With finishing an increasing focus and a growing part of the investment budget Dave Howell reports on developments at the back-end.
Over the last few years the large-format sector has transformed from a specialist poster and display industry into a wide reaching service that now requires more advanced and innovative finishing technology – a trend both hardware and software developers have latched onto, leading to a plethora of new, improved and tweaked offerings aimed at making the back-end of the production process more efficient and fruitful.
The latest Widthwise market survey (www.imagereportsmag .co.uk/widthwise/2011) speaks volumes about how investment in finishing equipment has become a major focus for large-format print service providers. Companies may have been affected by the global downturn, but nearly 40% of respondents to the survey stated that print finishing was an area where they intended to actively recruit. And investment in new technology was also highlighted with 23% stating they intended to invest in contour cutters and 14% in laminating hardware.
Indeed, with companies in the large-format sector looking closely at how markets are evolving and seeking to build business in the most lucrative, having the right finishing capability is seen as key, both in terms of differentiation and efficiency.
Bruce Cozens, product manager at Vivid, points to the requirement for increased automation on finishing kit. “What we are seeing in the marketplace moving forward is that our customers are looking for more automation. At the moment our machines offer semi-automatic feed. At Drupa next year we will be launching an automatic feeder for our single side machines. This will be a retrofit for anyone that has our machines and should improve their efficiency.”
A piecemeal approach to machine acquisition is also giving way to a more integrated view with finishing now a firm part of the buying equation. This was recently highlighted with the commercial alliance formed between Pyramid Display Materials and Atech that will sell the full range of FTC vertical saws and cutters, Seal laminators and Roland cutters.
Commenting on the partnership Neil McCarthy, head of sales and marketing at Pyramid, said: “The alliance with Atech is in direct response to our customers asking for advice on wide-format equipment and ancillary finishing machinery. We wanted to source a whole number of products including wide-format printers, laminators, eyelet machines and sewing and welding solutions. When we saw the solutions on offer from Atech and realised its philosophy and approach to business was similar to ours, we started a discussion.”
Innovation within finishing continues apace. Take the RollsRoller Flatbed Applicator from William Smith. Introduced five years ago, the machine has become a standard within the graphics and sign industries. Now this solution is available in 18 different machine configurations and in three distinct performance categories (Standard Duty, Premium Grade and Traffic that, as the grading implies, is specific to the production of road traffic signs).
A host of optional design features, that include a height adjustment facility, extension tables, additional roller beam and self-sealing cutting mat, further enable the machine’s production capabilities to be fully realised. The availability of fluorescent tube backlighting on selective models also enhances the accuracy of the media registration process and makes the RollsRoller particularly ideal for use with multi-coloured or translucent graphics.
Edward Butterfield of Butterfield Signs, explains how the Rolls Roller has impacted upon his business: “Since we installed the RollsRoller, production has increased dramatically. A job that would hitherto have taken ten hours now takes just two hours to complete.”
Simon Ward of Greens the Signmaker, adds: “We have been able to cut the time normally required to apply vinyl to a substrate by two thirds. Jobs that previously required two people now require only one.”
And Lee Eaton of Signs Express (Manchester) comments: “The RollsRoller has enabled us to achieve the increased productivity and improved quality that we required. It has tripled our output and, by reducing manual handling procedures, has made our work more effective overall.” So, finding the right finishing tool really can pay.
For some, that right machine is the Zund G3. The company says it has seen its market rapidly expand, largely thanks to this offering. John Price, director at Zund reseller CMYKUK Digital says: “Speaking to our customers, they say that when they install a Zund G3 the finishing bottleneck that they have been trying to manage disappears. What we have found is that the G3 may pack in a lot of new technology, but the machine is still very easy to use. What we advise is that if a business has more than two full time finishers, the G3 will more than pay for itself when compared to the cost of staffing.
But he also adds: “A Zund isn’t suitable for everything. Say you bought a Vutek GS3250r that can print banners as 220m an hour, you wouldn’t match that with a Zund finishing unit, you want a Fotoba as you know that the cutting will be uniform. Our customers are increasingly asking us to match their print output to the appropriate finisher. It’s all about looking at the volume that you have and asking yourself how you can maintain your throughput.”
