We have an Epson inkjet label press that allows us to cover that short-run market. But we can also produce the label on the conventional long-run flexo presses and duplicate it on the inkjet. It’s not economic for the client to do a short run of, say, 5,000 labels on one of the big presses, but it is with digital. We can print the same label on both presses and put them together and it’s very difficult to tell any difference. You can’t do that with most digital presses because they need pre-coated stock, but our Epson allows us to print on almost any substrate.
Laurie Pilling, managing director, Admark Visual Imaging
Running a hybrid production workflow helps with order times and turnaround times. If there’s a release of a new Blu-ray, like a AAA title with a run of 100,000 and a sleeve that goes into the case, that would be printed conventionally because of the order size. But it may have a variable-data insert with the digital copy code, which would be printed on a digital machine. Also, sometimes the first order of a product is a large order, which would be done conventionally, but then top-ups are required, which may be done digitally. Colour management is the key: we run to the same colour targets, so the colour match between the two processes is exceptional.
David Walling, operations manager, Sony DADC
Being in Darwin, we’re in a bit of a unique position. A lot of printers down south specialise, but more often than not we have to be all things to all people. Say you’re doing magazine work for a real estate company – you do the big runs on offset, but turn to digital within the same production workflow if they want a couple of copies of a particular house. Estimating can be tricky when a job is on that fine line between offset and digital, but then it comes down to your capacity. We plan to retain that balance between offset and digital and improve the systems that integrate the two.
Tony Coleman, managing director, Coleman's Printing
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