average monthly volume is an important metric. If you exceed it, you pay a penalty on top of your click charge. Light production printers usually have higher monthly volumes than MFPs.
Paper handling
All MFPs and light production colour printers are sheetfed. This includes the number and capacity of paper trays, and the size and weight of the stock that can be accommodated. MFPs have fewer drawers than light production; light production machines have drawers with more capacity.
Finishing
Automatic collation of duplexed sheets with stapling is now commonplace with almost all MFPs. Light production printers can incorporate the above plus a variety of folding, taping, gluing, and stapling options (although not all at the same time).
Light production printers came to the attention of the commercial printing industry in the late 1990s when suppliers of 50ppm digital colour printers promoted the fact that two 50ppm printers equated to 100ppm, with backup and at a combined lower price to the single 100ppm machine. Small- and medium-sized printers gravitated to this approach.
The MFP also found a ready market with small printers, where multiple slower printers offered both redundancy and combined speeds that equated to a larger single machine. Thus there is an overlap between the MFP and the light production colour printer. This is to the advantage of the buyer because there is significant choice in available models and capabilities. It is not unusual to find printing firms of all kinds with a blend of MFPs, light and heavy production printers in use. Most suppliers have upgrade programs to allow trade-ins and credits on higher-level printing devices.
At Drupa, we expect light production sheet sizes to move up to 14×20 inches, speeds and substrate weights to continue to creep up, closed loop colour control to be standard, and expanded finishing options to abound. New toners and fusing systems will allow a broader range of substrates for heavy weight stocks. This will allow small and medium-sized firms to enter some areas of the folded packaging and test packaging markets.
It was the digital colour printer that allowed small shops to become competitive in colour printing. As their overall volume grew they have installed increasingly more capable printers, and this has allowed small printers to compete with medium and even large printers.
The suppliers of this category of digital colour have helped to keep print viable. Very short-run full-colour jobs were not economical on offset litho presses and the MFP and production-level colour printer were in the right place at the right time to keep printing firms competitive.
For many of you, this class of printer may be your first colour printer, but it will not be your last.
Roll call suppliers
There are more than 10 suppliers of either MFPs, light, or heavy production colour printers. The companies that offer printers in any two of those categories are:
1. Canon (now combined with Océ)
2. Fuji Xerox
3. Kodak
4. Konica Minolta
5. HP
6. MGI
7. Ricoh
8. Riso
Kodak and HP have re-sold light production printers from Canon and Konica. HP Indigo colour printers are considered high end. Heidelberg sells the high-end of the Konica Minolta line in Australia, and distributes Ricoh elsewhere. Océ once sold Konica for their light sheetfed solutions but now they are a part of Canon. Canon and Xerox have the broadest lines of colour printers, with Xerox a leader in higher-end sheetfed colour production. Canon (via Océ), Kodak, HP, and Xerox also have roll-fed high-end inkjet.
Riso is the only inkjet light production machine on the list. Early colour quality was limited but newer versions are finding new markets for inplant and commercial applications. HP once had the Edgeline inkjet MFP but discontinued it. We expect new sheetfed inkjet more toward the light production than the MFP level.
We should note that there are other colour printer suppliers, especially of office MFPs. We are emphasising suppliers who also have light or heavy production printers in their product lines.
Same but different
There are similarities between MFPs and light production printers:
• Printing speed is expressed in pages per minute (ppm) using a standard A4 or 8.5×11 inch sheet.
• Printer technology can be inkjet or laser, colour or monochrome.
• Toners are evolving to chemical or wax-based microfine dry inks.
• Paper formats range up to oversized A3 in many cases.
• Most colour printers now print on stocks at 300gsm or even greater. Glossy stocks are also handled.
• Resolution ranges from 1200dpi to 2400dpi. The advent of new laser imaging systems is moving all printers to these higher resolutions.
• Duplex printing capability is now virtually standard on all digital colour printers.
• Automatic paper feeders are now standard.
• A variety of finishing methods are now integrated, with stapling basic to all systems, and inline production finishing (saddle wire and perfect binding) more typically in the light and heavy production printers. Some printers drill holes so that you do not have to inventory pre-drilled sheets.
• Energy usage has been reduced by over 50% than previous models.
• Digital print quality is so widely accepted that it is becoming the standard. Offset litho quality is still higher, especially when you factor in Pantone colours and coatings. But digital colour is here to stay.
• Reliability has improved over the last decade. You no longer have to adopt the copier repairman.
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