Market evolution
In the large-format sector, where much of the ‘traditional’ work has become commoditised, the ability for print providers to buy not just printers and substrates but also finishing kit that allows them to enter new, more profitable niches is proving strategically significant.
Laminating is one are where we’re seeing a real interest - with a number of machines now jockeying for position in the marketplace. But, as Stuart Cole, general manager of GPT points out, the future part played by the lamination process in wide-format graphics doesn’t all rest on machine development.
“The future of the laminating machine market will be more about the laminating materials than the machines themselves. With the laminating materials, there is certainly a move towards pressure sensitive, as these materials have improved. I do see a shift in the industry with the UV cure market, and I can see a benefit for liquid laminators in some markets, but I don’t see these machines around the corner.”
But there are plenty of newcomers to the marketplace. Those of you who attended Fespa Digital this spring would have had the chance to see the new VersaCoater XL from Drytac for instance – a machine that can process at 33m/min (108ft/min) and also has excellent eco credentials with its built-in split power feature.
Another area worth bearing in mind is VDP and its impact on finishing requirements. Increasingly personalization is being used in the large-format sector and finishing equipment will be used to offer increasing levels of customization, the focus initially being on jobs for the retail sector.
“VDP and versioning are growing market trends but, until recently, it has been challenging and costly to manage for large-format printing,” says Jim Blee, chief operating officer, Graphic Tech. “With HP SmartStream Designer, we have the added value of offering our customers, at very little additional cost or time, regionalized marketing materials – and not just geographical versioning, but also localization for highly specific elements, such as weather patterns. As a result, we have taken on bigger jobs than we could have previously.” This technology can now easily be integrated with advanced finishing services.
Future finishing
The next year will most likely see more end clients moving large-format printing/finishing in-house as they see cost saving potential by investing in their own print and finishing facilities. But outsourcing of course will continue take place, with advanced print finishing becoming a service differentiator within the market. This was the experience of DigitalXL which invested in a DYSS X7 because it believed the machine allowed it to provide services to clients that few other print and finishing services in the local region could. “Designers were increasing asking us to cut sophisticated shapes. Our investment in the X7 was a direct result of our market demanding these services from us,” said Keith McHugh, owner, DigitalXL Services.
Another point to consider when it comes to likely developments in the finishing sector is how general market trends will impact. As Duncan Jefferies, marketing manager at Hybrid Services, sole UK distributor for Mimaki, points out: “Outdoor durable print capability continues to be the mainstay of our core market, but we're seeing that augmented by dye sublimation output (which is outdoor durable in itself - just on different substrates) and LED UV technologies. We’re expecting the flag, fabric POS and event branding sector to continue to expand, allowing us to, at long last, catch up the continental European market.” Finishing will clearly have to be a major factor as these markets expand with print service providers needing to offer a full array of finishing options to match their output.
And what of large-format integrated print/cut machines? Scott King, sales director, Service Graphics, gives his view: “I personally think that within the specialist field it will always require specialist finishing equipment. I can’t see a hybrid printer/cutter or printer/laminator coming in that can meet all of the finishing challenges that large format presents and certainly not at the quality levels that you would expect to get from a dedicated finishing machine.”
GPT’s Cole, who sells a range of dedicated print and finishing machines as well as multi-functional units, says: “I am very much of the view that you should not over complicate a machine with additional features so your workflow is protected. Yes there are hybrid printer/cutters but I would always suggest to a customer that separate machines would help their workflow and reliability. Hybrid machines in my view tend to have some form of compromise somewhere along the line.”
CMYKUK Digital’s Price agrees: “I am firmly in the camp that believes the future will not be more hybrid machines, but more specialist platforms. Even with hybrid UV machine, our hybrid customers are still buying dedicated roll-to-roll UV machines.”
Print finishing in the large-format sector is now a more integrated part of the workflow, and as such is pushing its way up the investment ladder. Print companies are leveraging the power of flexible finishers to allow them to offer diversified services to their clients who, in turn, continue to demand innovative large-format print - increasingly this will mean innovative finishing as well.